Perhaps one of the most commonly mentioned ways to improve PC gaming performance (at least that I've seen in recent years) is to overclock the GPU. While this will definitely give you some extra frames (like frames per second), it can also be detrimental to your card if you don't know what you're doing, and even sometimes when you do know what you're doing. Cause great damage.
Instead, I recommend changing some key settings in the game to help improve performance. Of course, it may not always result in the best graphical fidelity, but sometimes you may need to sacrifice beautiful visuals for better performance.
Start by changing these settings
If you're experiencing performance issues, you'll want to try undoing some key settings first.
First, turn off vertical sync. While V-Sync promises smooth frames, in many games you'll find that V-Sync actually hurts performance more than it helps. This is because, while it does prevent screen tearing, it forces your graphics card to match your monitor's refresh rate. It can also cause a small amount of input lag, which can sometimes feel like a performance issue if you're playing fast-paced games.
You also need to start lowering the shadow quality. While higher shadow settings may look good, they are also very demanding, especially in newer games. Sometimes these shadows are also associated with lighting, but you'll often find them as separate settings. If you have a powerful enough system, I recommend turning them down to "Medium" or "High". Most of the time, Ultra causes more performance issues than visual improvements.
Ambient Occlusion is another setting related to lighting and shadows, but it's a little more complicated than that. Ambient occlusion essentially controls how objects create shadows on other objects, such as a table or a computer monitor casting a shadow on a chair. You can usually turn this setting off without making a big noticeable difference, and it will usually give you an extra 5 to 10 frames per second (FPS).
While ray tracing has come a long way since its mainstream introduction, the feature remains one of the most performance-focused features currently offered in video games. Therefore, I recommend turning it off in most games unless you don't mind losing the extra performance it might cost you. (It does look good.) I'd say a setting like this should be set to "Low" or "Medium" at best. Keep in mind that if you use this, you will see a significant performance drop.
The same goes for reflections. Games like Red Dead Redemption 2 offer specific reflection sliders so you can choose exactly the quality of reflections you want in mirrors and water. While they may look nice, you'll often lose a few frames per second in order to get smoother reflections, and most of the time, there aren't enough reflective surfaces in the game to make sense.
Anti-aliasing
You'll also need to adjust the anti-aliasing effect. While these can help smooth out edges in games, they can also be very expensive, especially if you go with one of the more intensive options. Anti-aliasing options range from baseline Supersampled Anti-Aliasing (SSAA), which renders the game at a higher resolution before shrinking it to fit the monitor, to faster options such as Fast Approximate Anti-Aliasing (FXAA), which uses an algorithm Take a guess) Which edges need to be smoothed after rendering the image.
Depending on the type of anti-aliasing you choose, you may see smoother edges but a slight decrease in performance. There are other types of anti-aliasing, such as the most common option, Multisampled Anti-Aliasing (MSAA). This renders only the edges of the scene at a higher resolution, saving performance while providing similar quality to what SSAA provides. You'll also see the Temporary Anti-Aliasing (TAA or TXAA) option, which works similarly to MSAA, rendering edges at a higher resolution. However, TAA also takes temporal detail into account, meaning it uses previous frames to predict which anti-aliasing features will need to be used in future frames.
Ultimately, your best choice will vary, but I've found a lot of great success with MSAA because it costs so much less than SSAA. However, for most possible frames, you'll probably want to use FXAA or TAA, although both are prone to artifacts (visual errors that appear on the monitor) and don't always look the best.
DLSS, FSR, XESS and dynamic resolution
Finally, if you are really struggling with performance, I highly recommend looking into DLSS, FSR, XESS, or Dynamic Resolution. DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) and FSR (FidelityFX Super Resolution) are both dynamic resolution options that rely on the graphics card to render the game at a lower resolution and then use AI algorithms to upscale it. XESS is a similar, but newer and rarer equivalent. These options often provide additional FPS without reducing visual quality as much as simply lowering the resolution.
DLSS is only available on Nvidia graphics cards and is generally considered the highest quality option for this specific feature. However, AMD's FSR is just as effective at improving performance, just not as high graphics fidelity. It works with both Nvidia and AMD graphics cards, making it a solid choice for just about anyone. DLSS offers by far the best visuals between the two, so if you have an Nvidia card, give it a try.
XESS works similarly, but it builds on various Intel technology features that have been baked into the company's newer CPUs and GPUs. It's rarer in games than DLSS and FSR, and offers smaller performance gains and larger quality drops, depending on the game. If you see the option to use it in a game, you can try turning it on, but don't be surprised if DLSS or FSR provide better results.
If you want to go a step further, or if DLSS and FSR are not available, you can also use Nvidia Image Scaling (NIS). This feature is built directly into the Nvidia Control Panel and Nvidia GeForce Experience, allowing you to set the desired upscaling resolution and the resolution at which your game is rendered. You'll need to manually adjust settings like sharpness, though, which makes it easy to over-sharpen the image, or generally reduce the overall image quality. Still, it comes in handy if you have the time to sit down and find the perfect settings for each game you plan to play.
Finally, some games are showing up with built-in dynamic resolution options. This is not a feature supported by AMD or Nvidia, and is generally much worse than DLSS or FSR. Some games do have excellent dynamic resolution, but in most cases you'll see more of a drop in quality using this feature since it targets a specific frame rate and dynamically changes your resolution to Match it. It sounds great in theory, but in practice it just creates a shaky experience that's not very pleasant.
Unfortunately, the list of games that support DLSS and FSR is still growing, so not all games will offer this feature. Until then, try moving to other, potentially more intensive settings such as post-processing, texture quality, and view distance.
Get a new graphics card
Of course, the best way to improve performance is to bite the bullet and buy some new hardware. Stay tuned to Lifehacker for updates on all the biggest GPU deals, including Nvidia's new supercards and AMD's upcoming chip updates.
Currently, here is a list of the most popular AMD and Nvidia graphics cards - the higher the number, the better the card:
Nvidia
Nvidia RTX 4060/4060 Ti
Nvidia RTX 4070/4070 Super/4070 Ti/4070 Ti Super
Nvidia RTX 4080/4080 Super
NVIDIA RTX 4090
AMD
AMD Radeon RX 7600/7600 XT
AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT
AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT
AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT
AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX
