Graphics Settings: Am I going crazy?

[2TallTony]

So I've been playing around with the graphics settings and I can't see a difference between the lowest settings and the highest settings while playing. The only way I can see a subtle difference is if I take screen shots and compare side by side. That only applies to Ambient Occlusion from what I can see.

Am I losing my mind here? Do any of you out there see the same lack of difference? I turned off all resolution scaling already so its just set to 1440p (native for my screen). I also made sure my drivers are up to date, did multiple restarts, and reinstalled the game.

Textures look the same, shadows, particle effects, everything. I think it looks good not great in general. With how I see it there are definitely better looking games on the market right now. I'm not trying to dump on the game, its super fun. I'm just trying to figure this out.

What has been your experience with changing the visual settings?

[margalus]

I put it on nightmare and didn't look at any other setting. Maybe later after I get home I will try different settings.

[2TallTony]

Originally posted by margalus:

I put it on nightmare and didn't look at any other setting. Maybe later after I get home I will try different settings.

Yeah, let me know what you see. Thanks in advance!

[margalus]

Yeah, you're not crazy. I put it on Low and looked and didn't see much difference at all. It looks really good on low also, even though it uses almost half the vram as nightmare. On nightmare my 6GB gpu's vram is 100% used, on low it's only 3.3GB used while looking almost identical. Lighting differences were most noticeable to me and far objects weren't quite as clear. But you really have to pay attention to see any differences at all. That was quite surprising, I thought the textures would be quite a bit lower resolution.

[Defective Dopamine Pez Dispenser]

The difference from low to Ultra Nightmare, while noticeable - especially shadows, reflections (and water, oddly enough) - are definitely not dramatic, which is awesome. The most notable difference I've seen personally is just clarity and sharpness. But even then, it's not so profound as to look bad at all on lower settings imo.

The AA solution in this game is also great, it has much less aliasing than 2016 did on lower resolutions, which may also be a large part of why it looks so sharp even with lower res textures. And if you at all meet the specs, it runs like butter. I'm honestly incredibly impressed given the insane amount of geometry in some areas. (Enough to cut a framerate in half in some areas depending on hardware lol.)

[Biffguh]

can we have low settings actually look like low settings again?

[2TallTony]

Ok, so I'm not going nuts or need a new prescription for my glasses, haha. There's very little difference between the highest and lowest settings.

I agree with the AA solution being really good too. The first thing I noticed when I booted it up was how few jaggies there are, which is great. Aliasing is one of my graphical pet peeves.

Anyway, thanks for your responses!

[SentineL_VDXi [ARG]]

Well at least I'm not the only one noticing that haha... I thought the video settings were not applying the highest quality...
Same thing over here... low and highest have no difference...

[2TallTony]

Originally posted by SentineL_VDXi:

Well at least I'm not the only one noticing that haha... I thought the video settings were not applying the highest quality...
Same thing over here... low and highest have no difference...

Yeah, we're not crazy! haha

[fenderjaguar]

the graphics look very similar on low to highest. I think you might as well just have mostly lowest settings, for the peroformance, unless you have monster GPU. people sometimes attack you for saying this though.

I have noticed that a lot of games these days, the graphics settings have mostly levelled out. I first notice it on Dirt 2, and by the time battlefield 3 came out, we were pretty much there.

[among us balls]

Just shows how well optimized the game is tbh, they managed to make low look as good as high, not the other way around.

[FunkyMonk]

Lowest looks pretty dope yea.

[SentineL_VDXi [ARG]]

Lowest looks nice, but when you expect Ultra to look like Ultra and find it looks like Low... and check on Doom 2016, and it looks better...
Man... I want them to check that...

Game is another story... I bought Doom, not Quake 3 Arena, but that's for another thread.

[2TallTony]

Yeah, I understand the game is very well optimized but I am very curious about the lack of delta too. Even to the point that I'm putting on my tinfoil hat and thinking it may have a bug preventing the settings from actually going up to ultra. As though they are stuck at medium for the high point or something...

[margalus]

Originally posted by 2TallTony:

Yeah, I understand the game is very well optimized but I am very curious about the lack of delta too. Even to the point that I'm putting on my tinfoil hat and thinking it may have a bug preventing the settings from actually going up to ultra. As though they are stuck at medium for the high point or something...

The changes take affect. You can see the differences if you look hard. You can also look at your gpu and gpu memory usage and see the difference in usage.

[fartknocker]

going from nightmare to low in 4k didnt change my fps at all really maybe 1 or 2 frames lol was kinda disappointed i had to settle with 1440p. could only manage 40-50fps in 4k