Hackosis

If you just can’t get enough out of your graphics card playing any of the newest Valve Source games there is a hidden ‘Ultra High’ setting that you can activate through the console.

The console is normally where you would enter other commands and cheats. You have to active this under the advanced keyboard settings in the options menu.

How to Activate the ‘Ultra High’ setting in Valve Source Games (Portal, HL2, TF2, etc):

1. Active the console under the advanced keyboard settings in the options menu.
2. Hit ‘~’ (tilde) to activate the console and enter ‘mat_picmip -3′ to activate the ‘Ultra High’ setting. Feel to free to go lower if you think your hardware can handle it.

NOTE: If this slows your PC to a crawl then you obviously do not have the hardware to run the ‘Ultra High’ settings.

Comparison between Very high and Ultra high:

A couple more comparisons to look at.

The setting ranges from 4 to (-10) with the higher number being more compressed.

How low can you go?

[via steam forums]