FOSS gamedev and creative worlds

There are many settings that I do not know why they are there for. Can someone please explain them?

First of all I would like to know what middle column is there for(mip-mapping, Anisotropic Filtering, Bi and Tri-Linear Filtering) Bi and Tri linear filtering makes the game look ugly and mip mapping and anosotropic filtering I cant tell a difference of when they are on or off.

Second, Preload visual items. It makes my game load faster when it is off but what does it do?

Third, Finite Liquid. Is this supposed to make the water look more realistic?

Fourth, Bumpmapping and Parallax Occlusion. I have no idea why these are here.

Thank all of you for any answers in advance! I appreciate it! :)

For Anisotropic, Bi- & Trilinear filtering and mip-mapping just search in wikipedia.

Preload item visuals disables the generation of inventory images at startup. It does it on-demand, which means you'll notice a longer delay when opening an inventory with not-yet generated images.

Finite liquid is poorly implemented and you shouldn't use it.

Bumpmapping only works if the texture pack you use has bumpmaps; the default texture pack doesnt have bumpmaps, and it only makes sense for 256px+. Parallax occulusion mapping does something with bumpmaps too.

For the graphical settings in the middle, you should enable them one by one, and see if you like them. I personally just use Mip-mapping.

For shaders, if you have a newer build, you'll see an option called 'Generate Bumpmaps' This will allow you to use bumpmaps on texture packs that don't have bumpmap support. Parallax occlusion mapping increases or decreases the amount of bumping to a texture depending on how you look at it.

For finite, it plays good only if you do not have a waterfall. Long story short, it's kinda screwy atm, and don't use it.

Bilinear filtering: filters textures so that they are not pixelated, but instead blurred.

Trilinear filtering: avoids pixelation of far away textures.

Anisotropic filtering: avoids blurring of textures seen from some angles. Several levels are available, from 2× to 16×. Minetest doesn't seem to let you change the level used — I also don't know which level is used.

Bump-mappping or normal mapping: adds a "relief" effect based on lighting. Not very useful on Minetest since the light comes from one direction only.

Parallax occlusion mapping: adds a "relief" effect based on some more complex stuff than just lighting. More advanced ways of this exist, such as relief mapping or even tesselation, but these are not used in Minetest and can sometimes be even slower.


Texture filtering in general will not look ugly with high-resolution textures. I suggest not preloading item visuals.

Calinou wrote:Anisotropic filtering: avoids blurring of textures seen from some angles. Several levels are available, from 2× to 16×. Minetest doesn't seem to let you change the level used — I also don't know which level is used.

Irrlicht does not specify which level of AF is used.

PilzAdam wrote:Finite liquid is poorly implemented and you shouldn't use it.

So why is it even available?

JackGruff wrote:

PilzAdam wrote:Finite liquid is poorly implemented and you shouldn't use it.

So why is it even available?

proller added it without asking and nobody cared to remove it since it turned out to be so bad.

press one key to remove finite: https://github.com/minetest/minetest/pull/1235