In the CS if you go to preferences there is an option to change the render settings in the preview window - everytime I try and change these nothing seems to happen - unless I select software instead of hardware in which case everything goes black - I can see the screen resolution setting is set to the lowest possible level to begin with - if I change it and select ok nothing seems to change and then if I go back into the preferences window I see the setting seems to revert back to 640 x 480 x 32

Is there something I'm doing wrong here?

I'm confused, because my CS has no settings for the Preview Window in the Preferences.
There is a View Setting, and you can set the Clipping Distance. This setting is for changing how much of the cell gets displayed in the Render Window when you zoom out... it has nothing to do with the Preview Window.

Set it low, and go to Balmora. The set it high and go to Balmora. You will notice a huge difference in what gets rendered when you zoom out.

I believe the "Render Settings" has to do with the entire CS, not the Preview or Render windows.

..... Or am I missing what you're saying??

Um - I'm not sure Pluto - I go to preferences and there are 2 options

view settings - which has the slider for clipping near or far

and Renderer settings which has a number of options - either windowed or fullscreen [these are greyed out and I think are set in the options of the game] a hardware/software option a mipmap option and what sampling you want to go to and resolution settings for whatever graphics card you have - it is these resolution settings I was trying to change to see if my render window would get any sharper in detail - perhaps i need to set something in my graphics card software to allow the CS to accept a change in resolution?

Ohhh. I see what you mean.
Sorry, I was confused when you said "settings in the preview window" Because the preview window is something different than View Settings.

But I have the same issue as you, except mine is locked at 320x200x32 (on my laptop anyways.)

dont think they ever properly implemented it.

What is this setting actually supposed to change? Mine is set like Illuminiel's, but both my render and CS windows are substantially larger.