Hey, welcome to the forum.
I’d recommend the “table saw” setting. 
Half inch will be a nightmare to get through, the glowforge is just not the right tool for that. I don’t even mess with 1/4" really, it’s just not an ideal tool for it.
I’m surprised your brother didn’t give you a crash course… there’s a lot of stuff to read to get ahead of the learning curve here. You might want to dig through all this stuff: