Pre-approving hard inquiry affects on credit

[Jose Falconett]

A lot of forums and even a local agent I spoke to said that i should find out what I can finance before I utilize the agents service of scouting a deal. This makes sense, so upon questioning whether or not the mortgage brokers inquiry into my credit report affects my credit score I found out it does, and it's called a hard inquiry which lasts 2 years and each time its pulled by shopping different brokers it decreases a few points which can impact the score a lot. 

but wait, I did learn that dependent on the fico scoring model that the particular broker uses they may use either the old 14 day or new 45 day inquiry model; this lets the person shopping have the 14 or 45 day shopping grace period so that at the end of the period it all counts as 1 single hard inquiry pull.

Now my question is, how can I determine what my financing options are without it impacting my score to much!?