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Getting Started / 4 min /

Which graphics settings cost the most FPS? Shadows, ray tracing and textures explained

Graphics presets like Low, High and Ultra hide a useful fact: settings do not cost the same. A few of them, such as ray tracing, shadows and volumetric effects, eat most of your frame rate, while others, like motion blur, cost almost nothing.

Spend an illustrative frame budget in a live settings panel, see why textures use video memory rather than speed, and learn which switch to lower first when a game is slow or stutters.

Bar chart of graphics settings ranked by FPS cost, with ray tracing longest and textures and motion blur shortest

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