Anyone knows what does each graphic setting do?

General Discussion
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I’ve been searching for this for weeks now, either through online articles or youtube videos, yet I can’t find anything that thouroughly explains what does each graphic setting do in Overwatch

Like what does model and effect detail affect? The only thing I could find is that the lower the model detail, the less bushes I’ll see in the map

Same thing with lightning detail, where the higher this setting is, the harder it will be to see things when there are light sources in front of me, in-game

What does each texture filtering setting correspond to? is 1x bilinear? 2x trilinear? 4x anisotropic? and so on

Can anyone explain to me in the most possible detailed way what does each graphic setting do, what they take away and/or add to the game?

thank you

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render scale: changes the screen resolution of the 3d objects without affecting the gui (performance impact: high)

texture quality: affects the resolution of the textures (though I don’t see difference between medium and high) (performance impact: low-medium)

texture filtering: affects the texture quality in the distance. The lower it is the more blurry the road texture looks in the distance. (performance impact: low)

local fog detail: affects the resolution size of the god rays (like the sun beams in temple attack spawn) (performance impact: high)

dynamic reflections: adds real time reflections to some map objects (RTX before RTX if you will) (performance impact: high)

shadow detail: affects shadow resolution. The characters have no shadow when is off buildings only have shadows baked into the textures (performance impact: high)

model detail: as the name says. When combined with low preset settings you can get very low poly character models and physics objects are removed from the maps. (performance impact: depends on presets)

effect details: this is mostly dynamic lighting from weapons. It affects the rain and snow effects too. Removes some particles from the map when is at lowest. (performance impact: high)

lighting quality: Baked lights on the map. Some places are lit differently depending on the settings. (performance impact: low)

antialias quality: blurs the pixels between objects. (performance impact: medium)

refraction quality: controls the resolution of bump mapping like the ripple effects on the spawn doors. It is bugged for epic quality preset for some reason and gets set to low automatically. (performance impact: low)

screenshot quality: takes screenshots with different sizes. At x1 screenshots are taken in jpg format. For anything above, they are saved as bmp files which are much larger and also missing some elements of the gui when used.

local reflections: affects the texture of the baked reflections. lower value means less accurate reflection. (performance impact: low)

ambient occlusion: adds shadows to edges to give more realism to the objects. (performance impact: high)

damage fx: removes blood particles at low (performance impact: low)

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I thought this has extremely low performance impact if you have at least 4 GB of vram. Its changes the details of the textures, and not just increase the resolution if at all.

Model detail affects bushes, clothing stores, weapon details and environmental details (Anubis has the most dramatic changes).

Oh gross, this is where the blinding dynamic lighting comes from. They need to separate hero lighting and the particle effects. Otherwise most of the somewhat competitive population won’t even see their work.

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I actually didn’t think damage fx would have any performances impact, good to know I guess

It could be that from low to medium it does put a more detailed texture and from then on out it just puts a better quality for said texture

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I think it doesn’t increase the resolution at all as most benchmarks says it barely affects performance, so it justs add more detail. We just can’t tell the difference from med to high (maybe there isn’t LOL).

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-1fps for an extra pixel :thinking:

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It shows more detail because they are higher resolution.

Not sure about blinding but it gives the color of the projectiles to any object that is close. You can see the red color from the firestirke reflected on the walls even when it is not in your view yet.

It makes little to no difference.

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That’s tweaktown, I tested it out myself and found no difference in framerate :man_shrugging:

I should check the Vram usage of medium and high to see if there’s actually a difference between the settings.

And it uses up more Vram, but if you have at least 4GB it has no affect on performance. I tested this numerous times. To say its performance impact is medium is misleading, especially when refraction quality and local reflections is considered low

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Well it will always vary between machines. If you have a NASA pc, it won’t affect you at all.

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I have a lower mid-ranged PC and it has no effect. RX 570 for GPU.

It’s safe to turn on texture quality to high, medium for gpus with less than 4GB.

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Compared to some other items in the list it does take a bit more computing power but not by much so it can still be considered low impact.

I added it just to give some general idea of what to expect from those settings and then tweak by your likings.

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I know, I’m not trying to be pedantic on purpose. The rest of it is spot on. I thought dynamic lighting from weapon sources was from lighting quality. So I now I have lighting set to ultra and effects to medium which is much, much better than ultra.

It’s funny, the jump from low effects to medium effects is very dramatic. So much novel details are added. Then the jump from medium to ultra isn’t that dramatic, they don’t add anything novel, just more particles and dynamic lighting. It’s actually very tacky. Less is more, so medium is the best as it has so many new elements that low just deletes instead of adding less like you expect.

I hope for OW2, they add more nuanced and smart options for the graphics settings. Dynamic lighting from hero sources has to be its own option for sure. It adds way too much visual clutter when a team fight moves to the point.

Also, make the high+ effects settings do more than simply add more particles and lighting. It’s tacky, lazy and will put off so many people from testing out anything but low from the horrible first impressions of ultra. Seriously, go heal with Moira on ultra effects. So much yellow + signs pop out the heroes.

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yeah. It literally turns on all dynamic lighting when selecting medium.

Agree. There really needs to be more separation in the settings.

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