WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.300 A while ago, we did a video demystifying all the different settings in your computer's BIOS 00:00:04.300 --> 00:00:09.300 that we think you should tweak. But today, we're gonna take a look at certain graphics cards options 00:00:09.300 --> 00:00:14.300 that you might wanna fine tune, because hey, who doesn't want more performance, you know? 00:00:14.300 --> 00:00:19.220 But hold on a second, I have all my settings the way I like them inside of the games I play. 00:00:19.220 --> 00:00:23.260 Isn't that good enough? Well, to some extent, but there are other options 00:00:23.260 --> 00:00:28.260 that you can instead turn on in either the NVIDIA control panel or Radeon settings 00:00:28.340 --> 00:00:34.020 that can still make things look quite a bit better. Let's start with a very simple one, resolution. 00:00:34.020 --> 00:00:39.460 Modern LCD displays have a fixed amount of pixels arranged in a grid, meaning that optimally, 00:00:39.460 --> 00:00:44.140 you want your graphics card output signals at the screen's native resolution. 00:00:44.140 --> 00:00:47.420 If you don't have that, your system will have to upscale the image 00:00:47.420 --> 00:00:51.380 in order to fit into that pixel grid. And in exact science, 00:00:51.380 --> 00:00:56.760 that will leave your images looking not quite right. So make sure that your resolution is set correctly 00:00:56.760 --> 00:00:59.880 before doing anything else. And on the subject of scaling, 00:00:59.880 --> 00:01:02.960 one scaling method that actually will make your images 00:01:02.960 --> 00:01:08.000 look better is super sampling. This is essentially when your GPU renders frames 00:01:08.000 --> 00:01:11.000 at a higher resolution than what your monitor supports 00:01:11.000 --> 00:01:17.120 and then downscales this image to fit. It's essentially a supercharged version of anti-aliasing, 00:01:17.120 --> 00:01:20.320 but do keep in mind it's very computationally expensive. 00:01:20.320 --> 00:01:26.200 So it might only work well if you're pairing a powerful GPU with a low-res monitor, 00:01:26.200 --> 00:01:29.960 or if you're trying it on an older, easier to run game. 00:01:29.960 --> 00:01:34.080 If you have an NVIDIA card, super sampling is called dynamic super resolution, 00:01:34.080 --> 00:01:37.440 while AMD calls it virtual super resolution. 00:01:37.440 --> 00:01:42.400 And you can force these settings on even if the game you're playing doesn't offer them. 00:01:42.400 --> 00:01:46.320 A couple of other settings that you can force on outside of games are ambient occlusion 00:01:46.320 --> 00:01:50.360 and anisotropic filtering. Ambient occlusion is a technique 00:01:50.360 --> 00:01:54.400 that makes shadows look better by examining how bright pixels should be 00:01:54.440 --> 00:01:58.640 based on geometry, and then figuring out where light should be blocked. 00:01:58.640 --> 00:02:03.160 It's almost like a simpler form of ray tracing, almost. Meanwhile, anisotropic filtering 00:02:03.160 --> 00:02:08.560 helps make objects in the distance look sharper. Although many games do have an option for it, 00:02:08.560 --> 00:02:13.280 turning it on in your GPU settings instead can look better in some circumstances, 00:02:13.280 --> 00:02:17.080 and it's also not very hard on your frame rate. So why not? 00:02:17.080 --> 00:02:20.400 Another good thing to check is your power management settings. 00:02:20.400 --> 00:02:23.760 Typically, your GPU will operate at a fairly low clock speed 00:02:23.760 --> 00:02:28.400 and then ramp up when you're playing a game. And while this usually happens without a hitch, 00:02:28.400 --> 00:02:34.280 power management has been known to cause issues in some games that shouldn't be very hard to run. 00:02:34.280 --> 00:02:39.800 So if a game like this is behaving strangely, try turning the settings to max performance, 00:02:39.800 --> 00:02:44.360 though expect a little more fan noise. Moving on, one setting that you should probably 00:02:44.360 --> 00:02:49.520 always have turned on as long as you have the drive space for it is shader cache, 00:02:49.520 --> 00:02:53.120 which helps to speed up loading times, especially for larger levels. 00:02:53.160 --> 00:02:58.840 If you're rocking a Radeon card, setting it to AMD optimized means shader cache is turned on. 00:02:58.840 --> 00:03:03.960 And if we're talking improving frame rates instead of loading times, consider setting vertical sync to triple buffering 00:03:03.960 --> 00:03:08.200 if you're using v-sync to avoid screen tearing. Triple buffering keeps an extra frame 00:03:08.200 --> 00:03:12.080 in your GPU's frame buffer, so it's not waiting around for something else to work on, 00:03:12.080 --> 00:03:15.960 which can result in better performance if you're having slow downs with v-sync. 00:03:15.960 --> 00:03:19.160 However, do keep in mind, it can introduce input lag. 00:03:19.160 --> 00:03:22.240 So pick your poison. And speaking of tearing, 00:03:22.240 --> 00:03:26.720 verify that either g-sync or free-sync is actually enabled if you have a monitor 00:03:26.720 --> 00:03:31.000 and a card that supports these technologies. Sometimes they aren't active by default, 00:03:31.000 --> 00:03:35.760 and you obviously don't wanna have spent a bunch of money on a fancy variable refresh rate monitor 00:03:35.760 --> 00:03:40.120 just to discover that you've left the feature disabled for the last six months. 00:03:40.120 --> 00:03:44.760 And one last thing to check on, if some of your older games look a bit too dark 00:03:44.760 --> 00:03:50.320 and there's no way to fix it in the in-game settings, try playing with your GPU's gamma options. 00:03:50.360 --> 00:03:54.000 However, graphics cards only tend to let you adjust this globally, 00:03:54.000 --> 00:03:57.200 so you'll have to remember to change it back once you're done gaming. 00:03:57.200 --> 00:04:02.120 So that's it then. What are your best pro tips for getting the most out of your graphics card? 00:04:02.120 --> 00:04:06.800 Let us know in the comments and feel free to scream if we've missed your favorite tweaks. 00:04:06.800 --> 00:04:11.140 So thanks for watching guys. If you liked this video, give it a thumbs up, hit subscribe and hit us up in the comment section below 00:04:11.140 --> 00:04:14.040 with your ideas for topics that we should cover in the future.