Optimal Display / Audio Settings

This guide explains how Display and Audio settings work and how to optimally adjust them, assuming ideal conditions and hardware.

Display

1) Color Space:
Rec.709 is recommended as it makes dark areas appear darker due to higher gamma. sRGB appears slightly washed out in comparison, but either standard is fine.

On a side note, the Graphics Memory bar and warnings that come with increasing certain settings can be safely (but not entirely) ignored in all modern Resident Evil games to date (starting with the Resident Evil 2 remake) as they are not entirely accurate. Opening the PC Specs menu while playing the game shows the real amount of VRAM being used at any point. However, keep in mind that the suggested VRAM limit actually refers to peaks under heavy load as memory usage is variable. In my case (RTX 4070 Ti, all Graphics settings set to highest-quality options including Ray Tracing, at native 2560x1440), the limit has never been reached (around 2 GB of headroom in the worst case scenario, often up to 6 GB) despite the main Display menu suggesting otherwise. I have never noticed any kind of visual or performance issues in any Resident Evil game with these warning messages about serious bugs occurring when the suggested VRAM limit in the main Display menu is exceeded.

2) Max Brightness:
Max Brightness should be increased all the way, resulting in more detail in bright areas.

3) Min Brightness:
Similarly, Min Brightness should be decreased all the way, resulting in more detail in dark areas. This way, the whole dynamic range (contrast between the brightest and the darkest pixels) is preserved, resulting in more natural graphics.

4) Brightness:
This is the actual brightness setting that should be adjusted as suggested by the description. Unlike Max Brightness and Min Brightness, this setting does not affect dynamic range when properly adjusted.

5) Comparison:
To demonstrate the difference between dynamic ranges and the color spaces, below are 4 images (JPG, because of the 2 MB file size limit on Steam, but still enough to see the difference) of different dynamic range and color space combinations, all taken with Brightness in the middle.

Rec.709, full dynamic range:

sRGB, full dynamic range:

Rec.709, limited dynamic range (3rd line from Brighter, 3rd line from Darker):

sRGB, limited dynamic range (3rd line from Brighter, 3rd line from Darker):

Audio

1) Voice Volume, BGM Volume and Sound Effect Volume:
These settings are increased all the way by default and should be left as is for the mix to remain balanced as originally intended.

2) Dynamic Range:
In this case, dynamic range is the volume difference between the quietest and the loudest sounds, rather than contrast between the darkest and the brightest parts of an image. Setting this to Large sounds more natural in terms of volume levels, but also preserves detail in the lowest and the highest frequencies. Large Dynamic Range may require higher volume levels to sound right.

3) Audio Output Device:
Self-explanatory.

4) Virtual Surround:
This option is designed to be used with headphones and makes no audible difference with Windows Sonic for Headphones disabled, but with both features enabled, sound quality is significantly degraded and the "Virtual Surround" effect is more or less the same as without them since headphones and stereo speakers can only do so much when it comes to the "surround" effect. Generally speaking, disabling all software processing features like this one ensures the highest sound quality.

Image Source

https://steamcommunity.com/stats/1196590/achievements