Quote: " how can I tweak the graphic quality with variables so that even the end user could select higher or lower quality?"
This is relatively easy to do, first you need to identify from the functions in his set up code for each aspect that relates to tweakable settings
suitable for end user modification. Once thats done its a simple case of creating a menu
prior to advanced lighting code; with editable variables that you then pass to the setup functions afterwards. Alternatively you could just create a .ini file the end user can change that you then read the variables from prior to advanced lighting code and once again are fed to the functions they need to be used in. Simple example of identifying tweakables - look at the very obvious function PostProcessing_SetUp - the entries are all flag values which in your settings menu
could be listed with a checkbox to enable or disable them, there are a number of functions you need to go through. I could point them all out to you but then you wouldn't learn much from me doing that.
Quote: "Do you have any suggestions on how to get higher fps without lowering too much the quality?"
Sure don't use it at all! Of course I am jesting, but with advanced lighting it really does hit performance a lot, always has. I had started looking at what costs so much of the frames loop time some time ago but got side tracked. I lost the majority of my library of smaller projects that I built up over about 10 years in dbp a while back so I was making a medialess performance timer set of bars for advanced lighting and ended up doing a few more medialess gui projects, which then led onto other projects I had restarted, and now its been a while since I looked at advanced lighting in any depth. If I get time this week I will revisit and post back IF I find anything note worthy, based on working with previous versions you do tend to have to sacrifice quality and effects to get some extra fps.
With advanced lighting, if your serious about using it, you really need to get very familiar with the code, it is not an easy thing to understand but once you get into it you can find your way around with relative ease without knowing much about shaders at all, but you do have your work cut out for you. If you don't already use it I would advise looking at the Indigo IDE for DBP, on the WIP board I think, it is free and roughly about a billion times better than the shipped IDE's. It certainly has helped me get into the advanced lighting projects significantly, I have tried going back to the shipped IDE's at one point as the expiry date for Indigo had passed and it took a day or so for an updated version to be put up - I really hated every moment I spent trying to use the older IDE's for this project.