Click the Program Settings tab, and you’ll be greeted with a drop-down menu that permits you to set parameters for specific titles. NVidia also allows you to set game profiles explicitly. For example, in Crysis, you enable the DirectX 9 mode by reducing the global detail settings to ‘high’ instead of ‘very high’. And with some games, the way to alter the mode is not always obvious. Usually you can use the in-game control panel to change the mode, but sometimes you’ll need a different executable or shortcut, such as with Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. Revert to DirectX 9 modes if you have a low-end GPU, and you’ll be pleasantly surprised by higher frame rates. Technically, a Radeon HD 5450 can run DirectX 11 games in DirectX 11 mode–but the results will look like a slideshow. However, graphics board companies do buyers a disservice by advertising cheap versions of cards as being able to run the latest graphics APIs (application programming interfaces). And due to improved multithreading in the DirectX libraries and drivers, installing DirectX 11 can boost performance over DirectX 10 even if the game was developed prior to DirectX 11. Avoid DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 With Low-Cost Graphics Cardsĭon’t get me wrong: DX10 and DX11 can offer substantial increases in 3D graphics image quality. Turn up this setting only after you’ve pumped up other image-quality settings and are still running at high frame rates. Maxing out shadow levels can often cause a huge decrease in performance. If you’re constantly on the move, you may notice an absence of shadows, but you’ll often not see the difference between medium shadows and high shadows. High shadow levels can seem very immersive–if you’re standing still. When you’re playing a game, you’re always in motion, and you probably won’t stop to gaze at the scenery. The performance hit will be roughly the same, but you might see a little more game detail. If you’re running a game at, say, 1440 by 900 with antialiasing, consider turning off antialiasing and bumping the resolution up to 1680 by 1050. That’s a result of the color blending needed to create good antialiasing effects. Antialiasing tends to soften what you see on screen slightly, and running antialiasing at relatively low resolutions can often produce a game world that looks a little blurry. Sometimes, bumping up antialiasing will actually reduce the detail you see in the game. Yet anisotropic filtering makes a huge impact in the look of the game as you move through the world, particularly with objects or textures that recede in the distance as you view them–you’ll see less image popping, and long hallways and receding terrain will look smoother and more accurate. Anisotropic filtering with modern graphics cards can go as high as 16X with only a modest decrease in performance.
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