A breakdown of the visual settings and how they affect performance

[Uriel]

So, I've been tweaking the visuals for best performance and visuals. In case anyone needs data, or if the devs want to go and alter stuff further on up the road, here's my modest contribution.

I'm running this game on a Ryzen 7 5800X (turbo frequency trimmed down in UEFI to better manage heat) / RTX 3060 TI (power use limited to 90%, which means it boosts slightly less, and in benchmarks it means about 1-1.2 % less performance) / 32 GB of RAM / OS installed on a SSD, game on another SSD. Display is 3440x1440@75Hz, and the goal was to keep the game as pretty as possible while keeping stable 75 FPS, or as stable as possible. Worth mentioning, my FPS is capped at 75 in the options.

Starting point :

Everything set to ultra, I have between 45 and 55 FPS in Skylight. Devs, if you would kindly allow us to set more visuals parameters individually like depth of field or bloom, that would be much appreciated :)

Then let’s see how each option affects performance and looks. For each setting, everything else is set to ultra and I only change that one setting to see how it affects the game.

Resolution quality :

At 71%, it makes the game blurrier and aliasing is more obvious (if you have lowered anti-aliasing setting anyway, in ultra you won’t notice any). Kinda like a really badly done FXAA shader that feels like you’re short sighted and playing without your glasses. Tremendously boosts FPS, as I had a stable 75 without any dip whatsoever. So if you’re dramatically needing a FPS boost, this will do. Bear in mind the game will look worse, though.

Antialiasing :

Between low and ultra, there is roughly a 5 FPS difference on average, which is surprisingly small. At low, a few jagged edges are visible when stationary. Between mid and ultra, I couldn’t notice any visual difference, but mid scraped a few more FPS.

Texture quality :

Low is a bit blurry, kinda looks like old school World of Warcraft. Still, not too bad. FPS was most inconsistent, between 40 and 60 running around Skylight. Mid is visually A LOT better, and FPS was more consistent, between 50 and 60. High looks even better, by a smaller margin though, and weirdly enough the performance was exactly the same. Ultra looks great, but the FPS took a dip, between 48-55, mostly around 50, and the game felt sluggish for some reason.

Post processing :

Low gave me FPS between 55 and 68. Ultra gave me 40 to 52, with the most noticeable dip near water. Aside from water I couldn’t notice much visual difference. So I suggest you use mid, unless you really see something I didn’t or want water to look its best.

Shadow quality :

The visual difference between low and mid is barely noticeable, and they both look hideous, like a terrible mess of huge black pixels. Those settings did boost FPS significantly though, averaging 60 FPS on mid. High is IMHO the best setting, with a moderate impact on performance and clearly defined shadows. Ultra makes the shadows a bit too “soft”, and has a larger impact on performance. Considering the extremely low quality of visuals in low, it would be better as an "off" option.

Foliage quality :

This setting mostly controls the amount of grass blades being rendered. Ultra looks good, but it’s also very impactful on performance. Mid or high are good enough, depending on your own preference and rig power. I couldn't tell any difference on trees.

View distance :

For the life of me, I don’t know what this setting is supposed to do. I couldn’t notice any difference in the scenery between low and ultra. I did notice a minor FPS difference though, but barely significant, like 3 FPS. In the highlands, I noticed some small items popping in as I was getting close. Aside from that, I see no reason to use higher settings here.

FX quality :

Very little visual difference between low and ultra here. From high on, neon signs have reflections in water puddles, but that's it. Standing still looking at said puddle, the FPS difference was a whopping 2 in favor of low. Didn’t notice a difference in combat.

The case of FSR :

This one is peculiar. With everything on ultra, and FSR set to quality, I couldn’t tell much of a difference. It looked a bit more blurry, but not as much as with resolution quality, and the FPS gain was great, running between 70 and 75. However, if your settings are lower, the game quickly becomes disgustingly ugly. Every flaw is amplified by the upscaling.

While it may help you scrap some FPS, it’s better used by setting everything a notch above what’s best for you, then activating it to compensate the FPS loss. This way you might find the game still looks nice. Generally speaking though, if you use it and the game looks ugly, deactivate it and lower other options to gain FPS, it’s a better trade off visually.

The setting that has the highest visual impact is anti-aliasing. Low and mid will make every character look blurry and distorted. High mostly solves the issue, and with ultra you can’t tell the difference. So bear in mind to keep anti-alisasing setting to high or ultra if you’re going to activate FSR. You should still have FPS gain.

Other settings

- Apparently, full screen increases FPS noticeably compared to bordeless window (reportesd by Parrynoia, see below).

[SOLIDAge]

Originally posted by Uriel:

Everything set to ultra, I have between 45 and 55 FPS in Skylight. Devs, if you would kindly allow us to set more visuals parameters individually like depth of field or bloom, that would be much appreciated :)

We have an updating coming soon with more graphical toggles.

[Uriel]

Great ! But that means I have to redo my tests... Oh well, guess I'll turn this into a guide at some point, then :)

[Parrynoia]

That's a great post and helpful - thank you. To be additive to your findings, another thing I've found increases FPS (on my rig) by about 15% across the board is running full screen (vs borderless window). I've no idea why this is :D but it can be quite helpful esp. in the open world areas.

(i7-11700k, 32GB RAM, 4700 Super)

[Uriel]

Originally posted by Parrynoia:

That's a great post and helpful - thank you. To be additive to your findings, another thing I've found increases FPS (on my rig) by about 15% across the board is running full screen (vs borderless window). I've no idea why this is :D but it can be quite helpful esp. in the open world areas.

(i7-11700k, 32GB RAM, 4700 Super)

Ah, thanks for the info. I didn't even think about testing that. I'll edit the first post with the info, make it easier to find if someone stumbles here :)

[Greumch]

Note :
Sometimes when I launch the game, I have heavy stuttering. Being in Ultra or in Low doesn't matter. FPS drop occurs often when in fight with lot of enemies.

.... But sometimes, it's clean. Even in ultra.
Got a ryzen 3600X, a 2060 SUPER and 32Gb.

With that rig, I can start the game in very high (1080p@60fps) and it's clean, even with Twitch running on Chrome on a 2nd display.


I've come with the idea the game suffers from windows CPU management, maybe, since it's what seems to bottleneck performance.

Anyway : I try to never Alt+Tab, and I reboot my computer before launching again the game if the performance are bad.

[Chicken McNugget®]

Please add more graphical settings! Its wholeshome I am struggling to play in steam deck in low-mid while there are things like particles everywhere and other stuff i cannot disable manually! We need full control to achieve better performance in any machine!