Impact on Graphic Card Performance

[ZereoX]

What settings impact the most the performance of a graphic card? Example: Anti-Aliasing, Antisotropic, Resolution...

 

[markusaurileus]

Given that the game trying to be played isn't a CPU intensive game, most games will respond differently to various graphic settings. Some games experience a drastic performance drop when AA is turned up, but sometimes the loading times are the only things affected. Texture filtering and anisotropic filtering sometimes affects gameplay, but not as much as AA. Resolution sometimes is a major factor to performance.

Basically, ct1615 is correct; it depends on the game being played.

 

[jyjjy]

As long as your CPU can keep up with the game resolution will almost always be the biggest factor. For LCD monitors the native resolution should always be used if at all possible though imo so it is other settings you will want to lose or lower to improve performance. AA is often very strenuous and especially at higher resolutions it should be the first thing to be turned down/off. Shadows are another thing that can often be turned down slightly and have a large increase in performance.
That is just some general guidelines. As ct says it really depends on the game. This site has some (very) in depth guides to the graphical settings of a lot of the most popular games over the years;
http://www.tweakguides.com/Games.html
I haven't noticed them doing any new games for a while unfortunately but looking them over will still give you a lot of knowledge about game settings in general. Their articles on driver settings are good stuff as well.

 

[ZereoX]

Best answer selected by ZereoX.

 

[ZereoX]

Thanks a lot guys. I had to RMA my GPU and I wanted to play games on my Radeon HD 4290 (IGP) but still keep them looking nice without to much of a loss of FPS.

 

[jyjjy]

If you are without a real card for a while I recommend forgoing current/recent games altogether for the time being. There are tons of great older games that will run very well on an IGP. Perhaps go back to some of the classics like System Shock 2, Deus Ex, Max Payne, Baldur's Gate, Morrowind, Half Life, KOTOR or maybe try some you might have missed like Mafia, Grim Fandango, No One Lives Forever, Psychonauts, Planescape Torment. Maybe go even further old school and break out some emulators.

 

[ZereoX]

Thanks a lot but I am extremely surprised at how smoothly some newer games work. I have a Gigabyte 890GPA-UDH3 with a AMD Phenom II X6 1055T. I suspect some of the performance comes from the CPU but I can run Mass Effect, Portal, Duels of the Planeswalkers, Alien Swarm at an above medium setting.


Ahhh.... Grim Fandango.... I have to get myself a copy. Totally forgot about that game.

 

[jyjjy]

Yeah, IGPs have come a long way and the AMD ones are particularly decent. Games from a few years ago that weren't particularly intensive should work fine(Mass Effect, Portal).
Grim Fandango is a classic. Psychonauts which I mentioned is by the same guy if you've never played it. I think it is on steam for $10.