Performance Killers

[senseidongen]

So, through trial and error I recently discovered just how badly dynamics shadows (even on low) can absolutely murder performance. It has so much more impact than I expected, that it got me thinking - which other graphical features have a massive effect on performance when enabled? I have heard that AA can, but that seems to depend on the implementation and can be quite game specific in its effect (feel free to correct me if I am wrong).

Any thoughts?

[Rubik748]

The biggest one is the screen resolution. People that want to play games like Metro 2033, Last Light, STALKER CS, CoP or other demanding games, usually end up wasting money on a high end gpu just to cope with todays 1080p monitors. Whereas older gamers or those with less than 19020x1080p can get away with higher graphics settings.

[POPTART]

Publicado originalmente por Rubik748:

The biggest one is the screen resolution. People that want to play games like Metro 2033, Last Light, STALKER CS, CoP or other demanding games, usually end up wasting money on a high end gpu just to cope with todays 1080p monitors. Whereas older gamers or those with less than 19020x1080p can get away with higher graphics settings.

Your correct.....takes alot of juice to runner higher rez. I run at 5760 x 1080 all the time and it costs me alot for hardware to push this.....

I'd never go back to one monitor though.....lol

[senseidongen]

Yeah at first I thought it was amazing that it makes that much difference, but then I got my calculator out and realised that 720p is literally half the pixels of 1080p! Problem is, it never quite looks right not running at native res in my opinion: I'd rather dial down settings before dialling down res to be honest.

On that note, is there any easy way to upscale lower res to fill the screen on PC? I know that's how the 360 and PS3 work but lower res on my machine puts black borders around the edge

[POPTART]

Good question....Anyone?

[Rubik748]

Me thinks use a tv over a monitor for that.

[senseidongen]

I do! still happens: If anything it happens on my laptop less than the desktop linked to my TV

[Rubik748]

You could better ask this in the Hardware&Operating systems section of the forums.

[senseidongen]

I may well start a thread yeah

[SavageBeastZero]

Publicado originalmente por senseidongen:

Yeah at first I thought it was amazing that it makes that much difference, but then I got my calculator out and realised that 720p is literally half the pixels of 1080p! Problem is, it never quite looks right not running at native res in my opinion: I'd rather dial down settings before dialling down res to be honest.

On that note, is there any easy way to upscale lower res to fill the screen on PC? I know that's how the 360 and PS3 work but lower res on my machine puts black borders around the edge

To alleviate the black boarders in lower resolutions on ATI cards do to AMD Vision Engine Control Center/My Digital Flat Panel/Scaaling Options. In Scaling options select use scaling values instead of when the desk top does not meet your DFP resolution. Then pending the resolution/value you require, adjust the scaling value to force the boarders to meet your screen size. Although, this is time cosuming when loading a game of lower resolution it makes a huge difference when your system has difficulties running the applicaation in native configurations.

[Joker]

ambient occlusion
anti-aliasing
anisotropic filtering
vsync

[WhiteKnight77]

I wrote this report on Effects of Antialiasing and Anisotropic Filtering on Ghost Recon[www.ghostrecon.net] some time ago and even though there has been some progression in those features, they still put a hit on a games performance.

[senseidongen]

Yeah I have noticed reflections, AA and AF also do that, but with AA and AF I find the trade-off is normally worth it. I will have a read of your report later :)

[Frontside Hail Satan]

Do AA and AF affect cpu performance? I have a decent graphics card but my processor is a piece of crap and I'm low on RAM for now. Usually games are automatically tuned to the recommended settings based on the graphics card, and changing everything to low for example doesn't make the games run any smoother. I guess there's not much to do other than to upgrade those parts..

[Zefar]

Publicado originalmente por cryptik:

ambient occlusion
anti-aliasing
anisotropic filtering
vsync

Vsync limits the FPS to 60 and gets rid of screen tearing. I doubt it has much impact on the actual FPS after that.

[WhiteKnight77]

Publicado originalmente por Echrothy:

Do AA and AF affect cpu performance? I have a decent graphics card but my processor is a piece of crap and I'm low on RAM for now. Usually games are automatically tuned to the recommended settings based on the graphics card, and changing everything to low for example doesn't make the games run any smoother. I guess there's not much to do other than to upgrade those parts..

AA and AF are dependent on the graphics card, not the CPU. Some games use the CPU in how it runs such as MS Flight Simulator.