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Are Ultra settings even worth it?

r7slayer

r7slayer

r7slayer

Soldato
Joined
2 Oct 2012
Posts
3,246
Right guys i know this has been discussed before and many here like to go through their settings and smack everything to the max... Because ya know Balls to the wall when running the latest and greatest tech.

Anyways ive tested quite a few games and going from high to ultra i don't tend to see any IQ / graphical differences unless i take screenshots and analyse or stand still looking. However what i do notice is the drop in performance i get.
Joker did a video on it too if you care to watch?:

Anyways i'm just curious to what you guys think or tend to do when gaming?
 
Since going from a PC to a gaming laptop ive noticed ive dropped from ultra to high and rarely notice the difference. Even moreso in a good game. I think Ultra is more a pc masterrace thing. Prefer higher hz over graphics, good old laptop has a 120hz ;p
 
Ultra is usually a waste. The odd setting might be worth doing depending on what game you're in (like Foliage Density or something is usually noticable) but the Ultra present is just a way to lower your fps tbh.
 
Personal experience is similar, however at 4k the choice for me is usually medium vs high, and that's where I do usually notice a difference. High vs ultra is usually very minimal though.

Edit: Not sure that any youtube video is the right medium to try and point out the differences between high and ultra though. The compression that takes place easily masks a lot of the differences.
 
To notice the difference going from High to Ultra you usually have to do side by side screenshot comparisons or switch between them quickly, Even with a 1080 Ti I've found myself going for the High option instead of Ultra more often than not as I'd prefer the extra frames rather than a blade of grass being ever so slightly more mathematically correct.
 
I agree, it does seem that the optimisation at Ultra is sub-par or there are some settings here and there that absolutely cripple FPS for no visual gain. Usually on my HTPC which is a R9 Nano hooked up to a 4k TV, tweaking some of these setting's starting by moving from Ultra turns the game from unplayable to pretty amazing looking for most the part.
 
Howling said:
Ultra is usually a waste. The odd setting might be worth doing depending on what game you're in (like Foliage Density or something is usually noticable) but the Ultra present is just a way to lower your fps tbh.
Click to expand...

+1, I'd rather have the extra fps rather than something I can barely notice :)
 
Yeah that is the thing what ultra does varies massively from game to game - in some games it is just the difference between rendering ultra high res assets at very close range and normal res assets at close range which a lot of people wouldn't even notice but someone with an eye for blurry pixels could really appreciate due to the impact on immersion for them specifically.

One I notice is faked up bounced light versus the ultra settings that sometimes have a proper global illumination/radiosity type system - the performance impact can be huge for something most people won't even notice the difference but having some idea from the technical perspective I see through faked up versions straight away which pulls me out of the game so I either end up disabling those effects or putting them on full ultra. Strange thing with that though it makes a massive difference to me in single player but I don't care at all in multi player but then I often play multi player with settings dropped down to maintain fluid framerates and a clear picture.
 
At first I was wondering what the heck is killing the performance when there is hardly any visual difference but I can see it now when he took Afterburner off. High resolution on shadow detail and light spread/particles. The fine stuff.
 
Step one, all sliders to Ultra. If frames are low, switch to very high. Repeat process until frames are good. I don't care what compromises I've made with the visuals because low frames and judder bother me more than IQ ever will.

Having said that, I generally don't need to drop the settings much as my 1080ti drives 90% of what I play @ 3440*1440 without any trouble.
 
If you have the hardware for it then why not.......
On the other hand as has been said games still look great on high settings so you won't be missing out on much especially at lower resolutions.
Josh.
 
Nice to know what people think. Seems to be similar to how i feel too. I tend to have most games on high to keep FPS up above 60 at the very very minimum. If i can play ultra with high FPS i will ofc lol but games like Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands i see virtually no difference on ultra vs high but noticed performance difference so i run on high. Seems to be how a lot of console gamers are feeling too. 4k at 30FPS or 1080p at 60FPS and the latter want that 60FPS vs the increased visual quality. However quite a few games wont do 60FPS on the newer iterations of consoles but that's another thread lol.
Seems weird how back in the day you actually noticed the difference from medium to high which used to be the highest preset but now the sweet spot seems to be high. It made me want to get the best GFX card to play games at the highest quality but now i want to get the best GFX card i can just to get high FPS lol.
 
Depends on the game.
Some games "Ultra" just uses uncompressed textures compared to "very high".

Other games there can be a big difference
 
String said:
A good game to test this on is Rise of The Tomb Raider. You can see the difference straight away.
Click to expand...
Is it in certain areas in the game you have noticed? havn't got the time to look into this but i ran a quick run and i struggled to see a noticeable increase in visual quality. i dropped about 15-20% in FPS from high settings to max settings at 4k.
 
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