

I'm a technology enthusiast translating these systems into simple analogies, not an engineer writing a technical paper, so I'm leaving out major details of actual implementation. Keep in mind that graphics rendering is much more complex than presented here. I also received input from Nvidia regarding my explanation of texture filtering.

For the sections on anti-aliasing, anisotropic filtering, and post-processing that follow, I consulted with Nicholas Vining, Gaslamp Games' technical director and lead programmer, as well as Cryptic Sea designer/programmer Alex Austin. We start with the fundamental concepts on this page. Understanding how it all works can help with troubleshooting, setting up the most gorgeous screenshots possible, or playing with tools like Durante's GeDoSaTo. If you're new to graphics tuning, this guide will explain the major settings you need to know about, and without getting too technical, what they're doing. We're calling it The Complete Guide to PC Gaming, and it's all being made possible by Razer, which stepped up to support this months-long project. PC Gamer is going back to the basics with a series of guides, how-tos, and deep dives into PC gaming's core concepts.
