This is by far the most important part of the guide. If you don't know what your graphics settings do then you can't do anything with them. This section will explain what the settings do and how to use them.

Let's start with the simplest, draw distance.
Draw distance actually means render distance. It is responsible for how far you can see. So what is this useful for? Many things. Let's say you were doing a YouTube series and you wanted your audience to get the full view of everything, this setting would be for you. Or maybe you want to explore as much as possible in TerraTehc, this setting would be for you too.
On the oposite side you can use this setting if your computer is slow and or old. This setting Ihave found to be one of the most detrimental to how much you lag, so be sure to use it wisely.

Coming up next is Anti Aliasing. I could type a paragraph on what this does and why it is very important in terms of grahpics but this video explains it better:










This does not cause too much lag wether you leave it on or off.

Thirdly is Dynamic Range or High Dynamic Range, whatever you prefer to call it. This is responsible for giving your lighting depth and feel. It is basically responsible for shading (not to be confused with shadows, though it kind of helps with that) for comparison, see this picture:
Enabiling this will make TerraTech look better and not damage preformance too much, maybe my favorite setting of them all.

Ok, now for ambient occlusion...
Ambient occlusion can be explained by this video here:










Ambient occlusion is definitely my least favorite setting. It is responsible for shadows and shading mostly but it doesn't have as much of an impact as HDR and it also noticable decreases preformance, I would not reccomend this if you are worried about preformance but if you aren't worried about preformance then go right ahead.

Almost done, here's gamma.
Gamma is hard to explain so I reccomend you experiment with it yourself, but, I can still explain to you what it does. Let me first quote an Arquade answer to this question, "it's there to let you adjust the picture, with the intent that it looks pleasing to your eye." and the way it does this is by brightening up the image (game in this case) with you could say, a foggy white overlay.
But don't get me wrong, gamma isn't complicated... just hard to explain. And it is maybe the most pleasing of the graphics options so I highly reccomend you use it. Also, it doesn't case much lag.

Finally, there's depth of field. This is force enabled, so you don't need to worry about this. I'll still explain it though... with its definition, "depth of field, the distance between the nearest and the furthest objects that give an image judged to be in focus in a camera." did that help?
This could actually be quite important to proventing lag, but it is also a VERY important graphics setting, so if you find a way to disable/enable this then think about what you value more in terms of gameplay and make your decision.

Now for the other side of the settings, the ones you can see on the startup screen.
These you could say are multiplied by those other settings I mentioned earlier.

Ok, let's start with the resolution.
Resolution is how TerraTech is fitted to your screen. Most people use the 1600 x 900 resolution but your screen might be different. NOTE: If you see black bars anywhere on your screen (while playing TT) that means your resolution is off and you need to adjust it.

And last but not at all least... the general graphics quality (the startup one).
This is the above all graphics feature that determines the "main" quality of your game. Though this can be tricky because there are so many and some might actually WORSEN the quality (depending on who you are) so here's what I've found. Fantastic (from what I can tell) seems to add on extra gamma and also decrease preformance. Good doesn't decrease preformance too much or add on extra gamma but you probably won't find it as good as fantastic. Fast/Fastest is simply for people who want to maximize preformance, the graphics won't look good but it will cut down on lag a little bit.

So now you know how to use your graphics settings. But you might not want to mess with adjusting these yourself. But never fear! Presets are here! Before you continue, please rate my post, I would really appreciate it :D!

Ok, now were into the presets. This is for the people who just want to play TerraTech and don't care about fine tuning the graphics.

NOTE: Resolution does not matter here, it is simply how the game fits to your screen. Black bars indicate that you need to adjust your resolution. I mentioned this in the previous section but in case you skipped that I'm just going to tell you now.

NOTE 2: Lag rating applies to most computers. If your computer is old then lag will obviously be worse.

Startup Settings:
General Quality: Fastest
Graphics Settings (In-game):
Depth of field: unchangeable
HDR: Off
Ambient Occlusion: off
Anti Aliasing: off
Gamma: Little or none
Draw Distance: Little or none
Lag Rating: Seamless

Startup Settings:
General Quality: Good
Graphics Settings (In-game):
Depth of field: unchangeable
HDR: On
Ambient Occlusion: Off
Anti Aliasing: On
Gamma: Small but not none (about 1/10 full gamma)
Draw Distance: Half full
Lag Rating: Pretty Much Seamless

Startup Settings:
General Quality: Fantastic
Graphics Settings (In-game):
Depth of field: unchangeable
HDR: On
Ambient Occlusion: On
Anti Aliasing: On
Gamma: 1/10 full. But honestly it's for you to decide. Gamma at this level of graphics is more complicated than it is at the other levels.
Draw Distance: Full
Lag Rating: Horrible on normal computers but let's be honest, if you plan on using this setting, you don't have a normal computer.

Leave a rating before you go :D, this is basically the last section!

So that's basically my graphics tutorial. Leave a rating and tell me what you think, this took me awhile to make. Also, if you have any questions then leave them in the comments.

Leave a rating and maybe even a favorite before you go, I'd really appreciate it!

P.S. I will try to update this as much as I can.