Game Settings You Should Always Change
Different games can have drastically different settings menus, but there are certain game settings that almost all games share. Knowing which settings are just meant for eye-candy can help you set up your games for optimal performance faster, so it pays off to know what these universal game settings do and why you should disable them if you care about performance.
Motion Blur
Motion blur gets added to games in order to make them more cinematic. When the camera moves quickly in a movie or television show, the screen turns blurry, so games introduce this blur to make the experience look more like a big budget film.
If you’re trying to perform in a video game, the last thing you want to do is introduce artificial means of making the game world look less clear. Turning off motion blur can mean the difference between spotting an enemy coming at you during a swipe and missing said enemy completely because your screen was blurred.
Always turn this off.
V-Sync
V-Sync synchronizes the frame rate of your graphic card with the refresh rate of your monitor. Its advantage is that it eliminates screen tearing (visual tearing effect), but its disadvantage is that it induces input lag.
If you value in-game responsiveness, you should always turn off V-Sync. We turn this off by default in any game that’s not a relaxed single-player game.
Lens Effects (Lens Flare, …)
In an ongoing attempt to seem more cinematic, many games add various ‘lens effects’. These are meant to mimic how a camera lens behaves in real life.
A common example of this is the lens flare effect, which we’ve illustrated below. Obviously, the effect is exaggerated for the purpose of illustration, but you can see how these effects can get distracting and can even obfuscate crucial visual cues.
Other examples of these effects include lens dirt, blood splatters appearing on the screen when enemies get shot, and so on.
These effects can make it feel like there’s an actual camera behind your character, but they reduce visual clarity, so disable them whenever possible.
Shadows
Shadows do a great deal to make a game look immersive. A game with no shadows at all has a strange ‘uncanny valley’ look to it. Furthermore, a lot of games have shadows that can convey competitively viable information.
In CS2, for example, there are multiple spots where you can see an enemy’s shadow before they actually appear in your vision.
Since shadows can give away crucial info, we don’t recommend turning shadows off completely. Instead of this, we suggest turning them down. Rendering sharp, lifelike shadows can take quite some processing power, and if you’re only using shadows for info it doesn’t matter if it’s blocky or not.
Audio Settings
A lot of gamers falsely assume that they need to turn the volume up all the way so that they hear absolutely everything. While it is true that you want to be able to also hear faint sound cues (those are often the most important ones) and you don’t want the volume to be too low, it’s also true that there are diminishing returns here.
To put it simply: a game either renders a sound, or it doesn’t. Turning your volume up to ear-shattering levels won’t make your game render sounds it otherwise wouldn’t. In addition to this, having your volume too high can lead to jump scares, during which you won’t have control over your mouse.
Finally -and most importantly- playing at very high volumes can permanently damage your hearing. Once you’ve got tinnitus, you’re stuck with it for the rest of your life. So take care of your ears, and find a volume level that’s optimal for your environment.
Subtitles
Subtitles are almost always turned off by default, but it can be a good idea to turn them on. Firstly because it means you won’t ever miss any important dialogue, and secondly because some competitive games also display relevant information in their subtitles.
Subtitles are designed to stay out of your way, so they won’t hinder gameplay. We recommend turning on subtitles, unless they give out absolutely no relevant information.
Ray Tracing
Ray tracing (we’ve got a more in-depth article on it if you’re interested) renders lighting and reflections in real-time. This makes games look utterly fantastic and very lifelike, but it’s a notorious performance hog. Therefore, we recommend turning it off if you’re playing a game competitively or if you just need frame rates.
Field of View (FOV)
Games with a FOV slider often don’t have the slider set to the maximum value. For competitive purposes, however, it’s important that you widen your FOV as much as possible. Wider FOV means that you see more of the game world, which means that you have more opportunities to spot enemies or other important aspects.
Conclusion
These are some of the most important game settings that you should always change. Some should be completely turned off/on while others should be adjusted according to your preference. Knowing what these settings and options mean and do will make the process of optimizing a new game a lot easier, so hopefully this guide has been helpful to you!
