Graphics settings guide

This guide shows differences between various levels of settings, and adds some guidance how to increase your performance if you have a slower computer.

Please note that I did not include Anisotropic filtering and Antialiasing. Mostly because they work the same in every game and you can even force or modify them trough drivers.

All the settings were screenshotted as the rest of the settings were on Ultra/High. I used the recommended FXAA as Antialiasing.

Please comment and rate, so I can improve this guide.

SSAO (Screen Space Ambient Occlusion)

If you have a decent videocard, this setting won't kill your performance, but I recommend keeping it on at least LOW, because it adds a nice level of shading to the scenery, especially interiors.

Lower settings give a bit more 'noisy' feel to SSAO.

Off

Low

Medium

High

Ultra

Mirrors

This setting either enables or disables real time reflections.
When disabled, the real time render of the environment seems to be exchanged to a static reflection box.
This is heavy on both your CPU and GPU as well.

Enabled

Disabled

Enabled

Disabled

Texture quality

If you have low video/system memory, you should decrease on this setting.
Notice that high quality still preserves the ultra textures on the hand and sword model.

Ultra

High
[/previewimg]

Normal

Low

Shadows

• High quality gives smooth shadows with higher resolution.
  
• Medium gives Smooth shadows with lower resolution.
  
• Low seems to be the same resolution as medium but without smoothing.

High

Medium

Low

Postprocessing

• The high settings enable real time light shafts, bloom and depth of field.

(The game uses pre built and real time light shaft effects as well, you can easily tell which is real-time as it only appears when you look towards the sun/moon)

• Medium setting still has bloom and lensflares.

• Low has all the above turned off

High (depth of field can be seen here and when you zoom with your guns)
Medium
Low

High (light shafts here)

Medium

Low

Foliage and Debris

This effect controls the amount of grass, flowers and I assume detail objects in the game.
Notice that on the ultra settings, foliage is visible farther in the distance too. (Left side of the picture)

Disabled

Low

Normal

Ultra

The rest I could not screenshot

Particles

These must control the sparks and explosion effects in the game. Can't really screenshot them, but if you have some lag when there are a lot of explosions on screen, you might try to lower this.

Physics

Haven't seen any special changes with this, probably noticeable when bodies are falling apart and how explosions effect bodies. I think this is CPU heavy, so if you have an old CPU, set this lower.

Remains

I think it affects how long dead bodyparts remain on screen, or their numbers.

Closing comments

Feel free to add comments and suggest modifications, so I can expand this guide further.

[Xx_the-most-villainous-jorker_xX]

thank you mr fer man

[meirza141]

so i have 2 gb ram and why the game is lag??

[Lebhleb]

So what should i keep on or of

[Princess Milissa Annie]

I have AMD 5557M with AMD 8550G HD. I Have everything on Highest settings. SSAO and Anisotropic filtering and Antialiasing are OFF. Physics also at Normal.

[SkidaRu]

Direct X12 Windows 10 has Litterally doubled my frame rate on my GTX680. Ultra Settings in SW. Even though people are saying the games needs DX12 support i'm still getting improvments. I spent a while disbaling as much of the sneaky data mining and services in Win10 as possible.. I don't normally OC my GPU but I do use EVGA Precision X16 to OC the Cards Memclock by 650-700Mhz. This gives me much better results than OC'ing the GPU clock.. Even without any OC or disabling the Win10 junk it's just better. Mantle sure gave MS and Nvidia a good level up

[SkidaRu]

Direct X12 Windows 10 has Litterally doubled my frame rate on my GTX680. Ultra Settings. I spent a while disbaling as much of the sneaky data mining and services in Win10 as possible.. I don't normally OC my GPU but I do Use EVGA Precision X16 to OC the Cards Memclock by 650-700Mhz. This gives me much better results than OC'ing the GPU clock.. Even with OC or disabling the Win10 junk it's just better. Mantle sure gave MS and Nvidia a good level up

[FourMore]

Recently I realized that the FMVs are really slow for some reason. As the menu is using videos, it's not surprising. I didn't know it's related to vsync tho.

[Rithela]

Forgot to mention, turning vsync on makes the menu backgrounds kinda slow for some reason.

[Rithela]

Dunno if this a thing for anyone else but..having vsync actually helps in this game. Normally I have it off since it generally gives more FPS. But with Shadow Warrior, my FPS dips pretty low without it on. Turning vsync on gave me a solid 60 FPS. I'm running the game in 1920x1080 with the graphics settings on the 'High' setting.

[MrDerpHerpin]

*Intel