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PC Report: XCOM 2 - Optimized Video Settings for Quality and Performance

RaTcHeT302

By RaTcHeT302,
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RaTcHeT302    105

RaTcHeT302
Posted

PC Reports are a series of quick first impressions regarding the technical aspects of a PC game. For an up to date account of XCOM 2 fixes and improvements, please visit its respective PCGamingWiki article.

 

XCOM 2 is the latest game in the XCOM series, developed by Firaxis Games and published by 2K Games, running on the Unreal Engine 3.

 

The game was released on February 5, 2016 for Windows, OS X and Linux. The main focus of this report is to aid users in finding the most optimal and best looking graphical settings in order to solve and even prevent most framerate issues.

System Requirements

Minimum

  • CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E4700 @ 2.6 GHz or AMD Phenom 9950 Quad Core @ 2.6 GHz
  • RAM: 4 GB
  • HDD: 45 GB
  • GPU: ATI Radeon HD 5770, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 (1GB, DirectX 11)
  • OS: Windows 7 (x64)

Recommended

  • CPU: Quad Core CPU @ 3 GHz
  • RAM: 8 GB
  • GPU: ATI Radeon HD 7970, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770 (2GB, DirectX 11)
While the hardware requirements for this game might not look like much, computers around or below the minimum system requirements are going to have a difficult time playing this game at a comfortable framerate.

 

Testing was performed on a system with an Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400 CPU with 4 GBs of RAM and an Asus GeForce GTX 650 Ti, running at a resolution of 2048x1152.

 

XCOM 2 Video 1

XCOM 2 Video 2

 

Antialiasing

On lower end systems even the FXAA setting can largely affect the overall performance. This setting alone does a pretty poor job at masking most jagged lines. While the MSAA itself might behave better visually there's very little point in using it, considering how harsh the performance impact can be, newer systems will most likely struggle to play at a comfortable framerate with it at any settings. Antialiasing is one of the main reasons as to why the game might run poorly. If the game is in dire need of more frames disable this feature, even if it's set to the FXAA mode.

 

Antialiasing Benchmark

 

Click on the image to see an animated comparison. This image is best viewed in a fullscreen tab.

Animated FXAA Antialiasing

 

Ambient Occlusion

This setting adds soft shadows to any objects when applied, without it an entity might look like it's floating. It is often used to give a scene or entity a better sense of depth and to evenly light most objects, as they would otherwise look too bright.

 

Ambient Occlusion SSAO

 

The first setting applies a lighter ambient occlusion effect over any ground tiles or buildings located near the fog of war. It does not affect areas currently in view by the player

 

 

The second setting also applies to objects such as rocks, trees and buildings. Most differences are very difficult to spot during gameplay, daylight areas will however look slightly better because of the darker lighting.

 

 

Objects with edges over the fog of war will smoothly blend in with the smoke screen, the transparency values are automatically adjusted and improved by the SSAO setting.

 

 

Click on the image to see an animated comparison with all the pictures.

Ambient Occlusion Animated

 

This setting applies differently to every environment, not all entities will behave the same way, the performance impact is also dependant on the level itself.

 

 

Characters are also affected by this setting, along with any objects they might be carrying, which will also in turn begin casting their own softwer shadows. These smaller changes are mainly noticeable during combat.

 

 

The ambient occlusion setting can have a severe effect on the in-game performance. Even on its own it can still be pretty intensive, disable it if in need of more frames.

 

Ambient Occlusion Benchmark

 

Decals

Decals are used to add more detail to an area, static ground decals will be disabled on the lowest setting, other dynamic decals such as bullet holes will also dissapear.

 

Decals Performance Benchmark

 

Shadows

There are no visible differences between the two lowest settings, if there even are any in the first place. This setting does not affect the shadows themselves in any way, no setting exists in order to completely disable the shadows either.

 

 

On the highest setting characters will begin casting their own shadows, the shadow quality setting can also very slightly influence how they'll look like. To clearly spot the differences, look at the characters on the right side. They will begin casting a silhouette like shadow on the ground.

 

 

Click on the image to see an animated comparison with all the pictures.

Shadows Animated

 

If the game is running poorly this setting is best left on Directional Only due to how taxing it can be.

Shadows Benchmark

 

Shadow Quality

This setting mainly controls how the shadows will look like. On the lowest settings they will have a softer look, while at higher values the game will begin using hard shadows instead, these shadows can never be completely disabled.

 

 

What this is set to mainly comes down to user preference. There isn't an in between setting which combines both types of shadows. The differences between the two highest settings are most likely only visible at very specific angles.

 

 

Click on the image to see an animated comparison with all the pictures.

Animated Shadow Quality

 

This setting did not affect the game's performance in any way, but if the game does slightly stutter when using the Maximum value, try lowering the Shadow Quality setting to either Medium or High.

 

Shadow Quality Benchmark

 

Texture Detail

Another pretty self explanatory setting, notice the car on the far left and the walkway on the bottom right corner to spot some of the more major differences.

 

 

Click on the image to see an animated comparison with all the pictures.

Animated Texture Detail 1

 

Even the bullet casings are affected by this setting due to them being actual in-game models.

 

Models with an emmisive material will also shine brighter at higher settings.

 

 

Click on the image to see an animated comparison with all the pictures.

Animated Texture Detail 2

 

This setting can easily be left on High if the game is stuttering or if that one extra frame is really needed.

 

Texture Detail Benchmark

 

Depth of Field

This effect is very difficult to spot unless the camera itself is placed at a more specific angle. It is far noticeable on the main menu, but otherwise it does not show up too often during normal gameplay.

 

Main Menu Depth of Field Bokeh.png

 

Both the simple and bokeh depth of field effects look pretty similar. This effect is mainly active while a character is taking aim or while shooting during the combat phases.

 

Depth Of Field Bokeh

 

This effect can still affect the overall in-game performance even while it's inactive, there's very little point in keeping it enabled on lower end systems if the game is doing poorly.

 

Depth Of Field Benchmark

 

Draw Distance

This setting mainly controls the density of ground details and whenever some of the farther buildings will appear.

 

3 Depth Of Field Bokeh Draw Distance High Main Menu

 

The effect of this setting is clearly visible during combat and while sitting on the main menu, highly noticeable on the level with the two radar dishes, it is also complemented by the depth of field setting.

 

Woosh Its Cool Man

 

At higher values rocks and other ground decals will be displayed throughout the level, along with even more foliage. This setting can have a very large impact on the look of the game.

 

 

The differences between Medium and High are not as harsh however. The differences between these two settings can only be seen at really weird angles.

 

 

 

 

Click on the image to see an animated comparison with all the pictures.

Animated Draw Distance

 

 

This setting can be optimally left on Medium in order to gain some performance. On lower end systems it should be set to Low if the game is running poorly. The game might behave differently depending on which area is currently being played on. The performance in a desert might be worse due to the extra ground details.

 

Draw Distance Benchmark

 

High Res Translucency

There were no clear visible changes, but there is no performance impact so it can be left on.

 

High Res Translucency Benchmark

 

Bloom

This setting adds a glow like effect to any active light sources or to any emmisive materials. If no antialiasing modes are turned on this effect will not always be visible.

 

 

This effect will only be partially enabled if the FXAA mode is disabled.

 

 

The bloom setting should not impact the framerate in any way, it's a very lightweight effect.

 

Bloom Performance Benchmark

 

Dirty Lens

A very subtle effect which mimics a lens flare like light.

 

34 Dirty Lens Example

 

Textures with any emissive materials are affected by this setting.

 

 

Most if not all light sources should be able to generate their our lens flare like look.

 

 

This setting should have next to no real performance impact.

 

Dirty Lens Benchmark

 

Subsurface Scattering

A lighting effect mainly applied on skin like materials when a light is directly cast upon them. It attempts to mimick light passing through skin.

 

He Looks Pretty Cool

 

This effect is barely noticeable during normal gameplay, but it's a small gimmicky effect which makes things look a tiny bit nicer.

 

 

Click on the image to see an animated comparison with all the pictures.

Subsurface Scattering Animated

 

Subsurface Scattering Benchmark

 

Screen Space Reflections

The name of the setting itself is slightly misleading, seeing as it also adds a darker shadowy outline to most objects and characters, while partially affecting the environment itself. Notice the outline on the sniper rifle.

 

 

Click on the image to see an animated comparison with all the pictures.

Screen Space Reflections Animated 1

 

The reflections themselves are actually really difficult to notice and they only appear under very specific circumstances.

 

 

Click on the image to see an animated comparison with all the pictures.

Screen Space Reflections Animated 2

 

When the effect is seen in action it actually looks really subtle, it's barely noticeable and it's very easy to miss. Desks and other decorative entities only very slightly benefit from the effect.

 

 

Click on the image to see an animated comparison with all the pictures.

Animated Screen Space Reflections 3

 

It takes a very specific angle for the effect to be visibly more obvious, but even then it's extremely subtle and most players will never notice if they are quickly moving the camera around.

 

 

Click on the image to see an animated comparison with all the pictures.

Animated Screen Space Reflections 4

 

As far as actual reflections go, only objects such as these billboards actually seem to have proper reflections. The bullet shells also have a shadowy outline attached to them.

 

 

Click on the image to see an animated comparison with all the pictures.

Animated Screen Space Reflections 5

 

Even when applied to a scene which should have plenty of reflective objects, the effect of the setting over the environment is incredibly minor. No real settings exist to actually disable or enable any other reflections.

 

 

Click on the image to see an animated comparison with all the pictures.

Animated Screen Space Reflections 6

 

This setting should be disabled if a better framerate is needed, even when turned on it doesn't do much in order to actually change the look of the game. This should only be enable for the extra eye candy.

 

Screen Space Reflections Benchmark

 

Performance analysis

These are the settings which have been used to setup these benchmarks in the report. Among the most performance intensive settings are Antialiasing (FXAA), Ambient Occlusion, Shadows, Depth of Field, Draw Distance and Screen Space Reflections, disable or lower any of these settings in order to get a significant performance gain if the game is behaving extremely poorly.

 

Optimized Settings For This System

 

Oddly enough the level which perfomed the worst overall has been the base of operations itself, otherwise even at 30 FPS the game did behave pretty decently, while the framerate might not have been optimal there were no major input lag issues and the game was still playable, anything below 30 FPS was otherwise pretty rough to play with, during usual gameplay however even the camera distance itself affected the framerate, while this might not be a great solution, if the game is performing too badly try zooming in a little bit in order to gain a few extra frames in order to make the game slightly more bearable to play with.

 

Certain settings have a placebo like effect, mainly the Texture Detail and the Shadow Quality settings, it doesn't really matter what these two are set to, they won't improve or ruin the framerate in any way. In the worst case the Texture Detail setting has to be set to High, but even then there's such a minor loss in performance, to the point where it actually doesn't really matter too much, unless the average framerate is really low.

 

Level Benchmark

 

After reading the report most changes should now be pretty obvious.

 

 

Controls

All keys can be remapped on both the mouse and keyboard, buttons such as Mouse 4 and Mouse 5 will also work for example. There's also a feature which is never explained anywhere throughout the game, hold the Ctrl key, then push the movement button in order to create a waypoint for your soldier to go at.

 

XCOM 2 Input

 

Audio

There's nothing really special to talk about here, however there's a very strange issue where no sounds can be completely muted, even when the slider is fully to the left. In order to trigger this, set the master volume to the maximum value, then completely disable the in-game music, then raise the volume of your computer, the background music should still be playing.

 

XCOM 2 Audio

 

Conclusion

This game is far more graphically intensive than its predecessor, and as such it might have difficulties properly scaling over different hardware configurations. Lower end systems will end up having some pretty large performance issues but this is most likely not be the game's fault, and it's most likely a hardware issue. After testing every setting maximizing them to their highest values is not very optimal, due to some of them not changing much in the end. Most settings are also incredibly subtle and any differences are very difficult to spot while playing, but otherwise the expensive settings should be turned off if the game is behaving poorly.

 

As far as the actual performance goes getting an idea as to how the game is truly supposed to run on this system proves a bit more difficult, due to the way strategy games are generally setup, and simply because the system itself is not strong enough, there's no easy way to properly judge as to why the game is running the way it currently is.

 

Otherwise higher end systems should be able to comfortably run the game at higher framerates, as long as the more intensive settings which have been listed throughout the report are lowered or turned off completely.

 

 

Thank you for reading. If you enjoyed this article, please consider donating to PCGamingWiki's Patreon campaign.

 

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RaTcHeT302    105

RaTcHeT302
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I see no animations. Am I missing something? It just opens the images in gallery view.

EDIT: Oooh it doesn't work on forums. Only the blog. Nvm :D

Now if only I could spread it around, I tried to put a few more hours into this compared to other reports (I also improved my workflow too so there's that), I think I've gotten close to 40 - 50 hours maybe, no idea I didn't keep track. I'm so sleepy right now.

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RaTcHeT302    105

RaTcHeT302
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This must be the longest and most detailed report yet. You did great job!

I always wanted to make most of my reports like this but it really depends on the game, it's just so time consuming though, I mean there are a few things I could've probably done better but meh whatever. Could anyone put this up on Reddit or something? Also I can't see the report on the main page, does it show up for you?

 

These things barely seem to be getting any visibility though, I still need to put way more effort into them. I kinda messed up the important ones so it's kinda my fault in the end. Meh. The Metal Gear Solid V and the GTA V ones weren't too great, taking screenshots in those games was a pain though. I wish I had put more effort into them, but I'm not sure if delaying them for a day or two would've helped, it probably would have though, falling behind those first three days sucks though.

 

What really helped here was the save game feature though, being able to save and load anywhere is a god send.

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Blackbird    52

Blackbird
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It doesn't show up on main page. Either it must be done manually or refreshed. IDK. Also I remember seeing Soeb posting his Linux reports on reddit somewhere, but don't remember where exactly.

EDIT: I posted it on r/pcgaming. I suppose that one is closest to PCGW's userbase Â¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (r/pcmasterrace is cancerous)

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Krumiro    0

Krumiro
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One option is missing in your study::

 

"Texture Filtering" = Bilinear, Trilinear, Aniso 2x, Aniso 4x, Aniso 8x, Aniso 16x

 

Note that it is a different setting from the already here investigated "Texture Detail". Please, complete this excellent and extremely useful work by adding a Benchmark Framerate comparison and "slider comparison screenshots" also for this one.

 

Thanks for this information, it is helpful and amazing! Good Job!

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Krumiro    0

Krumiro
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p.s.

I was surprised when I realized that my Macbook Pro 13" Retina i5 2.8GHZ (Mid 2014) runs Xcom2 so badly... :(   not fair... I hope that in 2016 they start putting 4 cores (instead of 2) also in the 13" Retina  just like in the current 15" Retinas...

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RaTcHeT302    105

RaTcHeT302
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One option is missing in your study::

 

"Texture Filtering" = Bilinear, Trilinear, Aniso 2x, Aniso 4x, Aniso 8x, Aniso 16x

 

Note that it is a different setting from the already here investigated "Texture Detail". Please, complete this excellent and extremely useful work by adding a Benchmark Framerate comparison and "slider comparison screenshots" also for this one.

 

Thanks for this information, it is helpful and amazing! Good Job!

I'm not really sure how to take screenshots for it, and anyway it's an option available in most PC games, you can always set that to 16 on any game and rig, it really sholdn't change anything unless the system you are playing on is really that slow, but generally just set it to the max. I'm not sure if I'll manage to add it though, I wanted to enjoy XCOM 2 for a while and then I wanted to get back on my own project.

 

AF is the kind of thing you'd lower if you had a 128 MB card, but even on that it shouldn't matter at all. You can see what it does on google images, or just look up the wikipedia page for it.

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      [compimg]http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_56/gallery_13_56_14849.jpg|http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_56/gallery_13_56_116535.jpg|864|540|Preset Low|Preset Ultra[/compimg]
      Performance drop of High preset is above 18% and further enhances shadows and mirroring on the car. Overall level of detail is better as cutoff for objects to disappear is further. Ultra preset means almost 32% performance drop from Low but I haven't noticed much difference from High. The testing was done with only FXAA instead of presets default anti-aliasing, because I was unable to get consistent results. More about that later.
       
      I've experienced stuttering on some skill races. The game runs on stable framerate, but it stutters a bit when I reach specific point in a few skill races. Other than that, the game runs very nicely. Full resolution screenshots: Scene 1 Low, Medium, High, Ultra; Scene 2 Low, Medium, High, Ultra.
       
      [compimg]http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_56/gallery_13_56_20301.jpg|http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_56/gallery_13_56_49343.jpg|864|540|Preset Low|Preset Ultra[/compimg]
       

      Controls
      The Crew is racing game and as such it offers variety of control options. You can drive with keyboard, controller or a steering wheel and each can be separately configured. Even controller buttons can be remapped. Unfortunately I don't own steering wheel so I cannot comment on that, but controller and keyboard controls seemed pretty well done. Button prompts on the screen are changing on the fly and depends on the last input from controller or keyboard.
       


       
      Plugging the controller in the middle of the game can cause problems though. The game crashed once when I turned controller (wireless 360) on and commonly D-pad was not responding after the controller was connected after the game loads.
       

      Audio
      Audio settings menu has several sliders to adjust volume of different aspects of the game's audio. The Crew is also supporting 7.1 surround sound, however surround sound is utilized only for few effects such as bypassing cars, roadwork etc. Radio, voices and car engine sounds only from front speakers. When driving, you can choose from a few radio stations and skip the songs on the fly.
       


       

      Performance analysis
      In this section we are going to look at how each effect impacts framerate and how does each setting looks on screenshots. Be sure to check full resolution uncompressed PNGs linked in each section. Or visit gallery for list of all screenshots for this article.
       

      Anti-aliasing
      I've got a few issues with anti-aliasing in The Crew. The main problem is very unstable performance regardless of resolution. MSAA 4x was running fairly OK with expected framerate drop when my car was stationary. When the car moved, the framerate plummeted to unplayable levels. Same with MSAA 8x but much more unstable. This is the reason, why there is no benchmark for each AA method. The FXAA had only small FPS drop as it is just a post process filter. I wasn't able to select TXAA on my AMD card.
       


       
      As expected the game is heavily aliased and running lines are very much visible on the car without any AA applied (middle section of the comparison above). FXAA offers much better image quality and the textures are almost not affected, however there is slight moire around shard edges on the textures. MSAA preserves texture quality, but the edge blurring is not that strong and I've noticed light glow on some edges (same issue I've encountered in Far Cry 4). Full resolution screenshots: Off, FXAA, MSAA 4x, MSAA 8x.
       

      Ambient Occlusion
      The Crew features only two ambient occlusion methods: SSAO, SSAO plus or you can turn AO completely off. SSAO is much stronger than SSAO plus, but not as precise. Performance drop is only 8% for SSAO, but almost 30% for SSAO plus. Full resolution screenshots: Off, SSAO, SSAO plus.
       


      [compimg]http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_56/gallery_13_56_191958.jpg|http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_56/gallery_13_56_121120.jpg|864|540|Ambient Occlusion Off|Ambient Occlusion SSAO plus[/compimg]

      Shadows
      Dynamic shadows can be turned off or set to one of four level. Each level is increasing shadows resolution and Contact hardening Soft Shadows should blur some of the hard edges, but I haven't noticed any major difference from High setting. Performance drop noticeable from Off to Low (around 10%), but negligible for additional levels (around 2%). Soft shadows option is exception with performance drop of 21% from no shadows. Full resolution screenshots: Off, Low, Medium, High, Contact Hardening Soft Shadows.
       


      [compimg]http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_56/gallery_13_56_59339.jpg|http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_56/gallery_13_56_1322.jpg|864|540|Shadows Off|Contact Hardening Soft Shadows[/compimg]

      Geometry
      This setting is managing polygon resolution of the game's assets and object's cutoff distance from camera. Performance impact is not very substantial and from Low to Ultra the FPS drop is only around 6%, image quality is much better though. Full resolution screenshots: Low, Medium, High, Ultra.
       


      [compimg]http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_56/gallery_13_56_181349.jpg|http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_56/gallery_13_56_192114.jpg|864|540|Geometry Low|Geometry Ultra[/compimg]

      Textures
      Textures is the only setting, that requires resetting the game (that is why the car in the screenshots has different color). Impact on the game is rather questionable. From the screenshot the roadway on the right side of car has little bit more details on Low setting and I haven't found any difference on other textures. But that could be affected by weather or the bump map could be generated every time the game is loaded. Nevertheless other textures stayed pretty much the same regardless of texture setting and average framerate also stayed at the same level. Full resolution screenshots: Low, Medium, High, Ultra.
       


      [compimg]http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_56/gallery_13_56_60975.jpg|http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_56/gallery_13_56_72985.jpg|864|540|Textures Low|Textures Ultra[/compimg]

      Environment Mapping
      This setting affects resolution of real time reflections on player's car. The game looks much better when the effects is set to Ultra as the reflections are very sharp and almost at the same resolution as the rest of the world. Performance impact is around 10% for Ultra setting, 8% for High and 2% for Low. Full resolution screenshots: Low, Medium, High, Ultra.
       


      [compimg]http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_56/gallery_13_56_175457.jpg|http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_56/gallery_13_56_158793.jpg|864|540|Environment Mapping Low|Environment Mapping Ultra[/compimg]

      Depth of Field
      I haven't noticed this effect during gameplay but it is heavily used during cutscenes and in the garages. Performance impact is around 5% for Low and 10% for Ultra. Full resolution screenshots:Off, Low, Medium, High.
       


      [compimg]http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_56/gallery_13_56_23488.jpg|http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_56/gallery_13_56_107328.jpg|864|540|Depth of Field Off|Depth of Field High[/compimg]
       

      Grass
      Grass setting controls amount of grass billboards in the world. Performance impact of Medium setting is almost none, High setting will cause 5% framerate drop. Full resolution screenshots: Low, Medium, High.
       


      [compimg]http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_56/gallery_13_56_30832.jpg|http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_56/gallery_13_56_108046.jpg|864|540|Grass Low|Grass High[/compimg]

      Conclusion
      PC version of The Crew is running very well and offers some graphics tweaking. Controls can be heavily adjusted and the game supports controllers and steering wheels apart from standard keyboard and mouse combo (which is more than capable).
       
      There are some issues though. Anti-aliasing was bugged on my system, field of view slider is not enabled for single screen setups and the game stutters occasionally (not as badly as in Far Cry 4, but it is there). Then there is the whole always online thing. The game will not start at all when the servers are offline. This is not good, because every race can be played in single-player and what happens, when Ubisoft decides to pull the plug?
       
      Overall The Crew is an average port without game-breaking issues. Which sadly is success after Ubisoft's disastrous this year season.
       
      The game key has been provided by the publisher and contained the game, several cars and the season pass.
    • Grant0417
      PC Report: Watch Dogs 2
      By Grant0417
      System Requirements

      Minimum
      • CPU: Intel Core i5 2400s @ 2.5 GHz or AMD FX 6120 @ 3.5 GHz
      • RAM: 6 GB
      • HDD: 50 GB
      • GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 with 2 GB VRAM or AMD Radeon HD 7870 (2 GB of VRAM)
      OS: Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8.1, Windows 10 (64-Bit)

      Recommended
      • CPU: Intel Core i5 3470 @ 3.2 GHz or AMD FX 8120 @ 3.9 GHz
      • RAM: 8 GB
      • HDD: 50 GB
      • GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 or AMD Radeon R9 290 (3 GB of VRAM)
      OS: Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8.1, Windows 10 (64-Bit)

      Editor's System
      • CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K (Haswell)
      • RAM: 16 GB DDR3-2400 (G.Skill Ares)
      • SSD: 500 GB (Samsung 850 EVO)
      • GPU: Sapphire R9 390 8 GB
      • OS: Windows 10 (64-Bit)
       
      Watch Dogs 2's system requirements are not abnormal by today's standards, a 2 GB graphics card with a decent CPU. The game performed well with a smooth frame rate. On my system the low preset gets around 70-80 fps inside and 60-70 outside while the ultra preset (with ultra textures) gets around 45-55 fps inside and 35-45 outside.
       
       

      Graphics settings


      Display settings are pretty good, window modes include: Windowed, Borderless Window, Fullscreen Borderless, Multimonitor Borderless, Fullscreen. One downside is the lack of Resolution Scaling beyond 125%.




      Graphics settings give the user a good deal of customization when trying to adjust to their computers need.


      Color settings are brightness, or gamma, and sharpness, which if too high can make the image look very strange.
       

      Field of View
      Despite being a 3rd person game Watch Dogs 2 gives the option to change the FoV from the minimum value of 70, also the default, to the maximum of 110.
       
      [compimg]http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_108/gallery_2519_108_568051.jpg|http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_108/gallery_2519_108_456133.jpg|983|553|70°|110°[/compimg]

      Resolution Scale
      This setting controls how many times the resolution the game is rendered at. Watch Dogs 2 gives the option of 25% to 125% of normal resolution. This means that using resolution scaling instead of antialiasing on higher end machines will not be as possible as that typically requires around 150% to 200% resolution scaling.
       
      [compimg]http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_108/gallery_2519_108_216844.jpg|http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_108/gallery_2519_108_37648.jpg|983|553|100%|125%[/compimg]

      Motion Blur
      Motion Blur only has 2 options, on and off. It also doesn't have much of an effect on framerate, but your gameplay may look better at high framerates if you turn it off.



      Texture Resolution
      Texture Resolution seems to be nearly the same between Low and Ultra, despite the Ultra textures that were several gigabytes in size. The only difference I could notice is guns are largely affected by texture resolution.
       
      [compimg]http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_108/gallery_2519_108_115382.jpg|http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_108/gallery_2519_108_411694.jpg|983|553|Low|High[/compimg]
       
      [compimg]http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_108/gallery_2519_108_156252.jpg|http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_108/gallery_2519_108_71496.jpg|983|553|Low|High[/compimg]
       
      [compimg]http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_108/gallery_2519_108_349998.jpg|http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_108/gallery_2519_108_211736.jpg|983|553|Low|High[/compimg]

      Texture Filtering
      Texture Filtering increases the visual quality of textures at steep angles to the camera.
       
      [compimg]http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_108/gallery_2519_108_196523.jpg|http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_108/gallery_2519_108_36558.jpg|983|553|Low|Ultra[/compimg]
       
      [compimg]http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_108/gallery_2519_108_439471.jpg|http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_108/gallery_2519_108_334989.jpg|983|553|Low|Ultra[/compimg]

      Shadows
      Shadows are not bad in Watch Dogs 2 at the lowest setting and ultra shadows are very crisp. Watch Dogs 2 also provides PCSS which allows for progressive shadow resolution.
       
      [compimg]http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_108/gallery_2519_108_288086.jpg|http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_108/gallery_2519_108_561969.jpg|983|553|Low|Ultra[/compimg]
       
      [compimg]http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_108/gallery_2519_108_35117.jpg|http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_108/gallery_2519_108_15571.jpg|983|553|Low|Ultra[/compimg]
       

      Water
      Water has modes, low and high, the only visible difference is the reflections it has.
       
      [compimg]http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_108/gallery_2519_108_509654.jpg|http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_108/gallery_2519_108_389297.jpg|983|553|Low|High[/compimg]
       
      [compimg]http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_108/gallery_2519_108_198377.jpg|http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_108/gallery_2519_108_55208.jpg|983|553|Low|High[/compimg]
       

      Headlight Shadow
      Headlight Shadows are very demanding and has a cap of being enabled on 4 cars at one time.
       
      [compimg] http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_108/gallery_2519_108_402059.jpg|http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_108/gallery_2519_108_333183.jpg|983|553|Off|On[/compimg]
       
      [compimg]http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_108/gallery_2519_108_193842.jpg|http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_108/gallery_2519_108_100333.jpg|983|553|Off|On[/compimg]
       

      Reflections
      Reflections affect reflective surfaces and their reflection of the sky box and other objects. Low only reflects the sky box and High reflects environmental features.
       
      [compimg] http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_108/gallery_2519_108_492820.jpg|http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/uploads/gallery/album_108/gallery_2519_108_234495.jpg|983|553|Low|High[/compimg]
       

      Anti-Aliasing
      Anti-Alasing is one of the only setting in the game to have a massive hit on the games performance. It can affect the framerate by up to 10fps. The avaiable AA options are TXAA (only available on Nvidia graphic cards), MSAAx2, MSAAx4, MSAAx6, FXAA, and SMAA. FXAA and SMAA cause the game to lose sharpness and just overall blur the screen.
       


       

      Performance analysis


       
      The game preformed very well with out many frame drops, there are some issues though. Pop in is a major issue with objects appearing with in a very visible distance while driving. The game has an unlocked framerate so high refresh rate monitors do not have to worry. Load times are very low on my SSD with wait times being at max 10 seconds and typical under 5.
       

      Controls
      The game offers a large amount of control customization from changing many items such as sprint and aiming from Hold to Toggle. The game also enables changing mouse and controller sensitivity as well as X and Y axis inverting. The whole game works with mouse controls and no menu can not be navigated smoothly with it unlike the original watch dogs.
       




       

      Audio
      Audio settings are lacking, there is only one volume slider for the master volume. Music can be toggled on and off and subtitles can be enabled. The in game audio is very nicely mixed though with no sound overpowering the rest.
       

      Conclusion
      Watch Dogs 2 is a massive step up in a port from the original game, it offers large number of customization. The PC Port doesn't suffer from meany of the issues other PC ports do such as bad Keyboard and mouse control and bad optimization like its predecessor. The only issue I have had with Watch Dogs 2 is how demanding the game can be, I typically can get in 60+ fps in games with high or ultra setting but Watch Dogs 2 pushes my computer past that and it is well deserved as it has beautiful graphics on PC.
       
      PC Reports are a series of quick first impressions regarding the technical aspects of a PC game. This report was written by PCGamingWiki contributor grant0417. For an up to date account of Watch Dogs 2 fixes and improvements, please visit its respective PCGamingWiki article.
       
      Thank you for reading. If you enjoyed our article and want to us create more articles, more often, please consider donating to PCGamingWiki's Patreon campaign:
       

    • Grant0417
      PC Report: Watch Dogs 2
      By Grant0417
      PC Reports are a series of quick first impressions regarding the technical aspects of a PC game. For an up to date account of Watch Dogs 2 fixes and improvements, please visit its respective PCGamingWiki article.
       
      Developed and Published by Ubisoft. The game was released on November 29, 2016.
      System Requirements

      Minimum
      • CPU: Intel Core i5 2400s @ 2.5 GHz or AMD FX 6120 @ 3.5 GHz
      • RAM: 6 GB
      • HDD: 50 GB
      • GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 with 2 GB VRAM or AMD Radeon HD 7870 (2 GB of VRAM)
      OS: Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8.1, Windows 10 (64-Bit)

      Recommended
      • CPU: Intel Core i5 3470 @ 3.2 GHz or AMD FX 8120 @ 3.9 GHz
      • RAM: 8 GB
      • HDD: 50 GB
      • GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 or AMD Radeon R9 290 (3 GB of VRAM)
      OS: Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8.1, Windows 10 (64-Bit)

      Editor's System
      • CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K (Haswell)
      • RAM: 16 GB DDR3-2400 (G.Skill Ares)
      • SSD: 500 GB (Samsung 850 EVO)
      • GPU: Sapphire R9 390 8 GB
      • OS: Windows 10 (64-Bit)
       
      Watch Dogs 2's system requirements are not abnormal by today's standards, a 2 GB graphics card with a decent CPU. The game performed well with a smooth frame rate. On my system the low preset gets around 70-80 fps inside and 60-70 outside while the ultra preset (with ultra textures) gets around 45-55 fps inside and 35-45 outside.
       
       

      Graphics settings


      Display settings are pretty good, window modes include: Windowed, Borderless Window, Fullscreen Borderless, Multimonitor Borderless, Fullscreen. One downside is the lack of Resolution Scaling beyond 125%.




      Graphics settings give the user a good deal of customization when trying to adjust to their computers need.


      Color settings are brightness, or gamma, and sharpness, which if too high can make the image look very strange.
       

      Field of View
      Despite being a 3rd person game Watch Dogs 2 gives the option to change the FoV from the minimum value of 70, also the default, to the maximum of 110.
       


      Resolution Scale
      This setting controls how many times the resolution the game is rendered at. Watch Dogs 2 gives the option of 25% to 125% of normal resolution. This means that using resolution scaling instead of antialiasing on higher end machines will not be as possible as that typically requires around 150% to 200% resolution scaling.
       


      Motion Blur
      Motion Blur only has 2 options, on and off. It also doesn't have much of an effect on framerate, but your gameplay may look better at high framerates if you turn it off.



      Texture Resolution
      Texture Resolution seems to be nearly the same between Low and Ultra, despite the Ultra textures that were several gigabytes in size. The only difference I could notice is guns are largely affected by texture resolution.
       

       

       


      Texture Filtering
      Texture Filtering increases the visual quality of textures at steep angles to the camera.
       

       


      Shadows
      Shadows are not bad in Watch Dogs 2 at the lowest setting and ultra shadows are very crisp. Watch Dogs 2 also provides PCSS which allows for progressive shadow resolution.
       

       

       

      Water
      Water has modes, low and high, the only visible difference is the reflections it has.
       

       

       

      Headlight Shadow
      Headlight Shadows are very demanding and has a cap of being enabled on 4 cars at one time.
       

       

       

      Reflections
      Reflections affect reflective surfaces and their reflection of the sky box and other objects. Low only reflects the sky box and High reflects environmental features.
       

       

      Anti-Aliasing
      Anti-Alasing is one of the only setting in the game to have a massive hit on the games performance. It can affect the framerate by up to 10fps. The avaiable AA options are TXAA (only available on Nvidia graphic cards), MSAAx2, MSAAx4, MSAAx6, FXAA, and SMAA. FXAA and SMAA cause the game to lose sharpness and just overall blur the screen.
       


       

      Performance analysis


       
      The game preformed very well with out many frame drops, there are some issues though. Pop in is a major issue with objects appearing with in a very visible distance while driving. The game has an unlocked framerate so high refresh rate monitors do not have to worry. Load times are very low on my SSD with wait times being at max 10 seconds and typical under 5.
       

      Controls
      The game offers a large amount of control customization from changing many items such as sprint and aiming from Hold to Toggle. The game also enables changing mouse and controller sensitivity as well as X and Y axis inverting. The whole game works with mouse controls and no menu can not be navigated smoothly with it unlike the original watch dogs.
       




       

      Audio
      Audio settings are lacking, there is only one volume slider for the master volume. Music can be toggled on and off and subtitles can be enabled. The in game audio is very nicely mixed though with no sound overpowering the rest.
       

      Conclusion
      Watch Dogs 2 is a massive step up in a port from the original game, it offers large number of customization. The PC Port doesn't suffer from meany of the issues other PC ports do such as bad Keyboard and mouse control and bad optimization like its predecessor. The only issue I have had with Watch Dogs 2 is how demanding the game can be, I typically can get in 60 fps in games with high or ultra setting but Watch Dogs 2 pushes my computer past that and it is well deserved as it has beautiful graphics on PC.
       
      PC Reports are a series of quick first impressions regarding the technical aspects of a PC game. This report was written by PCGamingWiki contributor grant0417. For an up to date account of Watch Dogs 2 fixes and improvements, please visit its respective PCGamingWiki article.
       
      Thank you for reading. If you enjoyed our article and want to us create more articles, more often, please consider donating to PCGamingWiki's Patreon campaign:
       

       
      Click here to view the article
    • RaTcHeT302
      PC Report: Battlefield 1 - Optimized Video Settings
      By RaTcHeT302
      PC Reports are a series of quick first impressions regarding the technical aspects of a PC game. For an up to date account of Battlefield 1 fixes and improvements, please visit its respective PCGamingWiki article.
       
      Developed by DICE and published by Electronic Arts. The game was released on October 21, 2016.
       
      The main focus of this report is to aid users in finding the most optimal and best looking graphical settings in order to solve and even prevent most framerate issues.
      System Requirements

      Minimum
      CPU: Intel Core i5-6600K or AMD FX-6350 RAM: 8 GB HDD: 50 GB GPU: AMD Radeon HD 7850, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 (2 GB DirectX 11) OS: Windows 7, 8, 8.1, 10 (64-Bit) Recommended
      CPU: Intel Core i7-4790 or AMD FX-8350 RAM: 16 GB HDD: 50 GB GPU: GTX 1060, RX 480 (4 GB DirectX 11) OS: Windows 7, 8, 8.1, 10 (64-Bit) Editor's System
      CPU: Intel Core i5-6500 (Skylake) RAM: 32 GB DDR4 2133MHz (Kingston HyperX Fury) SSD: 500 GB (Samsung 850 EVO) GPU: MSI R9 380 4 GB OS: Windows 10 (Version 1607) (64-Bit) While the minimum system requirements may look pretty high an i5-6500 paired with a good graphics card and enough memory should be enough to run the game at very high framerates with really good graphical settings. Overall most settings will generally not change the look of the game by that much, most settings can easily be hand picked and optimized in order to get the highest possible framerate. 
      Battlefield 1 can often use up to 3 GB and even up to 5 GB of RAM, systems with limited memory might perform poorly, heavy stuttering might also be present unless more memory is installed.
       
      Players are unable to access the main menu right away on launch, they'll be transported into the single player campaign instead, the options menu should eventually become accessible however.
       




       
      There aren't too many video options, the depth of field effect, which is heavily used on most menus cannot be disabled, it is often the cause of large performance issues, which could be a big problem on lower end systems, it also misleads players into thinking that their framerate might be worse when in reality their in-game framerate might be much better.
       
      Overall most settings don't change or improve much. There's no control over the tinting effects the game uses, the sun glare effects also cannot be disabled although these are minor things and aren't too important. There's a lack of a draw distance setting which would've greatly helped, by default the standard draw distance is extremely small, even when enhanched with other settings, the antialiasing modes often might fail to hide some of the problems the new rendering engine has, with lots of objects fading out of nowhere or too close to the player's view.
       
      This issue is prevalent on the Amiens map, where windows and even certain walls will often change out of nowhere as the player gets closer, however Mount Grappa and other similar maps handle this slightly better.
       
      On the other hand, there are a lot of options related to the gameplay such as plenty of mouse and keyboard options, extensive audio settings and ways to disable the heads up display and other similar things.
       
      After reaching the main menu, open the options menu by clicking on More located on the top right or on the gear icon located in the center left area under the Shortcuts title.
       


       

      Field of View
      Only values between Vertical 50° and Vertical 105° can be chosen which translate into Horizontal 64° and Horizontal 120°. The vertical values are also translated as horizontal values in the options menu.
       

      Click on the Image to Move the Slider


       

      Aim Down Sights Field of View
      Written as ADS Field of View in the options menu. When enabled the game will replace the zoom in effect while aiming with the desired Field of View value.
      Otherwise when set to Off the weapon will zoom in as usual instead. This can be useful to see more things in a larger area and it shouldn't impact the performance.
       

      Click on the Image to Move the Slider
       

      Click on the Image to See the Animation

       

      Motion Blur
      Optimal Setting: 0%
       
      Things will look smoother while moving the camera around but visibility may be slightly reduced, there's a huge performance drop for such a simple setting however and in most cases it's not worth using.
       


       
      The effect itself can be pretty subtle when set to values between 10% or 15%. Some artifacts might be present when using the highest value.
       


       
      To disable this setting find the options menu located in the top right corner labeled as More then under Options select Video and set Motion Blur to 0%.
       


       
      This setting should be disabled in order to obtain higher framerates and to keep the image clear. Otherwise, this mostly comes down to user preference.


       

      Depth of Field and Weapon Depth of Field
      Optimal Setting: Weapon DOF to Off
       
      The depth of field effect can only be partially disabled. While the game is paused the overall framerate might be lower, this issue is only present on certain maps however. Close the pause menu before checking the framerate number. The framerate might also drop every time the pause menu is brought up, once the pause menu is closed it might take a few moments for the game to stabilize.


       
      Weapons have their own depth of field setting, this effect is only applied while aiming and while in a vehicle.
       

      Click on the Image to Move the Slider
       

      Click on the Image to See the Animation

       
      To disable this setting find the options menu located in the top right corner labeled as More then under Options select Video and set Weapon DOF to Off.
       


       
      This setting should ideally be disabled seeing as it has a negligible visual impact.


       

      DirectX 11 and DirectX 12
      Optimal Setting: DX12 Enabled to Off
       
      Use the DirectX 11 mode if possible, on a few specific maps the framerate might be lower while in the loadout area, however it should be fine while actually playing, overall this mode should be more stable and the game should run well either way.
       
      The DirectX 12 mode can achieve higher framerates but certain maps have some performance issues which can lead to random microstuttering, there's also a minor issue where the framerate might drop while spawning.
       


       
      While using both modes microstutter might be unavoidable on maps such as Amiens and Empire's Edge, while maps such as Mount Grappa perform as they should. On Empire's Edge the framerate might often drop while inside one of the main buildings, this same building is also present on Mount Grappa where there are no performance issues. Lowering the graphical settings on some of these maps might not solve the problem itself.
       
      Otherwise try setting the Lighting Quality to High or Low or try lowering the Mesh Quality and even most settings to Medium if needed while playing on Empire's Edge if the framerate drops and if the stuttering become unbearable. Amiens has a few specific spots where lowering the Mesh Quality might very slightly help, although the microstuttering shouldn't be as noticeable if the DirectX 11 mode is being used. Running around in circles while in the DirectX 12 mode in certain areas in the Amiens map might ruin the frametime and cause microstuttering.


       

      Resolution Scale
      Optimal Setting: 100%
      Better Graphics (High End Only): 125% up to 150%
      Jaggie Removal (High End Only): 175% up to 200%
       
      This setting controls how many times the resolution should be enhanced, higher values will also very slightly improve the draw distance, the texture filter will be slightly more effective which means that most textures might have a sharper look from far away, the antialiasing techniques are also slightly more effective. When the player is too close to a texture however this effect is lost and the texture will lose most of its sharpness.
       
      This setting should be kept at a value of 100% seeing as lower values will ruin the overall image and higher values might be too intensive for certain systems to handle. Lower end systems might need to lower this value in order to gain playable framerates, although there are better settings which can be changed first.
       
      Most differences can be pretty subtle when using higher values and they might be difficult to spot during usual gameplay. Notice the door, the extra detail around the door and the stone fence, along with the mountains and the trees in the distance.
       
       

      Click on the Image to Move the Slider - Look at a Fixed Point and Wiggle the Slider to Spot Differences More Easily


       

      Click on the Image to See the Animation (25% to 200%)

       
      When using the maximum value this setting can help alleviate the ring effect present on most textures, which is very often visible while strafing left and right or while moving towards or away near a wall.
      Notice the lamp post on the very far left, which has far less holes while using the highest possible value and how the texture on the wall changes.
       

      Click on the Image to See the Animation

       
      Often these changes can be less subtle, such as the tree on the far left, its branches are rendered slightly farther while also reducing the amount of jaggies visible to the player.
       

      Click on the Image to See the Animation

       
      Other subtle changes can be fairly minor but the improvements themselves can be pretty noticeable depending on the model, notice the cables and the crosshair on the gun itself along with the barbed wire on the bottom right.
       

      Click on the Image to See the Animation

       
      This setting doesn't always help with the draw distance issue however, objects which are just very slightly farther away from the player will be full of holes, even while using the best antialiasing mode. This setting cannot replace the antialiasing modes and instead it should complement them seeing as the resolution scale setting does a poor job at masking any jaggies on its own.
       

      Click on the Image to See the Animation

       
      This is a pretty unreliable method seeing as it often might fail to even work properly, while the railing here might look perfectly fine, it still often vanished and reappeared very slowly on screen even when it was not supposed to.
       

      Click on the Image to See the Animation

       
      This setting should only be lowered as a last resort, any values below 100% will heavily ruin the overall image. Any real benefits will only be visible while using higher values.


       

      Texture Quality
      Optimal Setting: Medium (Normal Trees) or High (Extra Eyecandy)
      Higher Framerate: Low
       
      This setting has a relatively minor visual impact, it doesn't affect most textures in any meaningful way. The only things which clearly change are the shadows on the player's weapon. When set to Low every texture will have a slightly lighter look to itself, when set to Medium most textures should have their normal look and when set to High or Ultra some textures may also have better reflections or a higher quality look to them.
       
       

      Click on the Image to Move the Slider
       

      Click on the Image to See the Animation

       
      Certain objects such as these trees may look lighter from far away. Set this value to at least Medium to stop the trees from looking like this.
       

      Click on the Image to Move the Slider
       

      Click on the Image to See the Animation

       
      There are a few extremely specific spots where setting this to High will help with the look of the game, otherwise it can even be left on Low and the game itself will not change much at all. There are no clear differences between High and Ultra, this setting could be left to at least Medium to solve the tree issue or High for the extra eyecandy and to save some extra memory.
       
       

      Click on the Image to Move the Slider
       

      Click on the Image to See the Animation

       
      This setting does not solve the texture load in issue at higher settings which is visible while using binoculars or while shooting artillery rounds. This is a minor issue and it only happens for a few seconds.
       

      Click on the Image to See the Animation

       
      This setting has a minor visual impact while using any values and a minor performance impact overall. Most differences will be pretty difficult to notice from far away.


       

      Texture Filtering
      Optimal Setting: High
      Higher Framerate: Medium (Might Reduce Microstuttering)
      Better Graphics: Ultra
       
      Textures will look very washed out when this is set to Low and overall this setting has a major visual impact for a relatively minor performance cost. Most textures will have a ring effect around them which is mainly visible while strafing left and right or while moving towards or away near a wall. This setting often poorly filters most textures even while using the Ultra setting. See the doorway on the left side in order to find the differences.
       

      Click on the Image to Move the Slider - See the Doorway on the Left to Spot Differences

       

      Click on the Image to See the Animation

       
      This setting has a major visual impact and a minor performance impact. When set to at least Medium most differences might become fairly difficult to spot while playing.


       

      Lighting Quality
      Optimal Setting: High
      Higher Framerate: Low (Framerate) or Medium (Eyecandy)
      Better Graphics: Ultra (Worse Performance on Maps with Performance Issues)
       
      This setting mainly controls what the shadows will look like and which shadows will be rendered. Extra eyecandy is enabled after using values such as Medium and higher.
       

      Click on the Image to Move the Slider
       
      There aren't too many differences between High and Ultra. The lights themselves are often unaffected.
       

      Click on the Image to Move the Slider
       

      Click on the Image to See the Animation

       
      There are a few specific areas where the shadows might be completed disabled when this setting is set to Low which may grant extra visibility.
       

      Click on the Image to Move the Slider
       

      Click on the Image to See the Animation

       
      Overall this setting should have a fairly minor performance impact with a minor to major visual impact depending on the map, certain maps often feature very simple blobby shadows, ideally this value should be left on High seeing as maps such as Empire's Edge have a few specific buildings where the performance might be lower otherwise.
       


       

      Effects Quality
      Optimal Setting: Any (Probably Medium or High)
       
      There aren't any clear differences as to what this setting affects, it didn't seem to have much of an effect over anything, as with most settings Medium or High should probably be enough. Overall there wasn't really any impact over the framerate.
       
       

      Click on the Image to See the Animation

       

      Post Process Quality
      Optimal Setting: Low (Framerate and No Flicker) or High (Minor Eyecandy and Flicker)
       
      This setting controls which objects should reflect into ponds and rivers and other similar water surfaces, certain surfaces are also enhanced. There isn't much of a point in using values other than Low and High for this setting. Overall this setting might feel a bit buggy because of some odd issues on certain maps. There isn't much of a difference between Low or Medium and High or Ultra. Notice the reflection near the shore and the improved reflections on the boat.
       
       

      Click on the Image to Move the Slider
       

      Click on the Image to See the Animation

       
      This setting isn't as noticeable as it may seem when it is disabled, there's also a rather jarring problem where reflections will update too often as the camera moves making them flicker, this happens on High and Ultra. Overall this setting is mostly useful for screenshots, otherwise most maps lack any large water surfaces or any large reflectable surfaces for this setting to be effective.
       
      The effect itself is only visible at certain angles, it may also hurt visibility during gameplay. There's also a minor ghosting effect present while laying into ponds and some other mud like surfaces. The flickering effect is also present on vehicles when using High or Ultra. Most vehicles will look slightly shinier, the effect is barely noticeable however and it's not worth using this setting in its current state.
       
       

      Click on the Image to Move the Slider
       

      Click on the Image to See the Animation

       
      Ideally this setting should be left to Low, seeing as overall it has a pretty minor visual impact and it also has a huge performance impact and it doesn't seem to be working properly otherwise.


       

      Mesh Quality
      Optimal Setting: High (Framerate and Draw Distance and Reduced Microstuttering) or Ultra (Increase Draw Distance)
      Higher Framerate: Low or Medium
       
      This setting controls the draw distance of most objects and whenever they should cast more shadows, ideally it should be set to at least High or Ultra seeing as anything lower will cause models to appear out of nowhere too often and too close to the player, the increased distance itself is already pretty low and even on Ultra this issue appears too often, lowering other settings just to increase this one is worthwhile as it would make the game more enjoyable to play.
       
      Each value from this setting does very little to help, the differences are pretty extreme and it really shows how invasive this issue is when using the lowest values.
       

      Click on the Image to See the Animation

       
      When using a value higher than Low some extra shadows might be thrown in. In more blocked off spaces the differences won't be very noticeable. Notice the tree and how aggressive the level of detail is, with extra branches being visible on Ultra and other smaller details, along with another tree being rendered on the far left.
       

      Click on the Image to See the Animation

       
      Objects might constantly appear and disappear as the player gets closer to buildings and other facades. Some textures might also look worse and when this is set to Low models will have fewer polygons overall.
       

      Click on the Image to See the Animation

       
      On Ultra shadows will be cast farther away and other smaller objects will be rendered earlier, the increased radius is fairly small. Finer details such as branches, cables, pieces of metal will be visible from closer away.
       

      Click on the Image to See the Animation

       
      The effect of this setting is also visible in the loadout menu, with certain buildings outright disappearing and a lot of detail being lost.
       

      Click on the Image to See the Animation

       
      This setting has a pretty minor performance impact considering its large visual impact over the game compared to other less important settings.


       

      Terrain Quality
      Optimal Setting: Medium (Enable Parallax)
      Higher Framerate: Low (Disable Parallax and Gain Visibility)
       
      This setting controls the parallax effect for the terrain, which makes rocks pop out and other similar details. There isn't much of a difference between Medium, High and Ultra meaning that this setting can be left on Medium in order to enable the parallax effect. Depending on the area itself this may slightly hurt visibility for some extra eyecandy. Most surfaces will look flatter than usual however when setting this to Low.
       
       

      Click on the Image to See the Animation

       
      This effect is widely used throughout the whole game and depending on the area it can either have a major or minor visual impact.
       
       

      Click on the Image to See the Animation

       
      Certain areas in the game might not change as badly however, the effect might not be as noticeable while standing.
       
       

      Click on the Image to See the Animation



       
      Muddy surfaces will look flattened when this setting is set to Low and tire tracks and other details will be completely lost.
       
       

      Click on the Image to See the Animation

       
      On some maps the geometry might be slightly shifted around instead of adding more depth to the terrain.
       

      Click on the Image to See the Animation

       
      This setting mostly comes down to preference, if a higher framerate is needed set this to Low in order to obtain a more consistent and even possibly reduce or remove any stuttering issues or to at least Medium to enable the parallax effect itself. Overall there should be a pretty decent performance boost when this setting is disabled. Larger open areas might have lower framerates than smaller more enclosed ones with this setting.
       
      Different parts of the game are affected differently, the performance can vary.


       

      Undergrowth Quality
      Optimal Setting: Ultra
      Higher Framerate: Low
       
      This setting mainly adds shadows to the grass and other small foliage. Higher values control the shadow draw distance.
       

      Click on the Image to See the Animation

       
      The effects of this setting can be seen on the squad screen, although the shadows might not be applied depending on the current weather.
       


       
      What this is set to mostly comes down to user preference, it has a pretty minor visual impact and it should be disabled if a higher framerate is needed.


       

      Antialiasing Post
      Optimal Setting: TAA
      Higher Framerate: Off (Trees With Holes) or FXAA High (Normal Trees)
       
      This setting has a huge visual impact over the game, ideally TAA should always be used because of the extremely poor draw distance. When this setting is set to Off trees will have holes and white dots all over them, even on lower end systems the most basic levels of FXAA would really help with this problem. Even then the antialiasing techniques do a fairly poor job at masking most jaggies, with cables, trees and other similar thin objects looking really odd from very close distances. Notice the lamp posts on the left and how some of them have entire pieces of their own models removed because of the different antialiasing modes.
       
       

      Click on the Image to See the Animation

       
      This setting mostly comes down to user preference, although for a better experience FXAA or TAA should be used. Lower end systems might not be able to handle either modes however and should disable this setting in order to gain higher framerates.


       

      Ambient Occlusion
      Optimal Setting: HBAO
      Higher Framerate: Off
       
      This setting mostly comes down to user preference, models will have extra shadows which add more depth, some vehicles may look floaty without this setting and certain areas or textures might look washed out, the visual impact can range from minor to major depending on the map or area, interior buildings will also benefit the most.
       
       

      Click on the Image to See the Animation

       
      Some levels might not end up looking too different overall, however things might tend to look a bit floatier.
       

      Click on the Image to See the Animation

       
      Certain levels and most vehicles will benefit from this setting, rocks and other similar objects will look better.
       

      Click on the Image to See the Animation



       
      This setting might have a major performance impact on slower systems unless other settings are lowered, faster systems shouldn't struggle too much however.


       

      Optimal Settings
      These are the optimal settings used for this system, among the most performance intensive settings are Resolution Scale which should be set to at least 100% and Post Process Quality which should be set to Low.
       
      Setting the Terrain Quality to Low and the Ambient Occlusion to Off might also improve the framerate and get rid of some of the microstuttering issues.
      The Motion Blur and Weapon DOF settings should also be disabled in order to instantly gain a few extra frames.
       




       
      An alternative set of settings can also be used, anything below will very slightly change the look of the game. The Texture Filtering setting or the Mesh Quality and the Antialiasing should be given priority if possible.
       


       
      Lowering the Mesh Quality setting and disabling the Ambient Occlusion might help in areas where the framerate might often randomly drop. Overall the game should still look mostly the same.
       


       
      Gameplay was overall really smooth even with the occasionally frametime delay now and then.
      The general performance is highly dependent on which map is currently being played on, certain maps, even though they shouldn't, might do worse than others. Lowering most graphical settings might not help with this issue.






       

      Gameplay Settings
      There are plenty of extra options, if anything there are more gameplay options than video options. There's plenty of freedom as far as to how and which keys should be assigned, the same keys can even be assigned to the same actions if needed.
      Extra mouse buttons can also be easily assigned on their own separate slots.
       


       
      There are racing games who wish they had this much control over their input methods.
       




       
      For smoother aiming Raw Input should be enabled, which should ideally eliminate any mouse acceleration and provide improved mouse aiming in most cases.
       


       
      Custom controls schemes can also be set for the controller, the settings are not limited to the presets.
      Click on the arrows until Custom appears, then select Back and open Key Bindings, then navigate to the desired category and set the desired controller buttons under Stick.
       


       
      The heads up display should be fairly customizable.
       




       
      Most notifications and other tutorial annoyances can be disabled.
       


       

      Audio Settings
       
      There are a fair amount of audio settings and there's also an audio setting for the language, however currently the display language cannot be changed which is strange considering how many options there are.
       
      Some players might be stuck with the first language they picked when they first installed the game, contacting the EA support might be the only solution in this case and its worth trying.
       


       
       

      Thank you for reading. If you enjoyed this article, please consider donating to PCGamingWiki's Patreon campaign.


       
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