those are markings i believe but thats just the movies
and i dont like the movies

th "real"nightcrawler ( ie comic ) is covered in black and blue fur

I'll generally sacrifice everything except native resolution (or the next step down i.e 720p) and moderate/high texture settings.

Shadows, Special Effects, Shader Quality etc might go down a notch to maintain 30 / 60 fps.

I do like a bit of AF which isn't expensive.

Stupidly overdone, myopia inducing, post-processing effects such as bloom, blur & DoF nearly always get turned off; even I can have them on.

I'm not particularly sold on SSAO or AA either; I find the latter causes input lag.


I'm crossing my fingers that my old HD 4770 will cope with GTA V.

The port of Max Payne 3 worked flawlessly.

On the other side of the fence I can still remember when I switched from a Matrox card to a Geforce 2 (or 4, I can't remember!)

What a difference it made to get Hardware Transform and Lighting (T&L) for RtCW !

I think my jaw hit the floor playing that at 1024x768 with all the settings on full =P

>_>

Luckily with my current rig I've not had to turn too much off. SSAO and Tesselation go first, then Bloom and Motion Blur. Absolute last thing to go would be VSYNC and resolution. If those go, its time to upgrade.

If you have low FPS, why would you need VSync?

The first thing to go is AA, because the last thing to go is resolution.

I feel resolution compensates enough against jagged edges on resolutions of 1440p and higher - there are diminishing returns for AA at that kind of resolution.

So, first to go:
1. AA
2. Motion blur
3. Bloom
4. SSAO

Last to go:
1. Resolution
2. Texture size
3. Rendering distance
4. Tessellation

Graphic/Texture details.
Anti-Aliasing
Anisotrophy (whatever that is)
Bloom

This one kills me with the Elder Scrolls games. Lowering it automatically gives me great FPS but it makes exploring a super pain in the ass.

I'd turn off my PC. ^ My backlog's big enough that I'd rather play olders game instead of playing a new one on low settings.

Unless it's a real twitchy game, I'm normally content with FPS in the low 20's. To achieve that, I tend to remove features in this order:

* expensive visual effects
* resolution and/ or draw distance
* anti-aliasing
* texture quality

Everything except for V-sync. Although I know when I can't save a sinking ship, and usually just give up if nothing really works (plus if the game is so jarringly ugly after all of the changes).

The question is extremely easy and almost impossible to answer at the same time.

The simple answer is: I'm willing to sacrifize only the absolute minimum necessary to achieve an OK framerate.

The almost impossible part: Finding out how resolution, anti-aliasing, normal effect, special effects, ... affect visual-quality and frame-rate. Probably the interplay is even non-linear.

The best would be if one could see different graphical settings all with OK framerate and then could decide for yourself what is most pleasant to the eye (or if a new computer must be bought).

For example it would be so cool if Witcher 3 would have a fixed frame rate and then you have sliders (for each thing like resolution, anti-aliasing, ...) and you can move them up (until the frame rate drops) or down and if one slider goes up you pay by others go down or you try for yourself. That would be the best.

From my experience I value a bit of aliasing and shadows but otherwise I do not need much. And I'm always disappointed if I have to reduce the resolution even if it still looks good at 1200x800. But I would not go much below.

I guess that waiting and buying a better computer is smarter than enjoying a not so good experience.

Depth of field and motion blur are off by default, so they don't count. :p

But if I have to sacrifice something, everything except resolution.

CEO payroll, marketing payroll, middle management payroll, executive board payroll.

I'd first get rid of bloom, since I find it to be a rather obnoxious effect, and not one reflective of reality, actual eyes, or vision in general. I wear glasses, but if the world had that much of a glare issue, I'd fork over money for LASIK.
Second, motion blur, because all the games I've played up to this point have never had it, and there are better ways to convey motion. Again, things don't get blurry when I turn my head or walk past them.
Third, any post processing glitter like Physx, Hairworks, and ambient collisions.
After that, I'll tune down shadows and AA.