What each setting does

Whether the program runs in a window or fills the screen. It changes nothing about how the game is drawn.

How many pixels the game is drawn at. Original is the console's own 320 by 240, which is what the art was drawn for. Every step above it renders the same scene at more detail. This is the setting that costs the most performance, so the right answer depends on your graphics card.

Renders the picture larger than it is shown and shrinks it down, which removes jagged edges more thoroughly than antialiasing does. 4x means drawing sixteen times the pixels, so it is expensive.

The shape of the picture. Original 4:3 is the console's. The wider settings genuinely widen the view rather than stretching it, so you see more of the world at the sides.

Where the hearts, the map and the buttons sit when the picture is wider than 4:3. Original keeps them in the console's own square; the others spread them toward the edges of a wide screen.

Smooths the jagged steps along the edges of shapes. The console had nothing of the kind. Higher settings cost more.

How far into the distance the game keeps drawing things. The console dropped anything past a short distance to keep up, which is why scenery appears as you approach it. Raising this keeps it drawn, at a cost.

How many times a second the picture is presented. The game's own logic always runs at 20 steps a second, exactly as it did on the console; anything above Original fills the gaps between those steps with interpolated frames, so movement is smooth without the game running faster.

Shows the number of frames being presented each second, on a small plate in the corner.

Whether the program asks the release page once, each time it opens, whether a newer version exists. It is the only network connection the program ever makes, and nothing about you or your copy of the game is sent.

Saves a moment by itself on a timer, into its own slots, never over one you made. The five most recent are kept.

Saves a moment when you close the program, so you can pick up where you stopped.

Loads the most recent saved moment when the program opens.

Lets the right stick turn the camera freely, wherever the game's own camera is able to turn. Off leaves the camera exactly as the game moves it.

Which way the free camera moves when you push the stick. Only has an effect when the free camera is on.

Which way aiming moves when you push the right stick, when using a bow, a slingshot or first person view.

The same for the left stick, which is the one the game itself uses for aiming.

How far the camera sits from Link, for every camera the game uses, not only the free one.

Near is the game's own distance, not the option labelled Original. Original here sits a fifth further out than the console's camera, and Medium and Far further still.

Whether the camera drifts further away as Link runs and back in as he stops.

On is the console's behaviour. The game's own camera eases outward as he runs and back in as he stops.

Whether this program's own menus sit over the picture or beside it in a panel, with the game still visible.

How loud the game is, as a percentage of its own volume.

The master switch for traced lighting. With it on, light is followed through the scene rather than painted on by the game, so shadows, bounced light and reflections are worked out from where the lights actually are. It needs a graphics card that supports DirectX Raytracing; on one that does not, these rows do nothing and the lighting screen says so.

Off is the original picture. With it off the game lights itself exactly as the console did, and draws its own shadows under the characters.

Whether traced shadows are cast at all. With this off the traced lighting still lights the scene but nothing blocks it.

How sharp the edge of a shadow is. The sun casts a nearly hard edge in life; the higher settings spread it as though the light came from a wider source.

How many rays each lit pixel spends working out whether it is in shadow. More rays cost frame rate and buy a cleaner shadow edge; fewer leave visible grain, especially on anything that moves.

How much of the world behind and beside the camera is kept in the traced scene so its shadow can still reach the picture. The console's own culling threw away anything off screen, which is why a shadow can vanish as the camera turns.

How dark a character's shadow goes indoors, where there is no sun to cast it. Rooms whose own settings carry no directional light get one supplied overhead so there is something to cast with.

How much of the game's own background lighting is taken away where no traced light reaches. Raising it means a room is genuinely dark except where a torch or a fairy lights it, which is what makes those lights read as real lights.

Darkens the creases where surfaces meet, the way dust and shadow gather in a corner. It is subtle and it is what stops objects looking as though they are floating.

How far from a surface the program looks for something that would shade it. Small values catch only tight corners; large ones darken under whole objects.

How many rays the shading in corners is worked out from. More is cleaner and costs more.

Whether the game's own lights, such as torches and fairies, are traced. With this on they light the room around them and cast real shadows from whatever stands in the way.

How far a torch or a fairy's light carries, as a percentage of the radius the game itself gives it. 100% is the game's own.

How bright those lights are, as a percentage of the game's own.

Light that has already hit one surface and carried its colour onto another. It is what makes a red wall tint the floor beside it.

How far bounced light is followed before the program stops looking.

Traced reflections in surfaces that should have them, such as water and polished floors.

How far into the scene reflections are worked out.

The haze in the air immediately around a light, as though dust were catching it.

How large that halo is, relative to the light's own radius.

Shafts of sunlight in the air outdoors.

How far those shafts are drawn into the distance.

Whether traced lighting fades into the game's own fog, so a lit surface far away does not stand out of the haze in front of it.

Fades traced lighting out with distance, which saves performance on things too far away to be looked at closely.

How much each frame's lighting is averaged with the frames before it. Tracing a scene with a limited number of rays leaves grain; averaging across frames removes it, at the cost of a faint trail behind fast movement.

A final blur across the traced lighting, which removes what is left of the grain.