cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Tweaking 101

Kaboom
Level 8
Ready to start kicking butt in your gaming life? All your games need is a little bit of tweaking love. Whether you're an avid Call of Duty fan or casual Counter Strike player, I'll give you guys some tips on how to make your gaming experience top notch. Let's get optimizing!

First off, some Tweaking Vocabulary 101. You'll often find these terms in your game settings, and I will go through some of the most familiar and popular ones. To avoid any confusion, I'll be simplifying everything as much as I can. This stuff can get pretty crazy!

Anti-aliasing

In short, Anti-aliasing rounds out any sharp, or distorted edges. The higher the anti-aliasing, the better picture quality. Here's a few examples of what it looks like:



If you look closely, you can notice the line in the second picture looks jagged and textured, but after you enable it the line seems smoothed out, and not as “rough.”

With anti-aliasing, your shapes will look more distinct and clean cut.



Recommendation: Using Anti-aliasing can have a tendency to put more strain on your video card. For eye candy gaming, it's a great feature to enable. For competitive play, you'll want to disable it to boost your FPS (Frames Per Second.)


Anisotropic Filtering

This determines the quality of pixels in your depth of field view. Without it, pixels in the distance will seem blurry and messy. With it, the pixels in the distance will be defined, sharp, and clear. You'll often see several options of 2x, 4x, 8x, and 16x Anisotropic Filtering. Don't get scared of the numbers, simply the larger the number, the better the quality. Here's an example:



Recommendation – Unless you're playing a game that requires you to have good depth perception (such as watching out for nearby enemies around you in World of Warcraft, etc.) then this is not needed. For games that are short-distanced such as, shooters, and RPG's – this feature can be turned off without noticing a big difference. It's just another feature that makes your video card work harder, which is not what you want in competitive gaming. For casual gamers, feel free to leave it on!

Bilinear and Trilinear Filtering -

Both Bilinear and Trilinear Filtering help to maintain pixel quality while objects transition in distance. Say for instance we moved a square that starts off close to your face all the way to the back of the room. With Bilinear, as the square moves back it would make dramatic resolution jumps that would be more noticeable. Where as, Trilinear Filtering tries to avoid any sort of dramatic adjustments with pixels. In other words, It's Bilinear Filtering, but only a little better to help “smooth things out.”

Here's a picture of the concept:



Recommendation: As for Bilinear and Trilinear Filtering, either one would work fine for both the casual and hardcore gamer. Personally, I've never experienced much of a performance difference between the two. I'd say it's safe to play on competitive settings with either one, if you're shooting for absolutely highest performance however then stick with bilinear. For those graphic lovers, I'd recommend bumping your settings up to an anisotropic filtering for increased quality.

Mutlicore Rendering -

Put simply, if you have a processor with more than one core, then you want to enable this. Multicore Rendering will utilize all your cores, not only one - making for a more reliable, and efficient gaming experience.

Refresh Rate -

The refresh rate is the number of times your display refreshes or “reprints” itself in a second. Common refresh rates include 60Hz, 75Hz, and 120Hz. The higher the refresh rate, the less of a “slide show” effect it will seem like.

Recommendation: Always set this to as high as it can possibly go. You'll want to utilize every hert of it.

Rendering -

All it means is to create life like images in the form of 2D or 3D models. Easy, huh?

Resolution -

This is the number of pixels contained in your display. Common resolutions include 800x600, 1024x768, and 1680x1050. The larger your monitor is, the more pixels it can hold. To find out approximately how many pixels your screen has, just multiply the two. For instance, 800x600 resolution would have around 480,000 pixels. The higher the resolution, the more pixels, and the more pixels, the better quality picture you'll receive.

Recommendation: In cases where you're trying to get better performance from a game, resorting to lowering your resolution can help dramatically, but may not be as easy on the eyes. In almost all cases, set it to the highest it can go.

Shader Quality -

This determines the quality of shadows or how light appears in a game; whether it be reflective shadows, environmental shadows/light, and so forth. Many games will have a low, medium, and high quality option for this feature.

Recommendation: Depending on what games you play, seeing your enemies shadow can be extremely helpful. Mainly games such as first person shooters will benefit from a high shader quality. Other games such as Real Time Strategy, and Role Playing games may not see much of a use for it though. For FPS games, I recommend a high shader setting, for everything else a low-medium.

Vsync or Vertical Synchronization -

This cuts out any sort of broken, uneven, or distorted vertical lines. In other words, without it you may see “tearing” in your graphics. It also caps your frame rate at what your computer monitor's refresh rate is. For instance, if you have a refresh rate of 75 Hz then your frame rate would be capped at 75.

Here's an example of what not using Vsync can do:



Recommendation: I've always played without it enabled and never had a problem. Besides, who wants their frame rate capped? For the casual gamer who just wants to play every once in a while, this could be useful Anything higher than a casual gamer though I'd say to leave it off. Unless you're noticing gratuitous amounts of distorted vertical lines for seconds at a time, then it's not needed in my opinion.

For Eye Candy Gamers:

Eye candy gamers are those who play games just for the looks. A few pieces of advice to get the best visually rewarding experience would be to keep all your basic settings on high (if your video card can handle it). Such as your resolution, texture quality, and anti-aliasing. If you find your graphics card is having a tough time handle maximum settings begin to turn off or lower features that aren't as impactive on your gameplay such as anisotropic filtering, shader quality, and motion blur. Of course, if your card can handle everything on high then go for it! But, with more demand may come less FPS, on the bright side things will look spectacular.

For Serious Gamers:

If you're looking for the highest FPS, and ultimate competitive settings then disable anything that isn't needed. In other words, don't sugar coat your games. Anti-aliasing, anisotropic filtering, and all those options are extras that aren't needed to play. The less work your video card has to do, the better performance on your end. There can also be ways to cut down lag in-game by changing registry keys, changing console commands, and by using programs. These fixes can tell your connection to “talk faster” from the server to the host basically. (One great program I found which works fantastically well for MMO's is http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info13581-LeatrixLatencyFix.html) If your game allows you to create your own custom start up script than by all means try it out! You can turn off bullet holes, decals, animations, blood, and just about everything else. You'll have no problem cranking up your FPS, and getting the highest performance out of your game.

When it comes down to it, the key is to play around with your settings, and find that sweet spot for your video card. Also, common sense is always good to use too. If you're running a video card from five years ago, don't try pushing it on full settings while playing Crysis. Once you adapt to your card, you'll know what it will be able to handle. Several games allow you to create your own custom auto execution file as well (autoexec.exe) which would allow you to further tweak more settings in-game.

I'll be continually adding terms to this list and helpful tips. If you have any questions feel free to let me know!
37,468 Views
20 REPLIES 20

Mack 4033 wrote:
Good post, Now I am a hard core gamer what settings are good for me?
games I play HL2 Death match,Call of duty?

Thanks,
Mack 4033



First, are you looking for settings that are balanced, performance focused, or graphically focused?

Secondly, which Call of Duty are you talking about?

Mack 4033 wrote:
Good post, Now I am a hard core gamer what settings are good for me?
games I play HL2 Death match,Call of duty?

Thanks,
Mack 4033


you might wanna correct you pc spec :D"I5 2600K " its 2500k
The only reason people get lost in thought is because it's unfamiliar territory!

Thanks didnt know mutch of that and you are right some games have some of the settings and some dont. Im a semi serious gamer. I want to win but I care about the graphics as well.


My machine: G75VW-BBK5 with Windows 8 Pro :cool:

My YouTube: EpicTechinsteinTime

glenn_with_2_n_
Level 7
great post kaboom,
as a fellow gamer this is legit because you get the main concepts without overkilling what needs to be known =D
with that said, what are your thoughts on putting together another post or adding to this with the latest effects games have?
if you are knowledgeable in these here are some examples that id be really appreciative of =D

-difference between direct x 9, 10, 11 (simple breakdown negatives/positives)
-physx (how it applies to games?, what kind of added stress dos it put on the system?)
-tessellation (all i know is crysis 2 ran mint with everything on high playing in 3D but batman ac is unplayable with direct x 11 tess and stuff on lol extreme chopping from the press start screen =/)
-mvss and hbao (i don't know what these are other then they appear in the setting of batman arkham city for direct x 11 features)
-the new anti-aliasing (fxaa high, medium, low, how dos that apply vs choosing the setting with the multiplier?)
-distortion (i saw this and i thought of my bass effects pedal lol)
-ambient occlusion (im guessing this is the in game effect where objects such as windows, ice, water have that crystal see threw effect? i have a feeling im way off though =P)

i know i could search most of these but we all know if its broken down into a persons opinion vs verbatim it tends to be that much easier to understand, specifically from people with likewise interests.
so if you have some time and have a solid on these it would be sweet if they were added to the post or new post and i for one would be hella grateful!
†he RoG Hell Spawn | GPU/ 2 x Matrix Platinum 580 GTX in SLI | MoBo/ Maximus IV Extreme-Z | CPU/ i7 2600k (Cooled by Corsair H60) | Case/ SilverStone FT-02 | Memory/ 16GB of Corsair Vengeance | PSU/ SilverStone 1200-G | OS/ Win7Ult | OS SSD's/ 2 x Corsair 60GB Force GT in RAID 0 | Game Storage/ 2 x WD 1TB 7200rpm HDD in RAID 0 | Media Storage/ 2TB WD HDD | Main Storage/ 256GB SSD | Sound Card/ Creative SB X-Fi Ti with Front Drive | Misc/ Sound Activated Lighting | ....well i'll be damned 😛

DaemonCantor
Level 13
glenn, if you want more on the Graphics technology check out this link http://www.geeks3d.com/20090815/high-definition-ambient-occlusion-hdao/ which goes into HDAO High Definition Ambient Occlusion (DX11) along with links to just about all other things PhysicX, DX11, OpenGL, OpenCL and on and on... Sorry I took so long in bringing this info to you but I've been busy trying to get my system somewhat close to what I want and playing with all my new toys....

glenn_with_2_n_
Level 7
right on, i will check it out. thanks!
†he RoG Hell Spawn | GPU/ 2 x Matrix Platinum 580 GTX in SLI | MoBo/ Maximus IV Extreme-Z | CPU/ i7 2600k (Cooled by Corsair H60) | Case/ SilverStone FT-02 | Memory/ 16GB of Corsair Vengeance | PSU/ SilverStone 1200-G | OS/ Win7Ult | OS SSD's/ 2 x Corsair 60GB Force GT in RAID 0 | Game Storage/ 2 x WD 1TB 7200rpm HDD in RAID 0 | Media Storage/ 2TB WD HDD | Main Storage/ 256GB SSD | Sound Card/ Creative SB X-Fi Ti with Front Drive | Misc/ Sound Activated Lighting | ....well i'll be damned 😛

Techinstein
Level 9
Thanks for all your help, and now I finally and truly understand what all of those settings mean. So I can kick some online butt.


My machine: G75VW-BBK5 with Windows 8 Pro :cool:

My YouTube: EpicTechinsteinTime

Clintlgm
Level 14
Thanks for this Primer, I'm just starting out gaming and this will help get me going
G752VY-DH72 Win 10 Pro
512 GB M.2 Samsung 960 Pro
1 TB Samsung 850 pro 2.5 format
980m GTX 4 GB
32GB DDR 4 Standard RAM

Z97 PRO WiFi I7 4790K
Windows 10 Pro
Z97 -A
Windows 10 Pro

Christos_Tsiaou
Level 7
Very helpful, thanx a lot! :cool:

bocalot
Level 7
Thank you Kaboom and everyone else that contributed here. Learning everyday, and I am in the "diaper" stage, hoping to get to kindergarten soon. lol