Guide: Graphics Settings
Greetings, Commanders!
Today, we'll explain how to tailor the graphics settings to your PC and use auto-detect to enjoy the striking beauty of tank combat to the fullest.
Brace yourselves—we’re going very deep here and there’s a lot of technical information to digest (but it's worth it!).
Run an Auto-Detect Test
The test runs in two situations: when you run the game for the first time, and when you click “Recommend” in the graphics settings. It assesses the game’s performance on your system through revised algorithms for the processor, graphics card, quantity of graphics and system memory, and other system performance tests. After running all these tests, the system defines the golden medium in terms of FPS and the quality of visuals for your rig: Medium, High, Maximum or Ultra.
How Does It Work?
The auto-detect system attempts to find the best graphical settings mixed with the most stable framerate. Note that you can see slight changes in FPS after auto-detecting, since providing you the best possible picture is its primary goal. Basically, it can suggest an option that will result in FPS changes, but only if they aren’t critical to the game performance.
If you are not satisfied with the framerate after running auto-detect, you can choose less demanding performance settings, which can increase the overall performance by 30–40% (e.g., choose Medium if you were offered High). Still want to make some tweaks? Then start by choosing the preset option it offers and work from there to adjust the settings to your liking.
Adjusting Graphics Manually
Choose the Render
When deciding to adjust the graphics settings manually, you will first be given the option to adjust the render—choosing between Standard and Improved graphics. The only difference is that Improved supports the full spectrum of new technologies and effects, while Standard lacks some.
If the auto-detect system suggested Improved Graphics and your PC runs the game adequately, we highly recommend using it. If the performance doesn’t fit your needs, you can customize the settings manually in Advanced Graphics Settings, but we don’t advise switching to Standard Graphics in order to get a smoother experience.
Tweak Advanced Settings
Some graphics settings are more important than others. Reducing the right settings may get you comfortable FPS without severely reducing the image quality. You should start with special effects—antialiasing, texture and object quality, draw distance, lighting and post-processing. These are taxing on the system, so toning them down can boost the frame rate.
PCs come in all shapes and sizes, and the exact same tweaks might have different effects on different PC setups.
Take a look at the graphics settings below for a detailed explanation of each option and how it contributes to the game’s appearance. To make it easier for you to choose which to disable, the graphics options are grouped starting from the most demanding in terms of FPS.
Antialiasing
Antialiasing smooths out rough, pixelated or jagged edges in graphics, using different technologies for Standard and Improved Graphics.
With Standard Graphics, anti-aliasing is optional and isn’t tied to any of the preset options.
With Improved Graphics, anti-aliasing is necessary to give the best picture and is tied to the preset options.
Texture Quality
The quality of textures affects the resolution and type of filtering used. The higher the level of detail, the better. However, please note that this will be more demanding on your rig.
Object Quality
Adjusting the Object Quality (Object LOD) setting determines the distance at which an object becomes highly (or less) detailed, depending on the direction of movement. The higher the setting, the greater the distance from the player the transition takes place. This also has an effect on the visual fidelity of tank tracks.
Draw Distance
Affecting the distance at which objects are displayed, this setting only concerns objects not vital to gameplay. For example, the monastery will be a consistent feature on Abbey for all settings, but the fences around the fields will not.
Why is it important to get the optimal draw distance for your rig? Well, on certain maps, with a lower draw distance, your target might be obstructed without you noticing until you fire.
Lighting and Post-Processing
Motion blur and post-processing are cinematic effects like Vignette, Chromatic Aberration, Distortion and Film Grain. They supplement the overall impression of the graphics.
The lighting quality is extremely important for the overall perception of the picture, as it interacts with all other graphical elements. Depending on the quality, the complexity of lighting calculations varies. It is tied to technologies including Screen Space Reflection, Global Illumination, God Rays, Lens Flare, HBAO, wetting effect and puddles.
Terrain and Water Quality
Regarding water, the performance needs vary from map to map. Maps that revolve around the sea (Fjords, Fisherman’s Bay and Glacier) consume slightly more resources than others.
The terrain has also been completely redesigned—terrain quality has been increased and tessellation support has been added. Tessellation has been designed specifically for Improved Graphics and only works on graphics cards that fully support DirectX 11 (this technology is not available on Standard Graphics because the terrain is simplified to improve performance).
Small pebbles, traces from tanks, and funnels from shots all acquire a geometric form with the addition of geometric details to the terrain. This is just a graphical improvement and doesn’t affect the behavior of the tank.
You can switch off tessellation to increase performance when in sniper mode, as well as to ensure tessellation doesn’t interfere with targeting opponents.
Vegetation Quality
This setting affects the detail of the vegetation, the amount of grass and the transparency of the grass when in sniper mode. The level of detail of vegetation, apart from the obvious, affects the complexity of calculating the wind in the trees, therefore the higher the quality, the more complex this will be. You can lower these settings to crank out more frames per second.
The camouflage mechanics work the same regardless of what settings you choose.
Effects
Within the Effects settings, you can set the desired quality of explosions, fire, smoke, and other similar events. This can be very important when in battle, as these effects can give hints about which tanks just fired (clue: there will be clouds of smoke nearby). Consider the game benefits of effects when adjusting their quality.
Improved destruction physics, thanks to Havok Destruction, means that when objects are destroyed, fragments remain. This feature only works with Improved Graphics and is calculated on separate threads. With it disabled, there will be no detailed destruction. Consider disabling this feature if your processor is a weak feature of your setup.
Find the best settings for your rig and enjoy World of tanks to the max!
Today, we'll explain how to tailor the graphics settings to your PC and use auto-detect to enjoy the striking beauty of tank combat to the fullest.
Brace yourselves—we’re going very deep here and there’s a lot of technical information to digest (but it's worth it!).
Run an Auto-Detect Test
The test runs in two situations: when you run the game for the first time, and when you click “Recommend” in the graphics settings. It assesses the game’s performance on your system through revised algorithms for the processor, graphics card, quantity of graphics and system memory, and other system performance tests. After running all these tests, the system defines the golden medium in terms of FPS and the quality of visuals for your rig: Medium, High, Maximum or Ultra.
How Does It Work?
The auto-detect system attempts to find the best graphical settings mixed with the most stable framerate. Note that you can see slight changes in FPS after auto-detecting, since providing you the best possible picture is its primary goal. Basically, it can suggest an option that will result in FPS changes, but only if they aren’t critical to the game performance.
If you are not satisfied with the framerate after running auto-detect, you can choose less demanding performance settings, which can increase the overall performance by 30–40% (e.g., choose Medium if you were offered High). Still want to make some tweaks? Then start by choosing the preset option it offers and work from there to adjust the settings to your liking.
Adjusting Graphics Manually
Choose the Render
When deciding to adjust the graphics settings manually, you will first be given the option to adjust the render—choosing between Standard and Improved graphics. The only difference is that Improved supports the full spectrum of new technologies and effects, while Standard lacks some.
If the auto-detect system suggested Improved Graphics and your PC runs the game adequately, we highly recommend using it. If the performance doesn’t fit your needs, you can customize the settings manually in Advanced Graphics Settings, but we don’t advise switching to Standard Graphics in order to get a smoother experience.
Tweak Advanced Settings
Some graphics settings are more important than others. Reducing the right settings may get you comfortable FPS without severely reducing the image quality. You should start with special effects—antialiasing, texture and object quality, draw distance, lighting and post-processing. These are taxing on the system, so toning them down can boost the frame rate.
PCs come in all shapes and sizes, and the exact same tweaks might have different effects on different PC setups.
Take a look at the graphics settings below for a detailed explanation of each option and how it contributes to the game’s appearance. To make it easier for you to choose which to disable, the graphics options are grouped starting from the most demanding in terms of FPS.
Antialiasing
Antialiasing smooths out rough, pixelated or jagged edges in graphics, using different technologies for Standard and Improved Graphics.
With Standard Graphics, anti-aliasing is optional and isn’t tied to any of the preset options.
With Improved Graphics, anti-aliasing is necessary to give the best picture and is tied to the preset options.
Texture Quality
The quality of textures affects the resolution and type of filtering used. The higher the level of detail, the better. However, please note that this will be more demanding on your rig.
Object Quality
Adjusting the Object Quality (Object LOD) setting determines the distance at which an object becomes highly (or less) detailed, depending on the direction of movement. The higher the setting, the greater the distance from the player the transition takes place. This also has an effect on the visual fidelity of tank tracks.
Draw Distance
Affecting the distance at which objects are displayed, this setting only concerns objects not vital to gameplay. For example, the monastery will be a consistent feature on Abbey for all settings, but the fences around the fields will not.
Why is it important to get the optimal draw distance for your rig? Well, on certain maps, with a lower draw distance, your target might be obstructed without you noticing until you fire.
Lighting and Post-Processing
Motion blur and post-processing are cinematic effects like Vignette, Chromatic Aberration, Distortion and Film Grain. They supplement the overall impression of the graphics.
The lighting quality is extremely important for the overall perception of the picture, as it interacts with all other graphical elements. Depending on the quality, the complexity of lighting calculations varies. It is tied to technologies including Screen Space Reflection, Global Illumination, God Rays, Lens Flare, HBAO, wetting effect and puddles.
Terrain and Water Quality
Regarding water, the performance needs vary from map to map. Maps that revolve around the sea (Fjords, Fisherman’s Bay and Glacier) consume slightly more resources than others.
The terrain has also been completely redesigned—terrain quality has been increased and tessellation support has been added. Tessellation has been designed specifically for Improved Graphics and only works on graphics cards that fully support DirectX 11 (this technology is not available on Standard Graphics because the terrain is simplified to improve performance).
Small pebbles, traces from tanks, and funnels from shots all acquire a geometric form with the addition of geometric details to the terrain. This is just a graphical improvement and doesn’t affect the behavior of the tank.
You can switch off tessellation to increase performance when in sniper mode, as well as to ensure tessellation doesn’t interfere with targeting opponents.
Vegetation Quality
This setting affects the detail of the vegetation, the amount of grass and the transparency of the grass when in sniper mode. The level of detail of vegetation, apart from the obvious, affects the complexity of calculating the wind in the trees, therefore the higher the quality, the more complex this will be. You can lower these settings to crank out more frames per second.
The camouflage mechanics work the same regardless of what settings you choose.
Effects
Within the Effects settings, you can set the desired quality of explosions, fire, smoke, and other similar events. This can be very important when in battle, as these effects can give hints about which tanks just fired (clue: there will be clouds of smoke nearby). Consider the game benefits of effects when adjusting their quality.
Improved destruction physics, thanks to Havok Destruction, means that when objects are destroyed, fragments remain. This feature only works with Improved Graphics and is calculated on separate threads. With it disabled, there will be no detailed destruction. Consider disabling this feature if your processor is a weak feature of your setup.
Find the best settings for your rig and enjoy World of tanks to the max!