If I turn everything off except popular, how will rsitem determine which images to display?

For instance: I turn "newest" off, "most votes" off and everything else off.

Does rsgallery keep track of how many views each image gets and rsitem reads this to determine what to display, or do I have to have another option on to go along with "popular"(i.e. I need voting allowed to be able to have images more popular than others)

Thanks in advance,
-Jeremy