Making Compromises

[Dirk Diggler]

When gaming if you see your fps dip to unacceptable levels, what's the first setting you lower and why?

Just curious on the choices people make. My 970 runs most games on max settings, but sometimes a compromise has to be made and I'm never too sure what to tweak.

Running on a 120Hz G-Sync monitor, if that makes any difference.

 

[neoglow]

Turn off AA and try downsampling is the first thing I try.

 

[Marine-RX179]

When you say "compromise has to be made", generally for your what is the minimum frame rate you can accept, or average frame rate you are hoping to push?

Because the thing about 120/144Hz monitor is that on a single graphic card, it will always be the case of trading performance for eye-candy, as for example your 970 would probably have not problem keep frame rate up at 45-60fps at max settings at 1920 res, but if you want to push higher frame rate than that (since you are using a 120Hz monitor), you will HAVE to trade off eyecandy for performance, say if you want the frame rate to hit 80-100fps for example.

 

[Amatsubu]

AA and then textures. I tend to sit quite far away from the screen so slight jagginess doesn't bother me in the slightest. The same goes for textures, I can rarely distinguish "ultra" from "high" most of the time and the performance hit is just not worth it. I think shadows, effects and all the glittery stuff makes a much bigger visual impact so I always try to max these out;p

 

[Dirk Diggler]

When you say "compromise has to be made", generally for your what is the minimum frame rate you can accept, or average frame rate you are hoping to push?

Because the thing about 120/144Hz monitor is that on a single graphic card, it will always be the case of trading performance for eye-candy, as for example your 970 would probably have not problem keep frame rate up at 45-60fps at max settings at 1920 res, but if you want to push higher frame rate than that (since you are using a 120Hz monitor), you will HAVE to trade off eyecandy for performance, say if you want the frame rate to hit 80-100fps for example.

Anything above 60 is fine. I have the monitor at 120Hz but I don't actually need it that high, anything above say 55 is acceptable to my eye.

 

[Dirk Diggler]

AA and then textures. I tend to sit quite far away from the screen so slight jagginess doesn't bother me in the slightest. The same goes for textures, I can rarely distinguish "ultra" from "high" most of the time and the performance hit is just not worth it. I think shadows, effects and all the glittery stuff makes a much bigger visual impact so I always try to max these out;p

I sit close, so I think I'll try DSR in place of AA and textures.

 

[ubersonic]

I sit close, so I think I'll try DSR in place of AA and textures.

DSR is more demanding than AA, IIRC 4.0 DSR is ~ the same result as 4x MSAA however it uses more resources because MSAA is "smart" AA whereas DSR will obviously effect everything.

Also the whole thing about DSR is because it renders it at ludicrous res then downscales it to regular res it looks better than rendering at regular res, but if your going to turn the texture quality down it will be totally self defeating.

 

[arc@css]

AA / depth of field. As long as the frame rate is smooth and not too low, then that's generally fine. Once I find that turning off the AA in several titles is not enough, then that's when I start looking around for a new card.

 

[strumpusplunket]

Since having a g-sync monitor I find I'm more happy to let the frame-rates dip a little bit as I don't notice it as much. Even occasional dips down to low 40s FPS don't bother me where they would have done in the past.

If I have to turn something down, I first try a less resource-intensive AA, then turn shadows down a notch. If that doesn't give me a high enough frame-rate I get grumpy and decide it's probably time to update my graphics card

 

[Dirk Diggler]

Cheers for replies, guys. Will have a tinker...

 

[jupiter_man]

AA->texture->HBAO->distance->shadow