The Rendering tab of the Options dialog lets you adjust the parameters affecting the Filter Forge renderer. The Options dialog is accessible by choosing Tools > Options from the Main Window menu.
Allows you to select the location for temporary files which Filter Forge may create during the rendering. The default location is the system %Temp% folder; however, if you are low on disk space on the disk where the %Temp% folder is located, you can select another location.By default, it is the system temporary files location. If you are low on disk space on the disk where it is located, you can select another location. It's recommended to have at least 1 GB of free space on the selected disk.
Sets the maximum percentage of memory available to Filter Forge. The default value is 60%, the minimum is 10%, and the maximum is 90% – Filter Forge never uses up all available memory.
Switches the renderer between using a single CPU/core or all available CPUs/cores. This option applies only to computers with two or more CPUs or cores, it has no effect on single-CPU/single-core systems. On a multi-core system, you might want to use a single CPU/core to save processing power for other tasks, or to measure the performance boost provided by a multi-core system over a single-core system. The Basic Edition of Filter Forge is limited to a single dual-core CPU, while the Professional and Studio editions support any number of cores and processors. See Filter Forge Editions for more information.
When turned on, the renderer applies dithering to the output image. Dithering is a method of simulating shades that are absent in the color palette by mixing pixels of the nearest colors available in the palette. Dithering helps reduce unwanted artifacts known as color banding that occur in color gradients during the conversion from the internal Filter Forge color depth (double-precision floating point) to the target color depth (usually 8 or 16 bit per channel). Filter Forge uses noise-based dithering (as opposed to pattern-based dithering).
