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I'm trying to understand the Portal 1 Video Settings a bit better.

"Model detail" and "Texture detail" in Portal 1

What's the difference between "Model detail" and "Texture detail" in Portal 1?

What counts as models and what counts as textures?

Could anyone shed some light on these two video settings please?

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3 Answers 3

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Model detail is the detail of the polygons used to form the 3D model

plain grey 20 sided model

Texture detail is the detail of the texture used to paint the model

Grid of textures: wood, grass, stone, shingles, tile, etc.

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The answer from Nathan Goings is correct and wonderfully succinct, please do give an upvote there.

However, there’s a bit more to actually understanding all of this and it’s too much to fit in a comment, hence why this answer exists.

Texture detail is easy to explain. It’s just a matter of the resolution of the textures that are being used for rendering. Higher values increase the two-dimensional detail of every surface in the game, at the cost of needing more video RAM and more processing power to render. Almost everything you can see in any modern game has a texture. Some games may opt to render with simple color fills (or gradients) on surfaces instead of textures, either for performance/space reason (common on early 3-D games such as you would see on the Nintendo 64 or the PlayStation 2), or for stylistic reasons (seen occasionally in more modern games, usually to replicate the visual style of early 3-D games). I am not aware of any such rendering in Portal 1, AFAIK everything there renders with a texture.

Model detail is a bit trickier to explain. Almost every properly 3-dimensional object you see in a video game has an associated 3-D model constructed from simple polygonal faces (usually triangles, though others are possible). These models just define the surfaces the textures are rendered on, not what shows up there. A higher level of model detail means that smaller polygonal faces are used to construct the model, which makes surfaces look smoother and reduces three-dimensional aliasing of small details (IOW, it lets you accurately recreate smaller details), again at the cost of using more video RAM and more processing power for rendering.

As a general rule, texture detail has a bigger impact on video RAM usage than model detail, but model detail has a bigger effect on processing requirements than texture detail.

It’s unusual these days to find games that let you control the two parameters independently, as the main use case (providing good support for systems with very limited video RAM but a very fast GPU, or with very large amounts of video RAM but a very slow GPU) is significantly less relevant than it used to be. The norm now is to tie both settings to the overall ‘quality’ setting that most games expose, or not let them be adjusted at all.

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    I wouldn't say "unusual" by far! Maybe it depends on the genres of games one is more invested in, but in my experience most 3D games still allow separate control of texture and model detail (sometimes using different terminology, of course, that might or might not entirely be the same thing—model and texture quality tend to be more common nowadays, I believe).
    – Joachim
    Commented Aug 7 at 14:41
  • @Joachim I must just be missing the ones that do then. Almost all ‘new’ games I’ve seen recently don’t have separate controls for them, though they may have separate controls for different types of objects.
    – Austin Hemmelgarn
    Commented Aug 7 at 17:26
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    A lot might have more focused parameters like 'object details', 'terrain details', 'NPC details' and other, more focused model detail settings. 'Viewing distance' is related to this as well.
    – Joachim
    Commented Aug 7 at 17:50
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    @Joachim But those controls will also generally effect texture detail, for that specific class of model. We've shifted from a world where the controls are based on what sort of rendering activity you are adjusting, to what sort of game object is being fed to that rendering pipeline.
    – user1937198
    Commented Aug 9 at 12:19
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This is a portal gun comparison for Portal 2, but I think it could work since it's the same game engine.

As you can see, when models are more detailed edges on the gun are smoother, also the floor tiles are clearer. The "Aperture" sticker is a texture, and has a better definition.

Above lowest quality, below high quality:

comparison

As @Nathan correctly wrote, model detail specify the detail of the polygons, and you can see it better on curved surfaces. More detail means more polygons, because every model is built by triangles.

Textures are the graphics covering the models, they add colors, materials and small details.

EDIT:

As requested, I made a comparison on Portal with different settings:

  • above is high model details and low texture details
  • below is low model details and high texture details

portal settings comparison

As you can see, lower model details make curved surfaces very polygonal and not smooth.
While better texture details make surfaces more clean and realistic, on the other hand on low details there are some undefined stains on things. Blue particles are better, too. And, as previously written, the Aperture sticker is perfectly readable with high details.

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    @TimmyJim it's definitely a model, in other rooms you can see that not all tiles are at the same level, showing irregular shadows between them
    – pinckerman
    Commented Aug 6 at 20:18
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    The images would be much more helpful if it was only changing one setting at a time, showing both on low then both on high doesn't really highlight the difference.
    – DBS
    Commented Aug 6 at 21:04
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    @TimmyJim: Everything you can see in any reasonable, modern 3D game (i.e. not Doom or other early 3D games of similar vintage) has both a model and a texture. Some models or textures are very simple, but they're always present, because there would otherwise be nothing to render (and then you wouldn't be able to see it).
    – Kevin
    Commented Aug 7 at 1:57
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    @Kevin probably includes the word "modern" because it was common for early 3D games (think: classic FFVII or other games on the first PlayStation) to include some models without textures to conserve space and memory. These low-poly meshes were colored simplistically using vertex shading, which appeared as color gradations. The gradient stops were at the corners of the polygons, so you could have a triangle with a slightly different color in each of its 3 corners and it would look a little more detailed than just a solid-color triangle.
    – Mentalist
    Commented Aug 7 at 6:36
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    Nitpick: I believe the Aperture logo is simply part of the gun's texture. Not only does it make more sense as drawing transparent decals is more expensive, but you can see the compression artifacts surrounding the logo on the gun material.
    – Joachim
    Commented Aug 7 at 8:03

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