What are your top 3 tips for graphical settings to optimize a PC game?

[ZedClampet]

Around the web and often on here, people complain about performance issues. Independent of a person's specs, what are your favorite tips for optimizing a PC game?

Mine are:

1) If it's turned on, turn off ray tracing.
2) Drop your overall preset and see if your FPS changes. If not, you are CPU bound and need to adjust settings that help your CPU.
3) Give super-sampling a try if it is included in the game.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Around the web and often on here, people complain about performance issues. Independent of a person's specs, what are your favorite tips for optimizing a PC game?

Mine are:

1) If it's turned on, turn off ray tracing.
2) Drop your overall preset and see if your FPS changes. If not, you are CPU bound and need to adjust settings that help your CPU.
3) Give super-sampling a try if it is included in the game.

Yea thats a good start I'd say. I dont have an RT GPU but that stuff kills performance.

My first step in new games if I'm not getting the performance I need on my AMD GPU is 3, enable FSR quality at all ultra settings. I have a pretty fast CPU and a pretty mid range GPU so its mostly going to be GPU for me that the problem in 3d games. If that doesnt cut it, look up a guide to see what the best settings to lower are as a compromise between quality and performance. Maybe also change the FSR setting down a notch and see how it looks.

Sometimes FSR looks terrible like Atomic Heart. In that case play with the settings that the guide recommends until a compromise between frame rate and fidelity that works for me is found without the upscaling on.

Would be nice if all games included a proper in game benchmark that represented the worse case scenario for performance. I've quite often had to lower settings for certain areas of a game later on which are a lot more demanding than others and its annoying.

 

[Slasken]

Around the web and often on here, people complain about performance issues. Independent of a person's specs, what are your favorite tips for optimizing a PC game?

Mine are:

1) If it's turned on, turn off ray tracing.
2) Drop your overall preset and see if your FPS changes. If not, you are CPU bound and need to adjust settings that help your CPU.
3) Give super-sampling a try if it is included in the game.

Agree with this, except maybe use MSI Afterburner and have a screen overlay that displays CPU, GPU, and Ram usage to determine bottleneck.

 

[Brian Boru]

♣ Shut down all non-MS apps & processes, incl game-related stuff like performance monitors, overlays, chats etc—anything which needs GPU attention to work.

♦ Reduce or turn off these until you get the performance you want:
Ray Tracing
Anti-aliasing
Ambient occlusion
Shadow quality
High DPI scaling
Resolution—last resort

♥ Toggle between Full screen, Windowed, and Windowed full screen—Full screen should be the most performance-friendly as far as I know. Also, run monitor at its recommended resolution.

♠ Bonus tip: Become a Patient Gamer, so you can run all games on a potato at ultra high

 

[Zloth]

Shadow quality is first on my list. (Well, depth of field and lens flare are the first, I suppose, but I turn them off regardless and they don't hit performance all that hard.)

Next would be to turn on super-sampling, if available.

Resolution used to be so easy to do back with the CRT monitors!

The CRT Advantage

Ahhh, the good old days

forums.pcgamer.com

 

[Slasken]

Might also be a good idea to close those 50 tabs you have open in Chrome or Firefox.

 

[Colif]

Afterburner doesn't work properly with AMD cards but then who uses those?

I am CPU bound but then I don't think a CPU exists that wouldn't create that situation with my GPU.

I don't play any games that would require me to turn down effects. RT would be about only one but no games I play have that... Diablo 4 doesn't plan on having it at launch, for instance.

 

[Zimbaly]

Shadows lowered, Resolution lowered, and the last one it depends on the game, but either lighting or decal/corpses staying to low or off.

 

[Sasco1st]

Yeah, as many have said, I usually turn down Shadows first and then probably SSAO, and lastly decals/shader/corpse or ragdoll if they are available

 

[James Parker]

Shadows lowered, Resolution lowered, and the last one it depends on the game, but either lighting or decal/corpses staying to low or off.

I've discovered that the three parameters that seem to have the most effects on performance are lighting, resolution, and shadows. Lowering shadows can frequently provide you a significant FPS boost because they can be very demanding. Another significant one is resolution; if you're having trouble, you could need to lower it.

 

[Rolfil]

For me it's always shadows first. If you have low GPU memory then textures or resolution.

If your running 1440p and a game supports it set it to 1080p upscaled to 1440p will make a big difference.

Also try using DLSS or FSR as a lot of games now support this.

 

[Frindis]

Adjusting sharpness/shadow/colors/contrast on your computer screen instead of adjusting those settings through your ingame settings/settings on video card software might squeeze in some extra fps.

 

[Reola]

For me it's always shadows first. If you have low GPU memory then textures or resolution.

If your running 1440p and a game supports it set it to 1080p upscaled to 1440p will make a big difference.

Also try using DLSS or FSR as a lot of games now support this.

DLSS or FSR is kind of responsible for the quality of images, but my picture is not better, maybe I do something wrong or there are some exceptions?

 

[Milkovich]

Before starting a new game, I always set up anti-aliasing, vertical synchronization, and see if I need to update the video card drivers. Naturally, all settings depend on how powerful the computer is.

 

[neogunhero]

Here’s my tips I stick to in nearly all games:

1) - Turn down/off volumetric fog and volumetric clouds. Graphically they look great but are also very performance intensive.

2) - Shadow distance, shadow resolution, distant/contact shadows are all usually pretty performance heavy. Turn these down. Most modern games don’t look bad with lowered shadow settings, at least for my taste. When shadows are turned down, turn up Ambient Occlusion to compensate in graphical fidelity. I find the game looks the most flat when AO is turned down/off versus turning down shadows, so AO is always on the highest setting for me no matter what the shadows are set to.

3) - I always turn off these settings no matter what: chromatic aberration, motion blur, lens flare, distortion, film grain, color filters. These are all just little visual sparkles on top of the main graphics and in my opinion usually make games look worse, most especially chromatic aberration and motion blur. If a game has a motion blur slider and allows a very very tiny bit of motion blur, I’ll use it. It’s very rare for a game to do this though, most times if it has a slider it’s locked between values 1-10 and usually the lowest value is still too much for me. The only game that comes to mind that has a motion blur slider that allows you to move it much more incrementally is the Uncharted Collection on PS4, not the same one available on PC.

 

[lilyjullet]

Certainly, here's a fast rundown:

1. Disable Ray Tracing: If it's enabled and creating problems, simply turn it off for a more seamless experience.
2. Lower your overall graphics preset to test your FPS. If nothing changes, experiment with CPU-lightening settings.
3. Experiment with Super-Sampling: If available, try super-sampling to improve visuals without sacrificing performance.

Keep these in mind, and your PC gaming experience will most likely improve. Cheers!

 

[Colif]

1) buy a 5090.... don't turn anything off

Afterburner doesn't work properly with AMD cards but then who uses those?

I was wrong, its useful for controlling fan speeds but it can't help speed GPU up

 

[neogunhero]

Certainly, here's a fast rundown:

1. Disable Ray Tracing: If it's enabled and creating problems, simply turn it off for a more seamless experience.
2. Lower your overall graphics preset to test your FPS. If nothing changes, experiment with CPU-lightening settings.
3. Experiment with Super-Sampling: If available, try super-sampling to improve visuals without sacrificing performance.

Keep these in mind, and your PC gaming experience will most likely improve. Cheers!

@ZedClampet this AI just did you so wrong by spitting out nearly the exact same post you made

 

[Colif]

The AI I asked was more imaginative and didn't just paraphrase the question

Spoiler

Those are great tips for optimizing PC game performance! Here are some additional tips that can help improve performance, independent of a person's specs:

1. Update Graphics Drivers:
   • Ensure that your graphics drivers are up to date. New driver updates often include optimizations for the latest games.
2. Monitor Background Processes:
   • Close unnecessary background applications and processes to free up system resources. This includes browser tabs, streaming services, and other applications running in the background.
3. Adjust In-Game Settings:
   • Experiment with individual in-game settings, such as texture quality, shadows, and anti-aliasing. Sometimes, fine-tuning specific options can have a significant impact on performance.
4. Resolution Scaling:
   • Lower the in-game resolution or use resolution scaling to reduce the demand on your GPU.
5. Limit Frame Rate:
   • Cap the frame rate to a reasonable level. This can help in achieving a more stable performance and prevent unnecessary strain on the hardware.
6. Optimize Power Settings:
   • Ensure your computer is set to high-performance mode in the power settings. This prevents the system from downclocking components during gameplay.
7. Disable V-Sync:
   • Turning off vertical sync (V-Sync) can sometimes lead to increased frame rates, although it may introduce screen tearing.
8. Install the Game on an SSD:
   • If possible, install the game on a solid-state drive (SSD) instead of a traditional hard drive. This can reduce loading times and improve overall game performance.
9. Check for Game Patches and Updates:
   • Make sure the game is running the latest patches and updates. Developers often release performance improvements and bug fixes.
10. Temperature Management:
    • Ensure that your PC components are not overheating. Clean out dust from the cooling system, and consider improving airflow within your computer case.
11. Background Windows Settings:
    • In Windows settings, adjust the priority of the game process to "High" or "Realtime" for a potential performance boost.
12. Consider Game Mods and Tweaks:
    • Check if there are any community-made mods or tweaks that can enhance performance without sacrificing visual quality.

Chatgpt 3.5

so not using that one...

I have issues with 6... high performance mode isn't great if you also overclocked and don't have good cooling

 

[DXCHASE]

I generally mix it up. First I try to realize what resolution im playing at and with what card. My actions also depend on the game.

I usually play without raytracing and put DLSS on quality, but now with a 4070 its a no-brainer to use. So i just kinda max everything if its not there already, run for a min. then dial stuff back if need be (games like Cyberpunk i would not do this). So i start with turning down settings like AA and volumetric fog and anything that is above "ultra" like an insane or whatever level, i always turn it down there.

If i feel i have gone too low in my settings and im still getting framerates im not happy with, i will then go to the DLSS option and lower it to balanced, then either performance or ultra performance for the really demanding games (CP, Darktide, Avatar)

If i keep tweaking settings and im still getting lower-than-desired framerates, ill just default set to medium-high settings, and then upscale my settings from there.