Due to numerous questions and disputes related to FPS in tests for video cards presented on our website, we decided to dwell on this issue in more detail and tell you about game settings.
Everyone knows that in modern games There are enough graphics settings to improve picture quality or improve performance in the game itself. Let's look at the basic settings that are present in almost all games.
Screen resolution
Perhaps this parameter is one of the main ones that affects both the quality of the picture and the performance of the game. This parameter depends solely on the laptop’s matrix and the game’s support for this resolution (from 640x480 to 1920x1080). Everything here is simple and proportional, the higher the resolution, the clearer the picture and the greater the load on the system, and, accordingly, vice versa.
Graphics quality
Almost every game has its own standard graphics settings that you can use. Usually these are “low”, “medium”, “high” and in some games there is an “ultra” column. These settings already contain a set of settings (texture quality, anti-aliasing, anisotropic filtering, shadows... and many others) and the user can select the profile that best suits his PC configuration. I think everything is clear here, the better the graphics settings, the more realistic the game looks, and, of course, the requirements for the device increase. Below you can watch the video and compare the picture quality in all profiles.
Next, we will look in more detail at the settings in the games individually.
Texture quality
This setting is responsible for the resolution of textures in the game. The higher the texture resolution, the clearer and more detailed the picture you see, and accordingly the load on the GPU will be greater.
Shadow quality
This setting adjusts the detail of the shadows. In some games, shadows can be turned off altogether, which will give a significant performance boost, but the picture will not be as rich. At high settings the shadows will be more realistic and soft.
Effect quality
This parameter affects the quality and intensity of effects such as smoke, explosions, shots, dust and many others. IN different games This setting affects differently, in some the difference between low and high settings is very difficult to notice, and in others the differences are obvious. The impact of this parameter on performance depends on the optimization of the effects in the game.
Environmental quality
A parameter responsible for the geometric complexity of frames in objects of the surrounding game world, as well as their detail (the difference is especially noticeable on distant objects). At low settings, there may be a loss of detail in objects (houses, trees, cars, etc.). Distant objects become almost flat, rounded shapes are not quite round, and almost every object loses some small details.
Landscape coverage
In some games it is indicated as “Grass Density” or has other similar names. Responsible for the amount of grass, bushes, branches, stones and other debris on the ground. Accordingly, the higher the parameter, the more saturated the earth looks with different objects.
Anisotropic filtering
When a texture is not rendered at its original size, extra pixels are inserted into it or extra pixels are removed. This is what filtering is used for. There are three types of filtering: bilinear, trilinear and anisotropic. The simplest and least demanding is bilinear filtering, but it also produces the worst results. Trilinear filtering won't give you either good results, although it adds clarity, it also generates artifacts.Most better filtration is anisotropic, which noticeably eliminates distortion on textures that are strongly inclined relative to the camera. For modern video cards, this parameter has virtually no effect on performance, but significantly improves clarity and natural look textures.
Smoothing
The principle of anti-aliasing is as follows: before the image is displayed on the screen, it is calculated not in its native resolution, but in double magnification. During output, the image is reduced to the required size, and irregularities along the edges of the object become less noticeable. The larger the original image and the smoothing factor (x2, x4, x8, x16), the less unevenness will be noticeable on objects. Actually, the smoothing itself is necessary in order to get rid of the “staircase effect” (teeth along the edges of the texture) as much as possible.Exist different types anti-aliasing, FSAA and MSAA are most often found in games. Full Screen Anti-Aliasing (FSAA) is used to remove jagged edges from full-screen images. The disadvantage of this anti-aliasing is that the entire image is processed, which of course significantly improves image quality, but requires a lot of computing power from the GPU.
Multisample anti-aliasing (MSAA), unlike FSAA, smoothes only the edges of objects, which leads to a slight deterioration in graphics, but at the same time saves a huge portion of processing power. So unless you have a top-end gaming graphics card, it's best to use MSAA.
SSAO (Screen Space Ambient Occlusion)
Translated into Russian it means “obstruction of ambient light in the screen space.” Is an imitation of global illumination. Increases the realism of the picture, creating more “live” lighting. Gives load only to the GPU. This option significantly reduces the number of FPS on weak graphics adapters.
Motion blur
Also known as Motion Blur. This is an effect that blurs the image when the camera moves quickly. Gives the scene more dynamics and speed (often used in racing). Increases the load on the GPU, thereby reducing the number of FPS.
Depth of field
An effect for creating the illusion of presence by blurring objects depending on their position relative to focus. For example, when talking to a certain character in a game, you see him clearly, but the background is blurry. The same effect can be observed if you concentrate your gaze on an object located nearby; more distant objects will be blurred.
Vertical Sync (V-Sync)
Synchronizes the frame rate in the game with the vertical scan frequency of the monitor. With V-Sync enabled, maximum amount FPS is equal to the monitor's refresh rate. If the number of frames in your game is lower than the monitor’s refresh rate, you should enable triple buffering, in which frames are prepared in advance and stored in three separate buffers. The advantage of vertical sync is that it allows you to get rid of unwanted jerks when there are sudden jumps in FPS.There are some drawbacks, for example, in new demanding games there may be a significant drop in performance. Also in dynamic shooters or online games, V-Sync can only do harm.
Conclusion
The above outlines the basic, but not all, settings in games. It is worth recalling that each game has its own level of optimization and its own set of settings. In some cases, games with better graphics will run faster on your laptop than unoptimized games with lower requirements. Most games allow you to use both ready-made settings and manually set each individual parameter. Some of the effects discussed above are supported only in new DirectX 11 games, and in older ones with DirectX 9 support they simply are not present.One of the most important parameters, affecting the playability of Online games, is FPS.
FPS stands for Frame per Second (number of displayed frames per second).
Why is this necessary? Correct setting graphics in World of Tanks, as in any other Online game, significantly increases the chances of winning. FPS drops interfere with movement, make it difficult to aim, and usually end in “shots at nothing,” long reload times, and victory for the enemy.
FPS depends on your computer configuration. Good FPS starts from 35 frames per second and above. The optimal result is 50 frames per second and above.
To achieve good FPS, you must either have a high-performance gaming computer with a top-end graphics card, plenty of RAM and a powerful processor, or try to customize the game as much as possible to suit your configuration. Weak spots in the system, you can compensate for it with proper graphics settings in World of Tanks, which we’ll talk about now.
For convenience, we have divided the settings according to the degree of influence on graphics and FPS, using a color scheme
These settings can be adjusted “as your heart desires.” Does not affect FPS.
We recommend correcting it first. This is true for mid-level systems, when you want to see beautiful graphics and stable FPS, but resources do not allow you to set everything to the maximum. These settings do not greatly affect the gameplay.
Graphics settings that do not affect FPS
You can customize these settings as you wish without worrying about performance loss
Graphics settings affecting FPS
3D render resolution. Changes the resolution of 3D objects in the scene. Affects the depth of the 3D scene. Reducing the parameter improves the performance of weak computers.
You can adjust the 3D rendering while playing. If during a battle your FPS drops, use “right Shift -” to decrease the depth of the scene and “right Shift +” to increase it. Reducing the depth will increase FPS on the fly.
Screen resolution. The higher the resolution, the higher the load on the video card. It is recommended to select a value that matches your monitor, otherwise the image will become blurry. On very old video cards you have to lower the resolution to get “playable” fps. We recommend lowering the resolution below the screen resolution as a last resort if other methods no longer help.
Vertical Sync And triple buffering. Vertical sync is the synchronization of the frame rate in the game with the vertical scan frequency of the monitor. Triple buffering avoids the appearance of artifacts in the picture. If your system produces less than 60 FPS, the developers recommend disabling both parameters (note: on modern monitors it does not particularly affect the picture).
Smoothing Removes jagged edges of 3D objects (ladder effect), making the picture more natural. It is not recommended to enable it when FPS is below 50.
Let's move on to the advanced graphics settings: "Graphics" menu, "Advanced" graphics settings tab.
"Graphic arts" Maximum influences the number of FPS produced by your video card.
Switching the graphics mode to "Standard" switches the engine to an old render with outdated effects and lighting. With standard rendering, most advanced graphics settings become unavailable. It is recommended to enable it on weak computers.
Texture quality. The higher the quality of the textures, the more detailed and clearer the picture in the game looks. The higher this parameter, the more dedicated video memory is needed. If your video card has a limited amount of video memory, texture quality must be set to the minimum. (Maximum texture quality is only available when “improved renderer” is enabled and on a 64-bit operating system.)
Lighting quality. Opens up a whole range of dynamic effects in the game: sun rays, optical effects, shadows from physical sources (trees, buildings and tanks). This parameter greatly affects the performance of the video card. If you have a weak video card, set the lighting quality to medium values or lower.
Shadow quality. Affects the rendering of shadows from objects. Reducing the quality of shadows does not greatly affect the gameplay. If you have an old video card, the first step is to set the shadow quality to minimum.
Grass in sniper mode. Affects not only performance, but also gameplay. If your FPS in sniper mode drops below 40, you need to disable it.
Extra quality effects. Affects “special effects” in the game: smoke, dust, explosions, flames. By decreasing this parameter, you can reduce the number of particles in the frame and limit the distance at which they will be displayed. It is recommended to leave it at least “low”, otherwise explosions and other elements necessary for orientation in battle will not be visible.
Add. effects in sniper mode. They regulate the same thing, but in sniper mode. If during sniper mode your FPS drops, which undoubtedly affects your accuracy, it is recommended to reduce the parameter (not below the “low” level).
Amount of vegetation. Adjusts the density and distance of vegetation drawing in the game. When FPS is low, it is recommended to set it to minimum. This can free up precious megabytes of video memory.
Post-processing. Affects effects in the afterlife - shading and the effect of hot air from damaged cars and burning objects. If you are hiding behind a destroyed tank and your FPS starts to drop, it is recommended to disable this option.
Effects from under the tracks. They saturate the picture with the effects of scattered soil, splashes of water and snow. The setting does not affect performance much. By turning it off, you can free up video memory a little.
Landscape quality. The parameter determines at what distance the quality of the landscape begins to become simpler. This parameter heavily loads the processor. Attention! With the minimum setting, there is a strong distortion of the landscape, so you may not see some ledge behind which the enemy is hiding, and after the shot the projectile will hit the edge of the obstacle, and not where you were aiming. It is recommended to set the setting value to at least “medium”.
Water quality. This parameter adds wave effects, water vibrations when moving, and reflections from objects. If you have a weak video card, it is recommended to reduce the parameter.
Decals quality. Affects the drawing distance and detail of decals - detail textures that increase image quality (fallen leaves, traces of dirt, paving slabs and other sharp objects scattered across the map). When set to “off,” even shell craters disappear. The more decals, the more video memory is required to load them. If you are not bothered by the simplification of the landscape, it is recommended to set it to “minimum” at low FPS.
Object detailing. All objects in the game have several models different quality. Currently, buildings have 3 types of objects, tanks from five. The quality of object rendering greatly affects performance, and at large distances small objects will still not be visible. When an object is removed, its model changes to a rougher one. The parameter affects the distance at which a higher-quality model will be drawn. The lower the parameter is set, the shorter the drawing distance for high-quality models will be.
Transparency of foliage. Disables drawing of foliage at close distances. It is recommended to enable it on weak systems.
Tree detailing. The setting operates on the same principle as "Object detailing", but only for trees. If you experience drops in FPS when trees appear, it is best to set this parameter to a minimum (along with it, it is recommended to enable “Foliage Transparency”).
Anisotropic filtering. When a texture is not displayed on the display at its true size, pixels are added or removed from it. This is called filtering. In other words, filtering removes aliasing and blur in the image. The most advanced type of filtering is anisotropic filtering. Has a filtration degree setting (2x, 4x, 8x, 16x). The higher the degree, the more realistic the picture looks. A degree of 4x and 8x is quite enough, and it’s even better to set it to maximum. It makes no sense to turn off filtering, because... it does not in any way affect the number of frames in modern video cards.
Step 2
Anti-Aliasing(Smoothing). Antialiasing works like this. Frames are rendered in increased resolution before being displayed on the screen. After this, the result is reduced to the desired size. As a result, the “ladder” along the edges of the picture becomes less noticeable. The higher the degree of smoothing (2x, 4x, 8x, 16x, 32x), the better the image. It makes no sense to disable Anti-Aliasing for the same reason as the previous setting.
Step 3
V-Sync(Vertical sync). This setting synchronizes game frames with the vertical scan rate of the monitor. The point is that the calculated frame is displayed on the display at the time the information is updated. The next frame will appear strictly after the previous one, etc. But keep in mind that when this option is enabled, the frame rate in the game should not exceed the vertical scan frequency of the display. If the FPS is lower, then you need to enable triple buffering in the video card driver settings. On weak computers, it is recommended to turn off vert. synchronization, this will slightly improve gaming performance.
Step 4
Tessellation. This option increases the number of polygons several times, which helps to increase image detail. To use tessellation, the game must support DirectX 11. It is better to set the options to moderate or normal. On weak video cards, image artifacts are possible. If the computer is normal, you don’t have to turn it off.
These performance tweaks have very little visual impact.
We all like to set our graphics settings to maximum. But not all of them have a positive effect. Even with high-end hardware, there are some graphics settings that make little visual difference but have a significant impact on frame rates. And if you're also playing on an older PC, then these are the settings that you need to disable in order to increase the frame rate without making the graphics terrible.
Graphics options and their respective impact may also vary significantly from game to game, so specific optimization guidelines should be reviewed for best performance. In other words, these parameters “squeeze out the maximum” in the hardware-performance ratio.
Shadows
Surprisingly, the shadow effect enhances graphics performance, but slightly darkened edges don't do much to improve your performance. overall quality Images. Don't turn them off, but if you're struggling with framerate, they're definitely best set to low or medium.
Motion blur
Motion blur is sometimes used to good effect, such as in racing games, but for the most part, this option takes away your productivity in exchange for something that most gamers generally don't like. Motion blur is especially something to avoid in fast-paced games, such as first-person shooters.
Depth of field
Depth of field in games generally refers to the effect of blurring things in the background. Just like motion blur, this option distracts our eyes and creates a movie-like quality that doesn't always look great. Additionally, this setting can affect performance, especially if used incorrectly. It needs to be customized based on personal preferences and what game you play.
Dynamic reflection
This setting largely depends on the game you're playing and what's important to you in terms of image quality. Dynamic reflections are settings that affect how players and other moving objects appear in puddles and on shiny surfaces. This greatly enhances graphics performance. However, dynamic reflections are not always noticeable, and turning them off will increase your FPS by 30 to 50%.
Over-sampling anti-aliasing (supersampling, SSAA)
With supersampling enabled, the game takes frames at a higher resolution than the resolution of the screen itself, and then compresses them back to fit the display. It can make games look better, but unless your PC is a special monster (like our favorite Large Pixel Collider), SSAA will ruin your performance. In most cases, it is not worth using, especially when there are so many alternatives to supersampling.
Technologies for displaying 3D objects on the screen of personal computer monitors are developing along with the release of modern graphics adapters. Getting the perfect picture in 3D applications, as close as possible to real video, is the main task of hardware developers and the main goal for connoisseurs computer games. The technology implemented in the latest generation of video cards is designed to help with this - anisotropic filtering in games.
What it is?
Every computer player wants a colorful picture of the virtual world to unfold on the screen, so that, having climbed to the top of a mountain, one can survey the picturesque surroundings, so that, pressing the acceleration button on the keyboard to the fullest, one can see not only the straight line of a racing track to the horizon, and also a full-fledged environment in the form of city landscapes. Objects displayed on a monitor screen ideally stand directly in front of the user at the most convenient scale; in fact, the vast majority of three-dimensional objects are at an angle to the line of sight. Moreover, different virtual distances of textures to the point of view also make adjustments to the size of the object and its textures. Calculations for displaying a three-dimensional world on a two-dimensional screen are used in various 3D technologies designed to improve visual perception, not least of which is texture filtering (anisotropic or trilinear). Filtration of this type is one of the best developments in this area.
On fingers
To understand what anisotropic filtering does, you need to understand the basic principles of texturing algorithms. All objects of the three-dimensional world consist of a “frame” (a three-dimensional three-dimensional model of an object) and a surface (texture) - a two-dimensional picture “stretched” over the frame. The smallest part of the texture is a colored texel, these are like pixels on the screen, depending on the “density” of the texture, texels can be of different sizes. Multi-colored texels make up a complete picture of any object in the three-dimensional world.
On the screen, texels are contrasted with pixels, the number of which is limited by the available resolution. While there can be an almost infinite number of texels in the virtual visibility zone, the pixels that display the image to the user have a fixed number. So, the transformation of visible texels into color pixels is carried out by an algorithm for processing three-dimensional models - filtering (anisotropic, bilinear or trilinear). More details about all types are given below in order, as they come from one another.
Middle color
The simplest filtering algorithm is to display the color closest to the point of view of each pixel (Point Sampling). It's simple: the line of sight of a certain point on the screen falls on the surface of a three-dimensional object, and the texture of the images returns the color of the texel closest to the point of incidence, filtering out all others. Ideal for plain colored surfaces. With small differences in color, it also gives a quite high-quality picture, but rather dull, because where have you seen three-dimensional objects of the same color? The lighting, shadows, reflections and others shaders alone are ready to color any object in games as Christmas tree, what can we say about the textures themselves, which sometimes represent works visual arts. Even the gray soulless one concrete wall in modern games - this is not just a rectangle of a nondescript color, it is a surface dotted with roughness, sometimes cracks and scratches and other artistic elements, which brings the appearance of a virtual wall as close as possible to real walls or walls imagined by the developers’ imagination. In general, the near color could be used in the first 3D games, now players have become much more demanding of graphics. What is important: near color filtering requires virtually no calculations, that is, it is very economical in terms of computer resources.
Linear filtering
The differences between the linear algorithm are not too significant; instead of the nearest texel point, linear filtering uses 4 at once and calculates the average color between them. The only problem is that on surfaces located at an angle to the screen, the line of sight forms an ellipse on the texture, while linear filtering uses perfect circle to select the nearest texels regardless of the viewing angle. Using four texels instead of one can significantly improve the rendering of textures distant from the viewpoint, but it is still not enough to correctly reflect the image.
Mip-mapping
This technology allows you to slightly optimize the rendering of computer graphics. For each texture, a certain number of copies are created with different degrees of detail; for each level of detail, a different image is selected, for example, for long corridor or a large hall, the near floors and walls require as much detail as possible, while the far corners cover only a few pixels and do not require much detail. This 3D graphics feature helps avoid blurring of distant textures, as well as distortion and loss of the image, and works together with filtering, because the video adapter, when calculating filtering, is not able to decide which texels are important for the completeness of the picture, and which are not so much.
Bilinear filtering
Using linear filtering and MIP texturing together, we get a bilinear algorithm that allows us to display distant objects and surfaces even better. However, the same 4 texels do not provide the technology with sufficient flexibility; moreover, bilinear filtering does not mask transitions to the next scaling level, working with each part of the texture separately, and their boundaries can be visible. Thus, at a great distance or at a large angle, the textures are greatly blurred, making the picture unnatural, as if for people with myopia, plus for textures with complex designs visible junction lines between textures of different resolutions. But we are behind a monitor screen, we don’t need myopia and various strange lines!
Trilinear filtering
This technology is designed to correct the drawing on texture scale change lines. While the bilinear algorithm works with each level of mip-mapping separately, trilinear filtering additionally calculates the boundaries of the levels of detail. With all this, the requirements for random access memory, and the improvement in the picture on distant objects is not very noticeable. Of course, the boundaries between nearby scaling levels are better processing than with a bilinear one, and they look more harmonious without sharp transitions, which affects the overall impression.
Anisotropic filtering
If you calculate the projection of the line of sight of each screen pixel on the texture according to the viewing angle, you will get incorrect shapes - trapezoids. This, coupled with using more texels to calculate the final color, can give a much better result. What does anisotropic filtering do? Considering that in theory there are no limits to the number of texels used, such an algorithm is capable of displaying computer graphics of unlimited quality at any distance from the viewpoint and at any angle, ideally comparable to real video. Anisotropic filtering in its capabilities is limited only by specifications graphic adapters of personal computers, for which modern video games are designed.
Suitable video cards
Anisotropic filtering mode has been possible on custom video adapters since 1999, starting with the famous Riva TNT and Voodoo cards. The top configurations of these cards were quite capable of rendering trilinear graphics and even produced decent FPS figures using x2 anisotropic filtering. The last digit indicates the quality of filtering, which, in turn, depends on the number of texels involved in calculating the final pixel color on the screen, in in this case As many as 8 of them are used. Plus, the calculations use the capture area of these texels corresponding to the viewing angle, and not a circle, as in linear algorithms earlier. Modern video cards are capable of processing filtering with an anisotropic algorithm at the x16 level, which means using 128 texels to calculate the final pixel color. This promises a significant improvement in the display of textures distant from the viewpoint, as well as a serious load, but the latest generation of graphics adapters are equipped with enough RAM and multi-core processors to cope with this task.
Impact on FPS
The benefits are clear, but how much will anisotropic filtering cost players? The impact on the performance of gaming video adapters with serious hardware, released no later than 2010, is very insignificant, which is confirmed by tests by independent experts in a number of popular games. Anisotropic texture filtering in x16 quality on budget cards shows a decrease in overall FPS by 5-10%, and that is due to less powerful graphics adapter components. Such loyalty of modern hardware to resource-intensive computing speaks of the constant concern of manufacturers for us, humble gamers. It is quite possible that the transition to the next levels of anisotropy quality is not far off, as long as the game makers don’t let us down.
Of course, anisotropic filtering alone is involved in improving picture quality. It is up to the player to decide whether to enable it or not, but happy owners of the latest models from Nvidia or AMD (ATI) should not even think about this issue - setting anisotropic filtering to the maximum level will not affect performance and will add realism to landscapes and vast locations. Few the situation is more complicated owners of integrated graphics solutions from Intel, since in this case much depends on the quality of the computer’s RAM, its clock frequency and capacity.
Options and optimization
Control of the type and quality of filtration is available thanks to special software that regulates graphics adapter drivers. Also, advanced anisotropic filtering settings are available in the game menus. The implementation of high resolutions and the use of multiple monitors in games forced manufacturers to think about accelerating the performance of their products, including through the optimization of anisotropic algorithms. Card manufacturers have provided the latest driver versions new technology called adaptive anisotropic filtering. What does it mean? This feature, introduced by AMD and partially implemented in recent Nvidia products, allows the filtering factor to be reduced where possible. Thus, anisotropic filtering with a x2 coefficient can process nearby textures, while distant objects will be rendered using more complex algorithms up to a maximum x16 coefficient. As usual, optimization provides a significant improvement at the expense of quality; in some places, the adaptive technology is prone to errors, noticeable on the ultra settings of some recent 3D video games.
What does anisotropic filtering do? The use of the computing power of video adapters, compared to other filtering technologies, is much higher, which affects performance. However, the problem of performance when using this algorithm has long been solved in modern graphics chips. Together with other three-dimensional technologies, anisotropic filtering in games (what we already imagine is this) affects general impression about the integrity of the picture, especially when displaying distant objects and textures located at an angle to the screen. This is obviously the main thing players need.
A look into the future
Modern hardware with average characteristics and above is quite capable of coping with the demands of players, so the word on the quality of three-dimensional computer worlds is now up to video game developers. The latest generation graphics adapters support not only high resolutions and such resource-intensive image processing technologies as anisotropic texture filtering, but also VR technologies or support for multiple monitors.