Writing for Mip mapping quality

Can someone give advice on writing for different hardware quality platforms? I've purchased Swift's GUI library after running the demo and seeing stuff I liked. Since then I thought I'd drop my 3D graphics Mipmapping settings from Best Quality to Fastest (in Desktop Properties/Settings/Advanced/Direct3D/Mipmap detail) to simulate older, less capable hardware (I'm using a Ti4200). I've found as a result my texture-based lighting has nasty shadows and the SwiftGUI is blurred like stink; totally unusable.

Can I assume a basic 3D card will manage decent mipmapping as standard and what I get in 'fastest' mode is lower than standard. Or should I expect mipmapping to be of the lowest possible quality and hence the SwiftGUI is of no use, plus my lighting texture method might need work.

Cheers.

That's an interesting point... I think the normal setting on your gfx card would be the same as previous older cards. Just an assumption though...

I've tried Best, Fastest and Blend (middle). Certainly the 'Swift GUI' doesn't look to good at anything other than best, with text blurred and faded. I don't want to question Swifty directly over this yet until I hear more from other users, if possible.

Dropping mip-map level does not simulate older hardware, it just uses lower (smaller, blurrier) mip-maps. Nobody does that because it effects all 3D gfx, including GUIs done with meshes/quads like sswifts system. Using anything less than "best" setting is a "pilot error" and there's nothing Sswift can do about it. Just don't do it.

So even old cards have high-quality mip-mapping and it's not an issue? Okay.

If you want text sharp I would think you need to have different textures loaded for different screen resolutions in order to keep your texel to pixel ratio 1:1 avoiding mipmapping entirely.