Which graphics settings cost the most performance? What to turn down first

Why some settings cost far more than others

Every graphics option asks your graphics card (GPU) to do extra work for each frame. But the amount of work varies hugely. Some settings are expensive and hard to notice. Others cost almost nothing but change the picture a lot. If you know which is which, you can often gain a big chunk of frame rate and still have a game that looks great.

Try the figure above. It starts with everything at maximum on an imaginary mid-range PC. Click down through the settings and watch two bars: frames per second (fps), and a rough "how good it looks" score. The label next to each setting shows what one step down would give you.

The big spenders

Resolution is the biggest cost in most games. Drawing a 1440p image means about 78% more pixels than 1080p, and 4K is four times 1080p. If your fps is low, resolution is usually the first thing to look at.

Upscaling (DLSS, FSR and XeSS are the common names) is a smart way to cut that cost. The game draws fewer pixels, then rebuilds a full-size picture. Quality modes usually look close to the native image, and Performance modes look softer. Which upscalers you can use depends on your graphics card and the game.

Ray tracing simulates how light bounces, giving more natural reflections and shadows. It is one of the most expensive options there is. Turning it off, or down a level, is often the single largest jump in frame rate, at the price of less realistic lighting.

Shadows and volumetric effects (fog, light shafts, clouds) also cost a lot at their top levels. The top two shadow levels often look very similar, while the extra cost can be large. That makes them prime candidates for lowering first.

The cheap ones

Texture quality is the surprise. Textures are the images wrapped around objects. They mostly take up video memory (VRAM), not processing power, so if your card has enough VRAM, turning textures down gains you very little fps and makes the game blurrier. Keep them as high as your memory allows. For more on that, see how much graphics memory you need. In the figure, switch the card to 6 GB and watch what happens.

Anti-aliasing smooths jagged edges. The common modern types (FXAA and TAA) are cheap. Older multisampling (MSAA) is heavier. View distance decides how far away things are drawn; it costs a moderate amount, and mostly shows up as objects popping in.

What to turn down first

Press "Cut smart" in the figure to see the same idea: it lowers whichever setting gives the most fps for the least loss, one step at a time, until it reaches 60 fps. Your own order may differ.

Every game is different

This is a rule of thumb, not a benchmark. One game may have cheap shadows and a punishing view distance; another may hit your processor harder than your graphics card. The figure uses invented numbers for one imaginary PC.

The reliable method is to change one setting at a time and look at your fps counter. Many games include a built-in benchmark, and many show in-game hints about the cost. If lowering the graphics barely changes anything, your processor may be the limit, not your GPU. And remember that frame rate only helps if your screen can show it, as we cover in what refresh rate really changes.