Hardware to software Rendering change. What's the difference?

[KoV Liberty]

Question is all in the title.

[j-dub]

Software vs. Hardware Rendering

Software rendering is done completely by the CPU(s) running OpenDX, rather than the local video hardware. The advantage is cross-platform consistency and virtually unlimited control over colors, lighting, shading, clipping, and other sorts of data/image manipulation. The disadvantage is relatively slow speed compared to rendering done with hardware acceleration. Hardware rendering (GL or OpenGL) is system-dependent, in some cases is not possible at all, and in any case has different lighting and shading behavior than software rendering. Also note that hardware rendering in OpenDX presently does not support different colors for front and back faces of surfaces

In the context of rendering (computer graphics), software rendering refers to a rendering process that is unaided by any specialized hardware, such as a graphics card. The rendering takes place entirely in the CPU.

[KoV Liberty]

Thanks. I think I will keep it on hardware.

[Bobbi]

Software rendering can't render the textures which is over 512pxs x 512pxs, or they"ll show you the color textures with red and blue.

[nerdly_dood]

Software rendering can't render the textures which is over 512pxs x 512pxs, or they"ll show you the color textures with red and blue.

Also, software rendering does not allow automata (vehicles, boats, aircraft) to use textures larger than 256x256. But they're 128x128 by default, so it's a simple matter to just use the larger image.

[Andreas]

In Software Mode, the shadows are often not displayed correctly, but on the other hand, it can reduce the number of crashes significantly. I tried two different graphic cards (completely different manufacturer) on my old computer and wasn't able to play without occasionally freezes, but it went perfectly in Software Mode. My new machine seems to run fine in Hardware Mode, and I hope it'll stay like this, because it looks a bit nicer. Performance-wise, I don't think there's a big difference these days, though, since modern CPUs are definitely fast enough for rendering the game without the help of the GPU.