# PatMax Alignment Guidelines

In general, you should keep the following basic guideline in mind: The more specific the information that you can provide about the objects in the run-time image, the faster PatMax will operate. Each of the following items increases the size of the run-time space and increases the amount of time PatMax requires to find objects:

- Increased number of enabled degrees of freedom
- Larger zones for enabled degrees of freedom
- Decreased accept threshold

Constraining the overall size of the run-time space can also tend to reduce the likelihood that PatMax will encounter degenerate results.

The following topics provide an overview of the parameters you specify when you use PatMax to search for a model in a run-time image.