How to enable visual effects?

If Soft Particles, Dynamic shadows or other effects are missing from Settings, there can be several reasons for that:

- Automatic graphics quality is enabled. It means that settings are adjusted automatically according to the performance of your PC. Uncheck the box next to it to choose settings yourself.
- Hardware acceleration is disabled. Instructions on how to enable it.
- Hardware acceleration is not working. Update your flash player.
- Hardware acceleration is working in constrained mode (Constrained Profile or CP). CP is used for older GPUs. Settings are not available in this mode.

This can easily be checked using a special tool on Adobe website. Let’s look into it in detail:
(Compare the text from the tool with the points below)

Your gpu supports Stage3D in Constrained profile but not Baseline profile.
Baseline RenderMode:
Software Hw_disabled=unavaiable
Constrained RenderMode:
DirectX9Ex (Baseline Constrained)

Everything is supported, nothing is missing from Settings, but the FPS is low.

Your gpu supports Stage3D in Baseline profile, but it appears you are using an older player which does not support Constrained profile. Consider updating your player to version 11.4 or higher to gain access to Stage3D content that uses Constrained profile.
Render Mode: DirectX9 (Direct blitting)

You use an old version of Flash player. Update it and try again.

Your gpu does not support Stage3D in Baseline profile, but it may support Constrained profile. Please update your player to version 11.4 or higher to see if Constrained profile is supported.
Render Mode: Software (Direct blitting)

Hardware acceleration does not work and your graphics card does not support those options. But you can try to turn on Hardware acceleration in limited mode by updating Flash Player.

Your gpu supports Stage3D in both Baseline and Constrained profile!
Baseline RenderMode:
OpenGL
Constrained RenderMode:
OpenGL (Baseline Constrained)

You use Google Chrome and the integrated PPAPI-flash plugin is turned on. Disable it (recommended) and try again.

Your gpu does not support Stage3D in Baseline or Constrained profile.
Baseline RenderMode:
Software Hw_disabled=oldDriver
Constrained RenderMode:
Software Hw_disabled=oldDriver (Baseline Constrained)

You have to update your graphics card’s drivers. Update them (ATI, nVidia) and try again.

Your gpu does not support Stage3D in Baseline or Constrained profile.
Baseline RenderMode:
Software Hw_disabled=userDisabled
Constrained RenderMode:
Software Hw_disabled=userDisabled (Baseline Constrained)

Hardware acceleration turned off – enable it and try again.

Additional (for DirectX9E)

Your gpu supports Stage3D in Constrained profile but not Baseline profile.
Baseline RenderMode:
Software Hw_disabled=unavailable
Constrained RenderMode:
DirectX9Ex (Baseline Constrained)

Old and not unproductive integrated video adapter. FPS is always low, or constantly drops. Probably it is better to disable Flash hardware acceleration.

Your gpu supports Stage3D in both Baseline and Constrained profile!
Baseline RenderMode:
DirectX9Ex
Constrained RenderMode:
DirectX9Ex (Baseline Constrained)

Everything is supported, nothing is missing from Settings, but the FPS is low.
The game uses integrated graphics processor (for example, HD 4000), instead of dedicated graphics card.
Solution: Set your video driver so the Flash Player, or its container (plugin-container.exe in Firefox, chrome.exe in Chrome) uses a dedicated graphics card instead of an integrated one.