Some "Good" random questions...... resoulution etc

Some are gameplay, and some are patching, to save the room i put all my questions in this one thread. I know some of these questions if answered will help others out.

1) What detail settings do i use to get the best quality preview shots from the line-ups screen? I have almost everything maxed out, but the players in the line-up screens are still fuzzy. I see other people's screenshots and they are clear.............. But mine are really fuzzy, but in the game the quality is better, not perfect but a lot better? I have a GeForce4 Ti 4400 video card........ If that matters?
Also what setting will give me the best in-game graphics?

2) What settings do most of you use? And should i be using Bilinear or Trilinear? And with my new monitor (below), what should i use?

3) This one here might sound stupid, but i know absolutely nothing about monitor resolution and what it does. I have always just played NBA Live on 800 x 600 since Live98. What is the difference between 640 x 480, 800 x 600 and higher resolutions? The two reasons i ask this, is when Live 2004 first came out, i seen a few people asking if the game could be run on some really! Higher resolutions? (I don't remember what it was), and the second is for X-Mas i received a Viewsonic 19" LCD monitor and want to take full advantage of it.
What i want to know is: What are the differences of resolutions? What do they do? What are the benefits? Will the game be better?

4) Frame rates- This is another issue i know nothing about. Could someone tell me a little about this?

4b) I have always had this problem with the last few NBA Live games and a couple of my newer games. I have not installed the new monitor, so this problem may be fixed when i do................. but every time i start up the game using my old monitor (19" Viewsonic A90f) once the intro movie starts the monitor will shut off and just before it does i get a message saying Fh - 78.4 kHz - Fv + 149.7hz (something like that?), but the games still running in the background, and then i will turn the monitor back on and everything is fine after that?

5) Is the Beye.fsh needed when making a face?

6) Is it possible to add shoes with custom art off?

Thank you for any help you can give,

David

4b)

i have been working on a LCD shop before and i can give a little bit of advice:
for 19" screen, it should be on 1280 x 1024 on windows, right?
so same for the game.
but if the game just slows down because of the inefficency(no offence) of the display card, keep it down to 1024 x 768

you know, the LCD monitor itself can detect many stuffs from the system, so try to put all the stuffs to fit the monitor... it has no much more to do with other config., but just the LCD is really ... well, TOO clever~!

enjoy~

5) Is the Beye.fsh needed when making a face?
not necessarily, but default eyes tend to be too dark, and most patchers do it to give their players a more realistic look (it's all in the eyes usually)

6) Is it possible to add shoes with custom art off?
yes, but it's not simple (needs dbf editing, shoeacc.dbf, and stuff like that... but for player.vivs it's not possible. only player_acc.fsh (without the home or away alternations), beye.fsh (which i only found out recently), faces, and new headshapes (obviously).

1) go into practice mode with your patched player, then the pause screen, and there is a good resolution shot of your player.

1) Turn the resolution up to at least 1024x768 (preferably 1280x1024), enable at least 2XAA and 8XAF in your graphics card control panel. That, along with max details, should give you decent image quality right there.

2) Anisotropic filtering is often the preferred choice. There is almost no (if any) diff in this game, so pick whichever you like.

3) Different resolutions generally increase how sharp and now crisp things look. That is a total oversimplification but in the end that's what you see. Basically, the higher the value (ie. 1600x1200) the more pixels are displayed by your graphics card and transferred to your monitor. Of course the more pixels that are displayed, the better everything looks. Easy way to understand: take a piece of paper and draw a straight line. Now draw a bunch of little dots in a straight line with very little distance btwn each dot. Now draw a bunch of dots in a straight line but increase the distance btwn each dot to about 5cm. Which set of dots gives you a better representation of the straight line you're trying to achieve? Obviously the one that has more dots and less space btwn each dot. That's generally what happens when you increase the resolution, more dots (pixels)/area.
The difference btwn 640x480 and 1280x1024 in NBA Live 2004 (or any game for that matter) is night and day. The game looks very blurry, blocky and overall just plain shitty on 640x480 or even 800x600.
The trade-off for increasing the resolution should be obvious now. The more pixels displayed, the more taxing it is on your system and the 'choppier' the gameplay, which brings us to your next question:

4) Framerates basically imply how many times per second your screen is being updated with new information from the game. The higher that value is (ie. 60fps) the more 'smooth' your game feels and the less 'choppy' it is. This has nothing to do with how FAST the game is moving because that is kept constant. Since the game moves at a constant speed, if your computer can't keep up and can't display enough frames per second (fps) the less animation you'll see. In Live 2004, imagine going up for a jump shot and your goal is to release the shot at the apex of your jump. If you only get to see 3 frames of animation (on the ground, feet just off the ground, feet landing on the ground) and you don't get to see the frame for the apex of your jump, how the hell are you going to time your jump shot? Answer is you don't and you'll have to guess, therefore making the game difficult to play. This is commonly referred to as 'choppiness' (because it seems like your character does one thing and the next second he's already doing something else without you seeing it) or 'laginess'. However, if your computer is fast enough and can display all the frames, then voila, a jumpshot is no prob and the animation seems 'smooth' since you get to see every frame from when he's on the ground with the ball, rising in the air, shooting the ball, coming down and landing on his feet.
Ideally you want at the very least 30fps for every game, while 60+ fps is optimal. Contrary to common belief the human eyes can see past 30fps and 60fps. Beyond 60fps though, most people can't tell much difference and animation is considered fluid and smooth.

Hope this wasn't too confusing

Thank you; Joey, Tony, Colin and Bishibashiboy
I really apprecite you taking time out to answer my question's.

Coming soon: Will be my first few Live 2004 patches and i will also look into converting some of my better live 2000 college patches........ if possible?