Update 1.0 for World of Tanks was released on March 20th.
The game switched to the new graphics engine—Core.
It uses new technologies and they need to be set up from scratch.
Players will be suggested a preset for graphics settings,
which considers the performance of their PCs.
However, if you think that there's still room for improvements,
you may select a less demanding preset. Or set the graphics quality manually.
Comfortable settings are the golden balance between the graphics quality
and the number of frames per second (FPS).
The normal FPS value is 30 or higher.
The number of frames per second depends most of all
on the combination of the CPU and graphics card and it must be balanced.
A powerful graphics card will be idle when coupled with a weak CPU.
At the same time,
a powerful CPU won't help a weak graphics card ensure high FPS.
There is a way to identify the weak link.
In the Garage, "grab" your vehicle with a left button click and rotate it quickly.
If the movement is not smooth, you're experiencing low FPS.
Press ESC or click the cogwheel icon in the upper left corner of the screen.
Select the Graphics tab from the game settings.
Uncheck Dynamic Adjustment and decrease 3D Render Resolution.
Repeat the experiment with a vehicle.
If nothing changed, then your CPU is most probably the weak link.
Or the entire system.
If the movement became sharp, then your graphics card lacks power.
In this case, you can increase your FPS
with some changes to the graphics settings.
Let's review them one by one. Let's return to the Graphics tab.
If the weak link is your graphics card,
you can noticeably increase performance by decreasing 3D Render Resolution.
It doesn't affect the quality of the interface display.
It's better to enable Dynamic Adjustment for low-performance PCs.
The game client will begin to track FPS changes.
If it drops below a specified threshold and stays at that level for some time,
3D Render Resolution will be automatically decreased.
This will improve game performance during especially heated battles.
Let's move to the Screen tab.
Three options are available in the Mode menu—
Windowed, Full-screen, and Windowed (borderless).
If you need to increase FPS, select Full-screen.
It may bring improvements on some systems.
The convenience of the other modes
lies in the ability to quickly switch between windows.
Screen Resolution. Or Window Size in a Windowed mode.
The main difference of this menu from 3D Render Resolution
is that it also affects the game interface. The results are the same.
If you reduce the resolution,
you can increase FPS on systems with a weak graphics card.
But you need to select a value
that corresponds to the size of your display as much as possible.
Otherwise, there's a risk of distorted geometry and illegible fonts.
Vertical Synchronization and Triple buffering
increase the smoothness of gameplay.
We recommend enabling it only if FPS in the game
is higher than the refresh frequency of your display.
For example, if the refresh frequency is 60 Hz,
the FPS value should be higher than 60.
It's not recommended for graphics cards with 256 megabytes of VRAM.
Field of View (FoV) impacts your perception of the game.
The higher it is, the more objects visible on the screen,
which increases control over the situation in a battle
thanks to larger view angles around your vehicle.
At the same time, the greater number of objects on the screen
increases the load on the graphics card.
A smaller viewing angle can increase FPS.
The Interface Scaling, Display, and Colorblind mode settings
have an insignificant impact on performance.
Interface Scaling will come in handy for those of you with 4K and 8K displays.
With resolutions like these, the interface can be too small without scaling.
Color Adjustment works only with Improved Graphics.
You can observe in real time how the picture changes
when filters are applied to it.
Or set up brightness, contrast, and saturation yourself.
Now to Advanced Graphics Settings.
Here you can select between Standard and Improved graphics.
Update 1.0 uses the new graphics engine Core.
The Improved graphics uncover their full potential.
The Standard graphics lack many visual effects,
but in return provide better performance.
If your PC struggles with Improved graphics,
we recommend selecting Standard. FPS can increase considerably.
All settings on the Advanced tab have an impact on system performance.
By how much depends on many factors.
The CPU, graphics card, amount of RAM and VRAM, and graphics settings.
You'll need to experiment to find optimal values for your computer.
Antialiasing removes "jaggies" from 3D objects.
The picture becomes smoother, especially on displays with a lower resolution.
Antialiasing methods differ for Standard and Improved graphics.
In the latter, antialiasing is tied to presets.
Enabling this setting decreases performance.
The Texture Quality setting influences the texture resolution.
It also conceals the technology for their filtration.
Filtration allows for a significant increase in the texture quality
on surfaces that are heavily sloped relative to the line of sight.
The more you move the slider to the right, the more VRAM is required.
Textures are not the only component of objects.
They are stretched on a polygonal model.
The more details it has, the more realistic it looks.
But you won't see all the details from 500 meters away.
So, there's no point in loading the graphics card.
That's why each vehicle in the game has five models of different quality.
The farther from the observer, the simpler the model used.
It allows us to save some computer resources.
The Object LOD setting adjusts the distance at which the models switch,
impacts the vehicle tracks detalization,
and has an effect on the overall performance of your PC.
Draw Distance affects objects that are not relevant for gameplay:
trees, small buildings, fences, etc.
Vehicles and important objects are always rendered.
For example, the lighthouse on the Cliff map
is visible at any position of the slider.
It doesn't have a noticeable impact on FPS.
Lighting Quality. The slider activates various technologies
while you move it from Low to Ultra settings.
*SSR (Screen Space Reflection)* *GI (Global Illumination)*
*God Rays, Lens Flare, HBAO (Horizon-based Ambient Occlusion)*
You can see how armor gets wet and dries out at any position of the slider,
but only in the scope of the Improved graphics.
Where there is light, there are shadows as well.
The setting affects the quality of dynamic shadow processing
within the whole draw distance.
The standard render uses so-called baked shadows
that have been rendered beforehand.
The improved render uses static and dynamic shadows simultaneously.
The Ultra settings now have particle shadows such as fog.
The Shadows as well as the Lighting Quality settings affect FPS dramatically.
Post Processing.
This setting is used for activating vignette and heat shimmer effects.
It isn't recommended for low-end rigs.
The Motion Blur Effect makes objects naturally blurry.
You can easily see the effect when you move the camera quickly.
It isn't recommended for low-end rigs and for average FPS less than 30.
Water looks completely new on the new graphics engine Core.
It became dynamic:
shots, explosions, and moving vehicles cause water disturbances.
Changing this setting improves the quality of the water surface:
shadow details on water improve, tessellation of detailed waves turns on,
lighting is rendered more correctly. This setting is resource-intensive.
Terrain.
This slider defines at what distance the terrain geometry becomes simpler.
The minimum setting highly simplifies the true terrain geometry around a vehicle.
It may cause a difference between the client and server.
In other words, you can't see a particular ledge, but it's there.
So after a shot, the shell will hit a hill ledge, but not an enemy.
The Terrain Tessellation setting is designed for the Improved graphics;
it works only on graphics cards that support DirectX 11.
It affects the terrain only. It adds small stones and holes,
while shell holes and vehicle tracks become shaped geometrically.
The next setting works the same, but for the sniper mode.
When this setting is on,
it increases the level of detail within a 50-meter radius from the player.
It only works when the Terrain Tessellation setting is on.
Both settings differ in their resource-intensity.
The vegetation settings are resource-intensive,
and they make World of Tanks much more beautiful.
Vegetation Quality affects the quality of trees, grass, and bushes.
This setting additionally impacts
the complexity of calculations of wind rocking the trees.
Properties of the Grass Density setting are clear from its name.
If you uncheck the Foliage Transparency and Grass in Sniper Mode checkboxes,
you can slightly increase the performance of your system.
Now about the visual effects.
Extra Effects Quality.
The Off position leaves just sparkles and tracers.
The closer this selection is to the maximum,
the more sparkles, explosions, and fire shown in the game.
Extra Effects in Sniper Mode control the same but for the sniper mode.
Both parameters affect the performance of a system.
It's recommended to set these parameters to Low on low-end rigs,
so you can better determine the location of explosions.
The Enhanced Destruction Physics setting
conceals the Havok Destruction technology.
If you check this box,
objects on a map will be destroyed much more realistically.
This feature works only for the Improved graphics and affects FPS.
Only players can see the feature; it doesn't affect gameplay.
It's not recommended for low-end CPUs.
Track Effects improve the image
with water, snow, and ground splashes coming from behind the tracks.
And one last bit of advice on how to boost performance.
This is relevant for single and dual-core CPUs.
It isn't related to the graphics settings.
So, if you turn off sound completely, you can obtain a solid performance boost.
That's all about settings.
Let's sum it up.
The new graphics engine Core shows its full potential
only with Improved graphics enabled. Try to play with it.
Even in the case of a low-end PC,
you shouldn't set all of the settings to minimum, you can increase some of them,
so you'll get a beautiful image without FPS drops.
High FPS to you and good luck on the battlefield!