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Start with a supported upscaler, then test ray tracing and render resolution before cutting ordinary quality settings. If performance is still below target, lower the options that are visibly expensive in the problem scene—usually shadows, foliage or grass, reflections, and view distance. Treat texture quality differently: it is primarily a video-memory setting, so it is most useful when you see stutter, texture pop-in, pauses, or a full VRAM meter rather than merely low average FPS.
There is no cross-game ranking that works for every PC. The best order depends on whether you have a consistently low frame rate, uneven frame pacing, or drops in particular scenes, as well as on your resolution, graphics card, processor, game engine, and current patch.
First identify what “runs poorly” means
Changing settings at random makes it hard to tell what helped. Watch the frame rate and frame-time graph if your game or overlay provides one, and classify the problem before tuning.
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If the game is slow in almost every location, the graphics card may be doing more rendering work than it can sustain. Upscaling, a lower internal resolution, ray-tracing reductions, and broad quality changes are the most useful tests.
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Stutter, pauses, or texture pop-in
Brief freezes with otherwise acceptable FPS often indicate asset streaming, shader compilation, system-memory pressure, or video-memory pressure. Lowering textures can help when the game is exceeding available VRAM; it may do little for a purely compute-limited frame rate.
Drops only in demanding scenes
A stable menu and quiet indoor area do not prove that the whole game is fast enough. Test in the location where you notice the slowdown. Foliage, shadows, reflections, and view distance can become disproportionately expensive in outdoor or crowded scenes.
A practical order for lowering settings
| Order | Setting or action | Use it when | Main trade-off |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | In-game upscaler (DLSS, FSR, XeSS, or another supported option) | You need more GPU headroom while keeping the display resolution | Some loss of fine detail, motion stability, or image sharpness; support and quality vary |
| 2 | Ray tracing or path tracing | Those effects are enabled and the game is GPU-limited | Reflections, shadows, and global-lighting appearance change |
| 3 | Render resolution or resolution scale | The upscaler is unavailable, inadequate, or still too slow | A lower internal image can look softer or show more aliasing |
| 4 | Shadows, foliage/grass, reflections, and view distance | Slowdowns occur in scenes where one of these systems is prominent | Less environmental detail, shorter draw distance, or simpler lighting |
| 5 | Texture quality | VRAM use is high or you see streaming stutter and texture pop-in | Surfaces use lower-resolution artwork; average FPS may barely change |
| 6 | Small image-quality options | Only after measuring their cost in your game | Potentially visible quality loss for little performance benefit |
This is a testing sequence, not a guaranteed ranking. NVIDIA’s game guides show why: shadow quality was the most demanding non-render-resolution option in its tested Destiny 2 settings, grass was especially costly in rural scenes in its Grand Theft Auto V testing, and view distance had a strong effect in its Dying Light testing. Those results are title- and scene-specific, not universal FPS promises (Destiny 2 guide, GTA V guide, Dying Light guide).
Establish a repeatable baseline before changing anything
- Write down the game, display resolution, graphics preset, target frame rate, and whether the problem is low FPS, stutter, or scene-specific drops.
- Choose one repeatable test: the built-in benchmark, a saved location, or the same short route through the problem area. Use the same camera movement each time.
- Record the current average FPS and, if available, the one-percent-low or frame-time behavior. Also note GPU utilization, CPU utilization, and the game’s VRAM meter.
- Change one setting, apply it, and repeat the identical test. If the game requires a restart, restart before comparing results.
- Keep a simple note of the visual change and measured result. Revert any option that costs noticeable image quality without solving the symptom.
Vendor guides measure individual games and scenes rather than prescribing one universal benchmark, so a controlled comparison in your own problem area is more reliable than a generic list of “most expensive” settings.
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Try an upscaler before aggressively lowering quality
An upscaler renders the game internally below the monitor’s output resolution and reconstructs an image closer to that output resolution. This can reduce GPU work while preserving more apparent detail than simply selecting a much lower display resolution. Quality modes, motion handling, and supported hardware differ by game.
In-game DLSS, FSR, and XeSS
If the game exposes one of these options, test its quality modes first. Start with the highest-quality mode that reaches your target, then move toward a more performance-oriented mode only if necessary. Keep sharpening moderate; excessive sharpening can make aliasing and shimmering more obvious.
Driver- or operating-system-level options
Microsoft’s Automatic Super Resolution is conditional: it works only with compatible devices and games, as described in its official support documentation. It is not a universal switch for every title.
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Disable or reduce ray tracing and path tracing next
Ray-traced effects can require substantial additional work, but their cost depends on the implementation, resolution, number of effects, and graphics hardware. If ray tracing or path tracing is enabled, switch it off or lower its quality and rerun the same scene. This is often a larger performance lever than reducing several minor options.
NVIDIA’s Control graphics guide explains both the expense of ray tracing and how DLSS uses a lower internal rendering resolution. Any percentages in that guide apply to its particular game, hardware, settings, and test conditions; they should not be presented as a guaranteed gain for another title (Control Graphics and Performance Guide).
Then target the settings that dominate your problem scene
Shadows
Shadow resolution, cascade distance, contact shadows, and soft-shadow quality can increase both rendering work and memory use. Test one shadow option at a time. A lower setting often preserves the scene’s overall appearance while reducing distant or fine shadow detail.
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Dense vegetation adds geometry, overdraw, animation, and shadows. If outdoor areas are the main source of dips, reduce foliage or grass quality before lowering every setting in the preset. In NVIDIA’s Grand Theft Auto V testing, grass quality was particularly costly in rural scenes, illustrating why the same option can matter more in one location than another (NVIDIA’s GTA V guide).
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Reflections
Screen-space, planar, and ray-traced reflections have different costs. Water, wet roads, glass, and glossy interiors can expose the difference. If reflections are expensive, lower their quality or disable the ray-traced variant while retaining other lighting effects you value.
View distance and level-of-detail
Longer view distance keeps more objects, terrain, and shadows active. Lower it when frame-time spikes happen while looking across a large outdoor area. NVIDIA reported a strong view-distance impact in its Dying Light testing, but the result was specific to that game and its test conditions (Dying Light Graphics & Performance Guide).
Lower textures when VRAM, not ordinary rendering, is the problem
Texture quality primarily controls the resolution of surface artwork and the amount of video memory required to keep those assets resident. It is therefore a targeted fix rather than an automatic first step for low FPS.
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- Lower textures when the game’s VRAM meter is near its limit, texture streaming pauses the game, surfaces appear late, or you see repeated hitching when entering new areas.
- Leave textures high when VRAM use is comfortable and the issue is a consistently low frame rate. Lowering them may make walls and characters look worse without reducing the main rendering workload.
- Change texture quality before texture filtering if streaming is the symptom; filtering usually changes how surfaces are sampled rather than solving an exhausted VRAM budget.
NVIDIA’s Destiny 2 guide discusses the relationship between texture detail and VRAM, while its Dying Light guide describes stuttering as a reason to try lower texture quality in that tested context (Destiny 2 guide, Dying Light guide).
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Do not sacrifice low-cost settings first
Some options offer little performance benefit in particular games. NVIDIA found negligible cost for anisotropic filtering in its Shadow of the Tomb Raider tests and identified tessellation as a possible reduction with relatively low visual impact. That does not guarantee the same result elsewhere, but it is a useful reminder to measure before disabling image-quality features (Shadow of the Tomb Raider Graphics and Performance Guide).
Similarly, ambient occlusion, volumetric effects, anti-aliasing, and post-processing can vary widely by engine. If a setting’s visual benefit is important to you, keep it until your own repeatable test shows that its cost is unacceptable.
Check whether the processor is the bottleneck
Lowering GPU-heavy options cannot fix a processor-limited game. A clue is a low or inconsistent GPU utilization reading while one or more CPU threads are heavily loaded, especially during simulation-heavy crowds, cities, or large view distances. NVIDIA’s Dying Light guide explicitly discusses a CPU limitation in that game; it is an example, not a diagnosis of every PC (Dying Light guide).
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Use vendor helpers when they support your setup
AMD’s Game Advisor can analyze supported configurations and suggest changes such as lowering a preset or display resolution. AMD documents the feature and its workflow in How to Use Game Advisor Within Radeon Overlay. Treat its suggestions as starting points: verify each change in the scene that actually causes your slowdown.
AMD Software also provides per-game graphics controls; the available labels and behavior depend on the installed driver and hardware. Its current customization documentation is at Customize Graphics Settings with AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition.
How to choose between two settings
When two options appear equally plausible, compare them on five points:
Quick Recap
- Measured improvement: Use the same scene and compare average FPS and frame-time spikes.
- Visible cost: Check both a still image and movement; shimmering or pop-in may appear only while moving.
- Symptom match: Prefer render-heavy changes for low FPS, scene-specific options for localized dips, and textures for VRAM-related stutter.
- Compatibility: Confirm whether the feature works with your GPU, game API, display mode, and current patch.
- Convenience: Note whether the setting is in-game, driver-controlled, or requires a restart.
Recovery checklist if a change makes things worse
- Restore the previous value and retest; do not change several settings at once while troubleshooting.
- If an upscaler introduces shimmering, ghosting, or an unexpectedly soft image, move to its higher-quality mode or use native resolution with fewer heavy effects.
- If lowering textures does not stop stutter, check for shader-compilation behavior, background applications, storage bottlenecks, and system-memory pressure rather than continually lowering unrelated quality options.
- If frame rate barely changes after lowering resolution, investigate a CPU limit, a frame-rate cap, V-sync behavior, or a non-GPU bottleneck.
- After a game update or driver change, repeat the baseline test. Internal rendering paths and setting costs can change between versions.
A concise tuning routine
- Set a realistic frame-rate target for your monitor and record the exact scene that fails.
- Enable the best-supported in-game upscaler mode you can tolerate.
- Disable or reduce ray tracing and path tracing.
- Lower render scale if the target is still missed.
- Test shadows, foliage/grass, reflections, and view distance individually, starting with the option that dominates the failing scene.
- Use the VRAM meter and lower textures only when memory or streaming symptoms justify it.
- Retain low-cost settings when measurements show little benefit from reducing them.
- Save the final values as a per-game profile and revisit them after major game or driver updates.
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