Start with the settings the game itself identifies as expensive. If it offers no guidance, try optional costly anti-aliasing, volumetric effects, reflections, and water quality as a diagnostic starting point—not a universal ranking. In an open-world area that runs slowly, also test foliage density and view distance. Change one setting at a time and compare the same route or benchmark so you can see what actually helps on your system.
What should you turn down first?
Check the game’s own performance guidance before changing settings. As one specific example, Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption 2 PC graphics-performance guidance recommends experimenting with its quality slider and confirming the preferred balance with the built-in benchmark. For finer adjustments, Rockstar’s first group includes MSAA, reflection quality, water quality, volumetric quality, and near volumetric resolution. The recommended order is specific to RDR2, not every open-world RPG.
If your game does not provide a recommended order, treat these as first tests rather than guaranteed wins:
- Optional high-cost anti-aliasing: MSAA is worth testing if the game offers it. Check how much jaggedness you are willing to accept.
- Volumetric effects: Lower volumetric quality or resolution if available. These options affect atmospheric effects such as fog and light scattering, so judge the change in the scenes you play.
- Reflections and water: Reduce their quality and compare areas where those effects are visible.
The order can change with the game, system, and scene. Rockstar cautions that “Depending on system configuration, different settings will have different impacts on game performance.”
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Why the slow area matters
Settings do not always cost the same amount throughout an open world. NVIDIA’s Grand Theft Auto V graphics and performance guide describes grass quality as especially costly in rural areas. It also notes that reflection costs vary with scene content—such as vehicles, windows, water, and buildings—and that distance scaling can affect how much detail is reflected. Those are examples from GTA V, not a performance ranking for other RPGs.
When a slowdown is tied to a particular region, test the controls that change how much of that area is drawn or shaded:
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- Foliage or grass density: Compare a wooded or grassy section where you notice the slowdown.
- Draw distance or view distance: Check a location with a long view, and assess how much distant detail disappears when you lower it.
- Reflections: Compare scenes with reflective surfaces; a setting that barely matters in one location may be more expensive in another.
When to lower resolution or use upscaling
If the GPU appears to be the limiting factor and the game offers resolution scaling or an upscaler, test it after the game-specific expensive effects. These features render the game below the display’s native resolution and reconstruct or scale the image. NVIDIA’s Control graphics and performance guide explains that resolution scaling and DLSS can raise frame rates while trading some image quality. That explanation applies to the options available in Control and is not a promise of the same result in another game.
Compare both frame rate and image quality at your usual viewing distance. Look for softness or loss of fine detail, and remember that interface elements may remain at native resolution in some implementations. Use only features the particular game supports.
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How to test settings without guessing
- Record your starting point. Note your resolution and current settings. If the game has a quality preset, optimizer, or benchmark, use it to establish a baseline.
- Follow game-specific advice first. Test the options its developer identifies as costly. Without such advice, try optional costly anti-aliasing, volumetric effects, reflections, and water as a diagnostic sequence.
- Reproduce the slowdown. Use the same route, location, viewing direction, and approximate conditions. If the problem occurs in a specific region, test there rather than relying only on a different scene.
- Change one setting at a time. Run the built-in benchmark where available or repeat the same route. Note frame rate and stutter as well as visible changes.
- Test scaling if appropriate. If the GPU remains the apparent limit and the game offers scaling or upscaling, compare its sharpness and performance against your baseline.
- Stop at an acceptable trade-off. Keep a change if its performance improvement is worth the visual loss to you; restore it if the difference is negligible.
Rockstar explicitly recommends using RDR2’s built-in benchmark to confirm a preferred balance. For other games, a repeatable route is a practical comparison, but it is not a substitute for a benchmark when conditions vary.
Should you lower textures or ambient occlusion?
Textures
Do not reflexively reduce texture quality before checking the game’s guidance. Rockstar places texture quality later in its RDR2 adjustment list, while NVIDIA’s GTA V guide discusses memory limits in connection with texture and other memory-consuming settings. Consider lowering textures if you are seeing signs of video-memory pressure, texture-streaming problems, or stutter; otherwise, first test options the game identifies as more expensive.
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Ambient occlusion
Ambient occlusion adds contact shading that can make objects appear more grounded, but its performance cost and visual implementation vary by game. NVIDIA’s The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt graphics and performance guide discusses trade-offs for that game’s SSAO and HBAO+ options. Use the settings available in your game and compare locally rather than assuming the Witcher 3 result transfers.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What if changing settings barely helps?
If several adjustments make little difference, this settings pass has not identified the bottleneck. Consult the game’s performance guidance and diagnose the system separately instead of continuing to lower graphics options on the assumption that one must help. The cited game-specific guides do not establish a universal setting order or guaranteed frame-rate gain across RPGs and PC configurations.
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