PC games and the differences between low and ultra-detail graphics

[mikeymikec]

Admittedly I feel like I'm on the outside looking in as the last game I bought was XCOM2 WOTC (and I've largely held back on buying new ones until I at least can realistically afford to replace my R9 380X, as Cyberpunk 2077 runs at about 30FPS @ 1080p and doesn't feel great), but I'm really puzzled about the apparent lack of difference between graphics detail settings for more modern games.

Here's an example:

Here's another:

In one comparison video I noticed some lighting differences, unlike comparing between raster and ray-tracing though a light and day difference IMO.

An easier to compare example here:

Immortals of Aveum Benchmark Test and Performance Analysis Review - Optimization Fail

Immortals of Aveum is built using Unreal Engine 5 and has both Lumen and Nanite enabled, which achieves impressive graphical effects. In our performance review, we're taking a closer look at image quality, VRAM usage, and performance on a wide selection of modern graphics cards.

www.techpowerup.com

I'm also wondering just how much of a difference the low/high graphics detail slider made historically, because a quick look at a few Witcher 3 detail level comparisons had me scratching my head at the lack of differences. I had the impression that historically the low/high slider ought to have been labelled "potato or decent graphics", but then when I come to think of it I've always played at high graphics detail levels, occasionally doing a few tweaks of extra settings like 'motion blur' I think it's called in W3.

StarCraft 2 has a pretty big difference between graphics details levels such as in this cut scene:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJc75j82QZs
In-game I recall the graphics detail changes went from the lower settings giving the game less lighting, plainer textures and a more cartoonish look.

 

[quikah]

The different settings just turn on/off various graphics techniques. The base visual in modern games can be kind of heavy.

I think DigitalFoundry does a really good job of going over the various settings and how they effect game visuals in their PC analyses and optimized settings videos. Here are a couple of links to their Starfield and Baldur's Gate 3 videos.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Just spitballing here: As graphics become more complex, there is less stuff a developer can reasonably "turn off" while still retaining some coherent visual fidelity in the game. Stuff like lighting and shadows are tied to textures and geometry in a way they never were in old DX10 and earlier games. Additionally, ray tracing has shown us that doing realistic lighting is computationally *expensive* without necessarily providing a huge upgrade in visual fidelity (cue raging debate on raytracing etc).

Combine that with the fact that GPUs have a ton of shading power at their disposal, even at the "entry level" with stuff like the 7600, there just isn't that much performance to be gained shading at a lower rate.

Will be wild if we see stuff like Nanite used in the future as a performance enhancing tool rather than a image quality enhancing tool, bringing the much touted promise of tessellation to reality by allowing a user to pick a frame rate and then dynamically scaling down geometry detail until they hit their target.

 

[A///]

Just spitballing here: As graphics become more complex, there is less stuff a developer can reasonably "turn off" while still retaining some coherent visual fidelity in the game. Stuff like lighting and shadows are tied to textures and geometry in a way they never were in old DX10 and earlier games. Additionally, ray tracing has shown us that doing realistic lighting is computationally *expensive* without necessarily providing a huge upgrade in visual fidelity (cue raging debate on raytracing etc).

Combine that with the fact that GPUs have a ton of shading power at their disposal, even at the "entry level" with stuff like the 7600, there just isn't that much performance to be gained shading at a lower rate.

Will be wild if we see stuff like Nanite used in the future as a performance enhancing tool rather than a image quality enhancing tool, bringing the much touted promise of tessellation to reality by allowing a user to pick a frame rate and then dynamically scaling down geometry detail until they hit their target.

You may be onto something. Recall the rumour from leakers that NVidia is redesigning how their SM's are and how they work for blackwell? It may be a sign of changes to come. Outside the lujkewarm mcm issue amd ran into them taking it easy with rdna4 seems like it'll give them time to design their future cards with that in mind too.