- Can you spot the difference?
I mean, Low to Medium, or Medium to High,
sure, that's easy.
But the higher we go, the change is less obvious,
outside of your frame rate biting the dust.
So if super-fancy-extreme-ultra graphics options
are hardly noticeable,
why are developers still adding them to new games,
especially when your bangin' new PC
can't even run them at playable frame rates?
Are the GPU manufacturers to blame?
I need an answer.
And the answer to who sponsored this video is GlassWire.
Are you lagging out while gaming?
Use GlassWire and see what apps are wasting your bandwidth
and causing your games to lag.
Get 25% off today using offer code LINUS
at the link below.
(upbeat music)
Even with the best modern hardware,
brand-new triple-A games often struggle
to run at maxed-out graphics settings.
With the advent of ray tracing and HDR,
this has become even more apparent
as systems with high-end 30-series cards
can barely keep up once you output to a 4K monitor
and flip a few in-game switches.
DLSS and FSR are helping,
but is it really worth it
to spend your life savings on a Bugatti
so you can feel like a badass on your five-minute commute?
Look, we're not saying maxed-out settings do nothing.
It's just that the visual upgrade you'll notice
is minimal, comparatively speaking.
After all, at MSRP a 3070 is $499
while a 3090 is basically triple that at $1,499.
So to see whether skipping a rent payment
to buy a graphics card is worth it,
we built two systems
to compare different settings at similar frame rates
and asked a few folks from around the office
if they could tell the difference.
We didn't tell them what was going on.
We just asked them to play a section
from "Metro Exodus: Enhanced Edition"
and to tell us which one looked nicer.
- Uh...
- Uh, I mean...
- They're the same.
- I would say this one's better.
- I want to say I like this one better.
- It's hard to tell though.
- I don't know. They look the same.
- And guess what? Only one person picked correctly.
- Yeah. Is this the 3090?
- Yeah, it's the 3090. - Yeah.
It's a little bit clearer, but like...
I don't know, a tiny bit.
- Our resident gamer god David
was able to tell pretty quickly
which system was our RTX 3090 at extreme settings,
while everyone else defaulted to the 3070.
The results were so skewed,
we started doubting the setup by the end.
But, nope, it's just really hard to tell for most people,
particularly those who aren't already gaming
on some of the most expensive hardware available.
But why?
The answer has to do with diminishing returns.
I mean, you're gonna enjoy a $70 steak
more than a buck-fifty hot dog,
but will you enjoy it $68.50 more?
I don't know.
But fortunately our friends at CryTek are meat experts,
and by meat, I mean video game graphics.
They're working on the "Crisis Remastered Trilogy,"
so we reached out for some answers.
They told us that they do have performance targets
and are aware of modern hardware
like the latest generation of consoles or graphics cards,
but there are always hurdles
in the way of smooth performance,
large environments, 4K textures, particle effects, and AI
being some of the bigger ones to get over.
The first step is getting all of this into the game
and running in the first place,
while optimization typically comes later.
Usually, the more time for optimization,
the better the game will run on most hardware.
When there's a lot of hardware to optimize for,
things can get messy.
And if your setup's cable management is messy,
make sure to pick up some cable ties from lttstore.com.
Like these. They're so good.
Targets have scaled up over the years,
and with modern consoles, we're finally looking at 1440p
or even 4K resolutions running at 60 frames per second,
at least on medium or low settings.
If your hardware is getting older,
which it is for a lot of us
according to the Steam hardware survey,
and my back!
Ooh!
Some settings have a much bigger impact than others,
particularly shadows and particle effects.
You've probably found yourself
tinkering with settings one by one
to try to get the best mix of frame rate to fidelity,
only to have trouble even noticing the difference sometimes,
especially if there are no example images or videos
to show you in real time.
Why does Ultra and Very High
in many cases look basically identical,
but suddenly you go from 70 FPS to 40?
The real problem often isn't developers failing to optimize.
It's that as things look better and better,
it's hard to notice due to the 80/20 rule.
Getting 80% of the way there is actually pretty easy
and it's not until we try to squeeze out
that extra 20% of detail and depth
that we run into problems.
Take "Anno," for example.
It looks great, but for the best play experience,
you need to really zoom the camera out,
and adding more objects and textures to render in-frame
causes performance to chug significantly.
We see similar results
when improving draw distance in other games,
but at a certain point it's not really worth it
since we can barely make out distant objects anyway.
But we're all dumb apes,
and when there's a slider
we can move all the way to the right,
we just have to stick our grubby fingers in there
even though the Low, Medium, and High settings
will probably look just fine.
Ooh-ooh, ah-ah.
Me like sliding.
So here's the example CryTek gave us.
At the lowest option you've got pretty low-res textures,
a 1,000-meter draw distance,
low amounts of particles for effects,
and extra details like waves on water are turned off.
Very High sounds drastically different,
offering 4K textures, a 2,500-meter draw distance,
lots of particles, and all the extras turned on.
But when you compare High to Very High,
the gap is much smaller,
with the main difference being
texture resolution going from 2K to 4K
and a draw distance improvement.
If you don't have a 4K monitor to begin with
and the foliage is thick,
good luck spotting that with the naked eye.
Another improvement that can be hard to see
past a certain point is tessellation,
or splitting up polygons into finer pieces.
Adding more triangles to smooth out a curved surface
is a huge improvement to 3D environments,
but unless you start zooming in a lot,
you likely won't be able to tell the difference.
However, some things are 100% worth turning on,
even if your frame rate drops significantly.
We mentioned draw distance already,
but more realistic shadows and lighting
can really just make a dull environment
mmm, spring to life.
Antialiasing solutions are also huge
for smoothing ugly, jagged surfaces,
and higher-resolution textures do look a lot better
if you have the right screen for them.
But these options are gonna have
different effects in every game,
so whatever you're playing,
try to test the waters and find the right balance
of frame rate to visual quality for yourself.
And speaking of visual quality,
make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss out
on our upcoming Looking Glass Portrait video.
Ooh.
Now, if we know deep down
that going from Very High to Ultra
is either indistinguishable or hardly better,
why do developers keep making these ridiculous settings
that only a tiny fraction of players can actually run
if anyone at all?
Well, there's two big reasons.
One: options are always good to have.
And two: it helps market the game.
We all want to buy the new hotness,
especially when it's pretty,
but many of us have been duped into preordering
based on what's shown at E3 versus the final product.
And while most people can't run Ultra
or Very High settings now,
they might be able to in the future once they upgrade
and want to revisit some older games.
For now, though,
if you don't have the latest and greatest GPU,
which is probably the case
given the hard, hard year we've had,
don't worry.
These days, Low settings often look
surprisingly good in modern games
and in some cases can give you a competitive advantage,
with Medium and High offering a nicer experience
if you can run it.
There's no shame in keeping setting on the left, silly ape.
Don't give yourself slider envy.
But it's perfectly acceptable
to envy this video's sponsor, Drop.
- Drop's Sennheiser HD 6XX headphones
are one of their all-time bestsellers
with over 90,000 units sold.
And why not? They're frickin' awesome.
They have not changed the driver and sound structure
compared to the regular HD 650s,
so you can expect a nice, balanced midrange
and natural-sounding bass.
They've got an open-back design
which allows auditorium-like acoustics
for accurate sound reproduction.
They've got a detachable six-foot cable
instead of the 10-foot cable
on the more conventional models and...
Really is a better length for the cable.
And they use a 1/8-inch plug
that's versatile for everyday use
with a 1/4-inch adapter included for your A/V gear.
So why wait? Buy them today at the link down below.
They're actually very similar to my daily driver HD 600s.
They're just so comfy, too.
- So what do you guys think, though?
Do you have a 3090 or a 6900 XT
and you just refuse to play at anything
other than 4K Ultra, even if the frame rate dips?
Let us know in the comments below.
And if you liked this video,
make sure to check out our DLSS and FSR videos.
Ooh, the future is lookin' bright. (kiss smacks)