The 4K experience on a Ryzen 3600 / 3060 Ti / 32GB RAM...

[TeRRoR]

...is actually pretty great. When you aren't an idiot, ofc.

I'd consider my rig to be mid-range and I am around 4.5h deep into the game. I made a few compromises in order to play on my native 4K 32" display, but overall I am very happy with framerates, frametimes, stability and graphical fidelity. I can't complain.

If anyone's interested I can explain how I got there and what I mean with "compromises"

[badfluffy]

People cranking everything to 11 on low range machines are screaming bloody murder but really even on high settings with a few tweaks, it's running smooth and pretty on my mid-range laptop

[Mazza]

Originally posted by TeRRoR:

...is actually pretty great. When you aren't an idiot, ofc.

I'd consider my rig to be mid-range and I am around 4.5h deep into the game. I made a few compromises in order to play on my native 4K 32" display, but overall I am very happy with framerates, frametimes, stability and graphical fidelity. I can't complain.

If anyone's interested I can explain how I got there and what I mean with "compromises"

Stick it up lets have a look

[TeRRoR]

BASICS:
1. Fresh driver of course, the one nVidia released yesterday
2. Install the official patch for TLOU, released today
3. Cap your framerate with RTSS (even when using VSync) to get clean frametimes


50Hz GANG:
I know some consider this a crime, but the game is perfectly smooth and perfectly playable at 50 fps, even for some freak like me who like their 100+ fps. All you have to do is to set up a custom resolution in the Nvidia control panel and change the Hz to 50 (leave the resolution at native). This means you can have VSync enabled with 50 Hz (so it's smooth. Just capping frames with an external tool while the display runs at 60 Hz will lead to a horrible experience). This works very well with other games that are relatively slow and played with a controller too, like RDR2 or Days Gone, for example. Talking percentages, this means you have ~20% less frames to render which gives a lot of headroom. Just make sure to add a custom resolution and give it a try.

"DISPLAY" settings:

Resolution: 3840x2160
VSync: ON
Framerate Cap: UNLOCKED

Scaling Mode: DLSS
Quality: Balanced
Sharpening: 66


"GRAPHICS" settings:

Set the preset to "medium" and then make the following changes:

Texture Settings: the first two from medium to low and "Texture Filtering" to 16x

Reflection Settings: set "Real Time Reflections" from low to medium

Post Effects Settings: turn off Motion Blur (obviously)


Result: smooth experience on mid-range hardware in 4K, with some little compromises. This also means VRAM usage < 8GB and the game looks absolutely stunning, *and* I'd argue it's so close to the 4090 experience that I really don't see why I'd get one.

P.S: There's prolly headroom for further improvements but I didn't had the nerve to investigate each and every option in the graphics menu.

P.S.S: I played around with some graphics settings but that lead to more crashes. The ones mentioned seem stable for now. So when you crank things up, make sure you do it one at a time in order to find the bad apples (if that is even related, I am not sure yet and if it's maybe only true for my system. We can only try things at this point)

[TeRRoR]

Originally posted by Bootstrap:

You're probably running medium textures, which look garbage.

I guess they look worse than the Ultra ones? To call the best texture work out their "garbage" is weird, but okay :)
The game overall looks amazing, there's no denying it. Even with "medium" textures.

[TeRRoR]

Originally posted by Mazza:

Originally posted by TeRRoR:

...is actually pretty great. When you aren't an idiot, ofc.

I'd consider my rig to be mid-range and I am around 4.5h deep into the game. I made a few compromises in order to play on my native 4K 32" display, but overall I am very happy with framerates, frametimes, stability and graphical fidelity. I can't complain.

If anyone's interested I can explain how I got there and what I mean with "compromises"

Stick it up lets have a look

Sorry, forgot to quote. See above.

[8-Bit Ears]

Using dlss is NOT 4k, dlss balanced is basically 720p

The same way consoles arnt 4k, using dlss is not 4k. not even close. it looks like trash compared to actual native 4k

[Litwick]

This is what PC gaming is about. Experimenting with different settings and finding what suits you best. I remember back in the day nobody expected to run games maxed out. We were just happy to run them at all. Thanks for the guide.

[Mazza]

Originally posted by 8-Bit Ears:

Using dlss is NOT 4k, dlss balanced is basically 720p

Umm no it isn't.

Using Balanced DLSS at 4K uses a internal render of 2227x1253 or a resolution close to that, then its upscaled to 3840x2160.

[8-Bit Ears]

Originally posted by Mazza:

Originally posted by 8-Bit Ears:

Using dlss is NOT 4k, dlss balanced is basically 720p

Umm no it isn't.

Using Balanced DLSS at 4K uses a internal render of 2227x1253 or a resolution close to that, then its upscaled to 3840x2160.

Either way its NOT 4k and looks like trash compared to native. Even quality looks terrible, barely better than 1440p.

[Mexicola9302]

Originally posted by 8-Bit Ears:

Using dlss is NOT 4k, dlss balanced is basically 720p

The same way consoles arnt 4k, using dlss is not 4k. not even close. it looks like trash compared to actual native 4k

Even DLSS Performance is still rendered at 1080p and upscaled to 2160p again. Only Ultra Performance is rendering at 720p, but that isn't a thing in this game.

[Mexicola9302]

Originally posted by 8-Bit Ears:

Originally posted by Mazza:

Umm no it isn't.

Using Balanced DLSS at 4K uses a internal render of 2227x1253 or a resolution close to that, then its upscaled to 3840x2160.

Either way its NOT 4k and looks like trash compared to native. Even quality looks terrible, barely better than 1440p.

DLSS Quality looks perfectly fine.

[GermanyMan]

Originally posted by TeRRoR:

...is actually pretty great. When you aren't an idiot, ofc.

I'd consider my rig to be mid-range and I am around 4.5h deep into the game. I made a few compromises in order to play on my native 4K 32" display, but overall I am very happy with framerates, frametimes, stability and graphical fidelity. I can't complain.

If anyone's interested I can explain how I got there and what I mean with "compromises"

How would you know not owning the game?
Ah, you pirated it. Makes sense.

[Mexicola9302]

Originally posted by GermanyMan:

Originally posted by TeRRoR:

...is actually pretty great. When you aren't an idiot, ofc.

I'd consider my rig to be mid-range and I am around 4.5h deep into the game. I made a few compromises in order to play on my native 4K 32" display, but overall I am very happy with framerates, frametimes, stability and graphical fidelity. I can't complain.

If anyone's interested I can explain how I got there and what I mean with "compromises"

How would you know not owning the game?
Ah, you pirated it. Makes sense.

I am pretty sure some ppl even downloaded it while they owned it, and then refunded it and just installed a crack. Afaik this should work. But hey it's understandable, for some ppl the game is 10 years old and they already played through it dozen of times.

For me it's like a new game, because i never played it, so i don't really feel bad that i paid money for it.

[GermanyMan]

Originally posted by Mexicola9302:

Originally posted by GermanyMan:

How would you know not owning the game?
Ah, you pirated it. Makes sense.

I am pretty sure some ppl even downloaded it while they owned it, and then refunded it and just installed a crack. Afaik this should work. But hey it's understandable, for some ppl the game is 10 years old and they already played through it dozen of times.

For me it's like a new game, because i never played it, so i don't really feel bad that i paid money for it.

The thing is those people claim that "It runs fine" on their 5k € Rig yet cant afford a 60€ title.
They are fake, like their Rigs.

[SteveZee]

Originally posted by Alt Cunningham:

Originally posted by 8-Bit Ears:

Either way its NOT 4k and looks like trash compared to native. Even quality looks terrible, barely better than 1440p.

No it doesn't ,4k QUality DLSS tries to stay as close to the native resolution as possible, DLSS can help and improve native aliasing issues. The OP is legit trying to help and you are trashing his post with nonsense. Get out of here!

Its doesnt really do dlss quality that well as dlss quality will never be super close to native. It may be somewhere in between 1440p and native, but it would argue its further awayish than closer. Ill bet 1800p is still cleaner than DLSS quality (like .88). That being said, using DLAA is very usable and Quality is probably fine in a pinch. Far better than FSR in terms of image clarity.