Do You Need To Run PC Games At Max Settings?

Some PC Gamers spent a lot of money on super powerful PC's. Upgrading a PC like a tricked out roadster is a pretty cool hobby and one reason why you'd want to do this is to be able to run PC game settings at high settings to get as much visual and gameplay fidelity out of them as you can. But do you really need to run games at max settings and if you did would they actually look better? In many cases the answer is yes but not every setting works that way and DigitalFoundry made a video explaining why.

Travis Admin wrote on 05/28/2018 at 12:14am

There are some settings where I legitimately can’t see any difference by turning them on and off, but I can get big performance boosts by turning them off.

I heavily customize video settings to get the best visuals while maintaining performance, but I don’t really bother upgrading parts until I can’t play a game I want. I can play on low-mid settings and be just fine. They still usually look better than games from 5 years ago.

Timogorgon Member wrote on 05/28/2018 at 01:44am

As a lifelong budget gamer, I've never really been able to afford a top of the line PC to run the highest settings on anything new. :P
I've learned to live with playing new games at medium settings and enjoying when I can bump older games up to higher settings.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 05/28/2018 at 02:13am

Oh hell yeah, of course! I've your not playing at 10k, what's the point? Everything looks ugly w/ less than that! Gotta have max resolution and 1 million frames per second! Hahaha I was being silly. I like to run on max settings, so long as my PC can handle it. I don't do 4k and high FPS, because my monitor is not capable. I like to see what GeForce Experience recommends and if I decide to, I'll adjust settings to fit my desire.

I started having to play Ark with low settings, because it couldn't do SLI (a key feature of my original GPU). But, I decided to upgrade and now I can run most things on high settings.

Will_Ball Game Mod Super Member wrote on 05/28/2018 at 09:41pm

High settings when I can, but graphics have gotten so good, that I think even lower settings look good too. IMHO we are to the point that you don't really need to upgrade every 2 years. But, maybe I am old. :)

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 05/29/2018 at 05:15am

My PC is almost 5 years old @Will_Ball. I have, however, replaced the GPU. I was able to customize my order and selected a GTX 690, so that's what it came with. Unfortunately, since the GPU is 2 GPUs in one, at least one of my favorite games wasn't able to take advantage of it fully, so I replaced it with a GTX 980Ti (Classified Edition aka overclocked). So, obviously I haven't followed the every two year cycle that you mention. I believe I picked really good hardware and that's why it's lasted so long (along w/ the GPU change). The only thing I'd want to change about it now is adding an SSD hard drive instead of this standard old school hard drive (what do they call them?).

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/29/2018 at 08:48pm

I have a good gaming laptop with a pretty solid card somewhat like Greg has. For the PC games I play it works well and depending on the game I can run at reasonable setttings. If I were wanting to run everything at 120 FPS at 4K I’d be running a much beefier PC but the portability of the laptop is really nice.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/29/2018 at 08:49pm

Right now the most visually intense game I’ve been playing in my PC is Hearthstone and Binding if Issac so I’m able to max those out well

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 05/29/2018 at 09:10pm

Yeah, as for me I'm perfectly ok with 59-60FPS. I'd have to upgrade my monitor if I want to go higher. I haven't seen the necessity to do that though.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/29/2018 at 09:17pm

My monitor caps at 60FPS too which has been fine for me so far. When I get another one I’ll see if it can do 120hz

Will_Ball Game Mod Super Member wrote on 05/29/2018 at 09:23pm

59fps?! How can you handle not getting a perfect 60 Greg? :)

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/29/2018 at 09:41pm

Recently i've been looking at high def curved displays for computing and some of those look really great. Some have the same deal mine has which is a 60 FPS cap, which isn't a huge deal but I would like to go to 120hz if it's possible. I have a pretty large Dell Ultrasharp which I consider one of the best tech investments I've ever made. I bought it well before the 4k craze and it sits at 2560x1600.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 05/29/2018 at 09:58pm

LOL @Will_Ball I hardly notice unless my frames get really low. I do also have screen tearing at times, so I pretty much always use Vsync.

Travis Admin wrote on 05/29/2018 at 10:15pm

I love Adaptive V-Sync. It turns on V-sync at higher fps and turns it off below that, so you don't tank at low framerates.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 06/01/2018 at 05:09am

Check this out! Apparently Ark is the new Crysis! You kind of can't run Ark on maximum settings even with the best hardware. https://www.pcgamer.com/ark-survival-evolved-is-the-new-crysis-of-pc-hardware/
Watch the benchmarks in action! https://youtu.be/fNbvWbFfeNw

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