I paid for the whole GPU, I'm gonna use the whole GPU.

Future proofing. Highest settings always cause issues with "current, average" hardware, but playing a decade old game with highest settings on your new rig can be pretty sweet!

Back in 2004, I remember watching my friend play Far Cry at a subpar frame rate (he had it all maxed out). He took a bathroom break, I went into the Settings and turned the graphics down to Ultra to High or whatever the presets were called, he returned, didn't notice anything different until much later when he wondered why the game felt smoother. That taught me that people (even graphics nerds) are way more likely to notice the difference between 30fps and 40fps than Ultra and High settings. I repeated this multiple times with multiple games over the next decade - same outcome each time. People don't notice any quality improvements but suffer low frame rates for no obvious reason.

One of my best friends made me realize this when it comes to games. "You don't always need the highest settings. Having a smoother experience is much more worth it in most cases", and I finally understand what he meant. Plus if your hardware isn't in the highest end to begin with, you have to set realistic expectations for yourself. Once you accept that fact it all becomes so much easier

You've turned my brain into the world's most advanced sponsorship segment prediction system

I prefer to game at 480p Ultra settings. That way I get to satisfy my primal need to slide things to the right, but still get 144 fps.

See the thing is, once upon a time, ultra graphics settings were a way of future proofing a game. Back when improvements in processing power in CPUs and GPUs were resulting in SUBSTANTIALLY different graphical results in games. I'm talking about differences like going from 640x480 resolution to 1920x1080 resolution, which is going from 'Yes I can tell that's a cube, those collection of pixels over there are definitely in the shape of one' to 'Whoa I can see the individual blades of grass...'. Back when GPUs were only just starting to achieve things like per pixel lighting effects, and every bit of processing power improvement in per pixel processing was allowing for doing way more interesting stuff in the lighting equations. Back when which GPU you had determined if your PC could do AA or SSAO or normal mapping.. like.. AT ALL... or if it could do it at 60fps. Nowadays, buying a 3090 Ti and running a game at ultra settings grants you upgrades from 'pixels so small you almost can't see them' to 'pixels so small you definitely can't see them' or 'reflections that look almost accurate' to 'reflections that raytraced to be absolutely accurate'. And for these modest improvements you need an insane increase in processing power. The fact is, and this is a horror story for AAA game developers: GRAPHICS HAS PEAKED. We're at the point where something like Cyberpunk 2077 can run at 720p on a handheld gaming PC for 3 hours with decent quality settings, and it looks amazing. A beautiful stunning city that feels like something out of a movie, running on a handheld device in just 15W. We're at the point where the biggest bottle neck in game development is no longer questions like 'How many polygons can the GPU handle?' or 'How many enemies can we get on screen?' but questions like 'How many more A list hollywood actors can we sign on to do voice over work?' and 'How few hours of sleep can our developers survive on before we might get sued?'. We're at the point where games from 10 years ago still look absolutely gorgeous. That wasn't the case 20 years ago. 20 years ago, if you played a game from 1992 in 2002, it looked like absolute dog****. Now, a 2012 game in 2022? Still looks fantastic. Graphics has peaked! We don't need MOAR TEXTURES MOAR SHADERS MORE POLYGONS etc etc. We're past that point now. Now it's time for game developers to focus on the more critical aspects of their games. Gameplay, story, art, sound, music, improving the customer experience through smaller download sizes, fairer prices, lowering power demands for low end devices, improving accessibility options, etc. Which is why this is a nightmare horror story for AAA game developers. Now they actually have to focus on the quality of their games to stand out. We're in the dying breaths of the era of gaming where making something look 'higher resolution / more detailed' was enough to make it sell.

For me, it’s about fidelity and longevity. Like some other commenters here, I too build for a 5-6 year machine, or more as I usually am able to use them for 7-9. Like a piano, 80% of what you play only utilizes 50-60% of the keys at best, but when you come across those pieces that require the full range you’re glad you have them. In the other hand, your hardware will last longer if you operate it within its limits as opposed to at or slightly beyond.

I could really care less about how it looks or plays. The main appeal of playing at max settings is keeping your room nice and toasty in the winter.

riley: can u spot the difference, low to medium or medium to high sure. youtube compression: no

I've found out through experience that setting everything to high instead of ultra causes an average fps increase of 30% - 40% while maintaining the appearance of the graphics practically unchanged

I really like going to old games and being able to max them out. It’s great to say “ I wasn’t able to do this x years ago”

I figure that Ultra settings are mostly for aging games. A year or two down the line when a mid-level machine can run the game, you can max it out and itll still look good.

"You're going to enjoy a $70 steak more than a $1.50 hotdog." You don't know me.

What I find very very important to be left enabled is Anisotropic Filtering. Makes a huge difference to textures on the distance (even mid distance) in e.g. Dirt Rally 2.0

I think better, more realistic graphics have their days counted as marketing tool. I think we're reaching a point were improving graphics is making less and less difference, and the better looking games are those with good artstyles which maybe aren't as realistic but still look good. That doesn't mean the run for better processors or gpu's is going to end, because in those games what can get a lot better is number of things happening on the screen at the same time, and we're still a long way to get a realistically crowded city for example.

My video card is so underpowered that when I try to play a new game I have to turn off anti-aliasing, shadows, textures, and my computer.

I love going back to play all the older games my old systems could never play on max graphics whenever I upgrade, always the best feeling

For the best performance you want a combination of all settings. I have settings at ultra - low while running 4k on a 3080. Sometimes it's barely notice and sometimes it is but the trade off is worth the performance bump.

I've found that if you play some older games at max settings it adds a lot of value but yeah when it comes to new games it only really goes so far and the extra upgrade isn't super noticable.

I will say this: draw distance significantly impacts immersion.

Riley: "Is it really worth buying a Buggatti to show off on your 5 minute commute?" Me: "Isn't that the point?"

i struggle to find differences that don't require analyzing frames past high settings , especially at higher resolutions , i think a smoother experience is far superior to eye candy that tanks your fps

I usually just play on the third or second highest preset for games. "Max" settings only exist to make it seem like your device isnt up to standard anymore. RDR2 - Very High - 100+ FPS Ultra - only 60-70 FPS. Cannot even tell a difference between the two settings.

5:09 will haunt my nightmares for years to come

The RE engine's graphic options are so good for visualizing not only the graphical outcome, but the load on the PC. I wish more games did this

I find it so weird that you CONSTANTLY see Shadow of the Tomb Raider used for benchmarks, even to this day, but I don't really see many people play it or make other content about the game. It's like it's just a benchmarking tool.

I'd also add that lowering settings can (sometimes significantly) lower noise from fans and the amount of heat generated.

“Often you get suckered into preordering…” “Our sponsor is drop”

Over the last couple of years my in-game recommended settings went from Medium to Low to Text-Based.

In pvp settings i always go the lowest settings with exceptions on model distance and actual distance. And if you can turn effects up or down I leave them high. For rpg or single player games sometimes co op I opt for 80 to 120fps so what ever mix of settings I need to get there. For certain games I opt for 60fps and try to get it as stable as I can.

The main difference between Very High to Ultra or Extreme is actually between 4K textures to HD ones, and so on. There are web pages that show the differences and NVIDA is one of them!

A+ to the person that rendered that flying hotdog, your work didn’t go unnoticed

This is basically why I just upgrade my setup every 5-6 years and save money in-between. In that time The games have changed to be like heaven and earth and the hardware has as well. If you upgrade every year the changes will be there but definitely less noticeable. I prefer the thrill and excitement of a larger difference to get me back into modern gaming than the less noticeable gradual one.

I always max out the ambient occlusion. It has the greatest visual impact next to texture resolution.

I actually prefer a silent operation to amazing graphics. That meant high settings 1080p on my older gtx 1070 and high settings 1440p on my current card.

5:08 you're welcome

Every time i get a new gpu: "DAYYYUM THIS GAME LOOKS NICE ON ULTRA ... Now back to low, i want those frames back."

Well I see a pretty big difference in visual quality on my RTX card. I like to look for a balance between ray tracing goodness and playable FPS

great video , felt blessed watching you talk

The differences are less prominent these days. Go back 10-20 years, there were usually night and day differences between High and Ultra settings. And even Low/Medium quality have come a LONG way these days as well. Those back then looked especially awful.

1:27 is certainly worth a read if you didn't notice it the first time, gave me a good chuckle.

I wll tune the res/frame rate to run at a stable 60fps, unless the game doesn't require fast and precise response in that case I'll try to squeeze more graphics in.

I feel setting the bumpscosity slider all the way to the right really makes the game look ten times better. Glad I have my 3090

Mom: "Don't worry Monke Riley doesn't exist he can't hurt you" Monke Riley: *5:08*

A wise man once said "Ultra is for screenshots, very high is for Playing"

Agree, when I switch from ultra to high and see GPU utilization goes from 90 to 70 % and I don't see any difference then the high settings is the way to go for me. Also I like to have about 20+ % headroom so the framerate doesn't dip under my monitor refresh rate because I really hate stutter and screen tearing.

It depends heavily on the setting Ray tracing is incredibly noticeable, and also heavily taxes a game. The most expensive hardware is for enthusiasts. Enthusiasts always spend hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars to eke out a few percentage points of improvement.

Can you spot the difference ? Me on my 1080p phone screen: "your absolutely right all games settings are a scam"

"oohh oohh ah ah, me like sliding" -Riley Murdock, 2021

Ultra settings options are added for the ppl using bigger screens. The bigger the screen the more spread apart all objects look. The more you want to fill in that real estate with superfluous special effects to make it appear less empty. Also the already existing effects/textures are displayed in bigger size so their own details are more exposed to scrutiny. you only got it right saying its for selling the game. the ads need those settings, regular ppl, not so much.

This really, really makes me think of Freespace 2. Not that the game was any showstopper by anyone's imagination, but the extra detail and graphics they put in really shined (relatively for the era) in later years when cheaper hardware could use those settings. I feel like this video completely overlooks the majority of us who can't afford high end hardware and who also don't buy a game the instant it comes out...

"Oo oo LALA ...Me like sliding" :-Riley Murdock

They really included feet as a reference length in Minecraft

Looking at the 4 screens at the beginning i think the top/right one looks the best. I am basing it on the neon sign in the back, the lights around the columns, and the clothes on the 3 men to the right.

If I have the GPU, I'm going to make the most of it. So most of the time I get the settings as high as possible without going under 60fps.

The first 7 minutes of this video: "Settings have diminishing returns because of diminishing returns"

The "ultra high" settings, especially for textures and such, aren't really "added". In many cases they're just the base truth from which the lower quality options are generated. For instance "ultra" textures may mean "use the textures as shipped with the game", while "medium" textures are just lower resolution versions that are generated by down-scaling them. Having an "ultra" option basically costs no development time at all. What does cost a lot of development time is creating optimizations and tricks that make running the game on lower end machines possible - and still look good. Obviously there's exceptions where higher quality just means bigger numbers/more particles/higher range. But then having that option just is a question of "you might as well".

i have a 3060 ti with a ryzen 5 3600 and i run all games at 60 fps plus and warzone 120 plus on very high settings and there’s no difference between and honestly there’s no difference it’s just nice to have them all the way up

A little bit of extra clarification 4k texture is not a one-to-one comparison to a 4k monitor because you are projecting a texture onto an object when you get close you can see and make out the individual "pixels" on a 4k texture even if your res is lower than 4k. lookup UV mapping if you want more information on this topic. reference in video 5:40

my favorite day ever is getting a new pc and going through my list of steam games that used to play like shit to blast full graphics on

Low settings can give a competitive advantage *laughs in war thunder where it gives you the ability to literally see through almost everything*

im still on a 1080 doing just fine. idc about running the highest settings, i just want a high framerate. and obviously try to get the best graphical settings while still hitting my FPS target. Ironically, shadows and draw distance are two thing i usually turn down first if necessary. I find the difference in low and high shadows to be rarely noticeable (especially when you arent looking specifically). Other things like Motion Blur, Bloom, Film Grain, and other stupid effects are always turned off.

I'm visually impaired. I can actually see more at higher resolutions that I would miss at lower quality. I also do better, as most do, with higher frames. So for me, 4k is a must, high frames are a must. What isn't a must and can often inhibit my ability to see are things like shadow detail, particle effects, foliage, and other things that busy up the screen. So, I do have a beefy system(12900k/3080), but often my games look like garbage so I can play them better/have higher frame rates.

Cranking up that Minecraft render distance makes it feel more immersive and make the world feel much larger

“What’s with him?” “Slider envy..”

This was Really enjoyable ape man. Great sense of humour.

I love this guy’s personality, i could listen to him talk about his opinions all day lol

I love how Tarran just sounds like he is complaining that he cant see the difference 😂

I really love Riley's writing style and the way he hosts. One of the bests not only at LTT, but in the whole youtube tech sphere

I guess this is why I was always so content with my RX 580. With a mix of med/high settings, it was still super easy to pull off at least 60 fps in any modern game at 1080p, even more now with the tried and true 1070 Ti I have. Although now that I finally have a 144hz monitor vs my old 75hz one, I'll probably be feeling a bit more greedy for those higher frames than I used to be lol

There's a couple things i always set the same. Shadows mid or low, AA high and if its still lagging textures to high or mid.

Completely grazed past the future-proofing point. When an engine is capable of cranking up the graphics to ridiculous settings, some day everyone will be able to run them and the game will age well into the future.

View distance can make a huge impact on the general feeling of the game. I remember editing config files in Gothic III, so i could see herds of animals running along the horizon. That was awesome, even justified the bad frames inside towns lol

the only change i notice above 1440p/high settings is my electric bill doubling.

I'm lucky enough to have realized this early on in my PC gaming career haha. Mostly because I started out with a very weak PC and as I bought better hardware I realized there's a sweet spot for graphics and performance, setting everything to ultra and forgetting about it is just moronic imo.

I'm always licking the walls for cover in my games and you can definitely see the texture resolution difference there! (it honestly is a bit surprising this video glossed over how situational some high settings can be)

"Low settings dont look too bad nowadays" Oh wait till you see my Destiny 2 become Terraria.

7:55 What is that bar of gold pc? Is there a video on that build? Looks SICK!!!

If the test is to tell the difference between high and ultra settings, sure it's probably hard for most people to tell the difference, but with the tech thats out today, it's a lot easier to spot path tracing vs no path tracing. That alone justifies the price for my 4090 build imo

High/medium is usually where I aim with settings, maybe ultra if it's an old game that's not hard to run.

Gotta say, Riley absolutely crushed this one. Fantastic hosting!

I recently hooked my PC up to a LG C1 OLED and even though in some games I’ve had to drop graphics settings slightly from going from 1440 to 4K, my god the difference in clarity and sharpness, colour, contrast etc is amazing. I could care less about maybe playing games on High instead of Ultra or maybe a mix of the 2, I’ll take that resolution jump and overall picture quality over a few settings being maxed anyday.

I’ve had an ultra wide @144 2560x1080 for a couple years. 3090 OC’d . Just bought a 1080p 240mhz monitor for a steal on Amazon. Looking forward to the FR increase

Can you enable Auto-Generated Closed-Captions? Even if it’s not perfect, it’s really useful for non-native English speakers. Thanks 🙏

I feel like Ultra is for when we wanna max a game to see it in full glory, I will sometimes max out a game and have it run at 25 FPS temporarily so I can look at how the game CAN look, then I change it back to something thatll run at 90fps or so and play the game that way.

I've still got a 1080p monitor infact I just upgraded from a 144hz one to a 240hz gsync-enabled one I tried a 4k monitor once but couldn't understand the hype. it just made the desktop icons taskbar and text smaller. and in game hud elements were smaller. but I didnt really notice any major improvement in details or anything. there was just more of the same I get a much more satisfying experience on my 1080p monitor with a high refresh rate instead. plus its massively easier to run games in 1080p than 4k

I Play RDR2 with medium-high, and a few settings set to ultra. It looks exactly like max settings, so they are technically the optimized settings. I get more than double the fps too. You can watch videos on the optimized settings for games

Never trust a cable tie salesman.

Low for competitive High for fun Ultra for flex

I turn settings on high/max where it does matter, if my PC can't keep up with it, just tweak it some more to get smoothness

I usually only notice the difference of render distance textures and shadows

Monkey Riley is horrifying!... Someone make a meme out of that stat!

"Ultra for screen shots high for playing" ---- Tech Deals

What king of gold pc setup is near Linus at the last advert? Looks very cool :)

2:37 gets to the heart of it, if you’re used to settings being higher it becomes hard to go back down, you notice small differences sooner.

Tech Quickies: *Compresses 4 screens to fit a single frame* Also Tech Quickie: Spot the Difference, You Can't!

if i cant see the difference, especially in motion, then i'm just losing frames for no reason. "ultra" can bite me.

1080p resolution with medium settings along with 60fps are more than enough for me.

I also feel like at 4k everything is already so clear that adjusting the graphics settings can only do so much. I game mainly at 1080p on a 3060 ti and I feel like at 1080p adjustments to graphics are much more noticeable imo.