OpenGL graphics settings and recommendation

Stereo mode

To operate "tucan" in stereo mode the graphics card needs to be Quad-Buffered-Stereo capable. Graphics cards of the Quadro series manufactured by nvidia for example have this feature. When using the stereo mode please ensure that the setting "four-fold buffered stereo API activated "Enable quadbuffered stereo API" is enabled (this option may be named differently when using a different graphics adapter). The option has to be set in the "Display Settings" part of the Windows Control Panel dialog. When using a nvidia Quadro4 750 XGL graphics card for example this option can be found under "Quadro4 750XGL/Performance and Quality Settings/OpenGL Settings/Performance and Compatibility Options".
If "tucan" is supposed to run without stereo display in mono mode please ensure that the option "Enable quadbuffered stereo API" is disabled due to high performance loss in "tucan".

Especially in stereo mode, ensure that the display refresh frequency is set to the maximum possible value (i.e. >100Hz), to prevent the user from unpleasant screen flickering effects.

Anti-Aliasing

For picture quality enhancement some graphics cards such as the nvidia Quadro 4 have a so called Full-Scene-Anti-Aliasing option. The Anti-Aliasing feature is set within the "Display Properties" dialog if supported by the graphics card. When using nvidia graphics cards one has furthermore got to disable the "Use unified back/depth buffer" option. Said option can be found in the "Quadro4 750XGL/Performance and Quality Settings/OpenGL Settings/Performance and Compatibility Options" dialog of the display section of the windows control panel.

Occlusion Culling

The hardware supported occlusion culling feature of "tucan" is used for the fast computation of invisible scene parts. Avoiding to draw these hidden parts, benefits in higher framerates. For this purpose the OpenGL extension NV_OCCLUSION_QUERY is utilised. Occlusion culling can only be enabled within "tucan" if this extension is supported by the used graphics card. All current graphics cards produced by nvidia support this extension.