Ultra Graphics Settings or Guide

[Fan Mail]

Has someone created a guide or posted something on how to set (or consider setting) the Ultra settings if you have a decent video card?  I tried searching these forums but couldn't find anything.

 

If you find a post, can you link it?  And if you find a post, can you explain how you did your search?  My forum search-fu is only level 2 but I'm close to 3. 

[Ago]

On Paragon Wiki, most of the settings are explained.  There's also Help Icons on the left of the option label for a brief explanation as well.

 

Also depends on what you call decent, video card-wise.

 

Budget-Class -- Priced around $50-120 brand new.  Capable of playing the game, and powering two monitors with one running game video.  Ultra Mode will cut frame rate significantly without 'tuning' away from everything at full.  If frame rate matters over looks, I'd leave Ultra Mode off.  Reference Model during Live: NVidia 9800GT.  Recent Cards: NVidia GeForce 940, AMD Radeon R5 240.  Most on-board video cards fall into this camp more often than not (Intel HD Graphics, AMD Radeon APUs.)

 

Enthusiast-Class -- From $120-220 brand new.  Capable of playing the game on multiple monitors, with multiple instances at 60FPS in most areas, and 15-30FPS in raids and high-populated zones.  If you pick "Ultra Mode", performance may take a hit.  Reference Model during Live: NVidia GeForce GTX 260.  Recent Cards: NVidia GeForce 1050 Ti, AMD Radeon RX 580.  Recent on-board video cards are close to or approaching this level (Intel Iris Pro, AMD Radeon Vega.)

 

High Performance -- From $220 and up.  Capable of playing the game at 60FPS with Ultra Mode on at full blast, with slight hits in high-populated zones.  (Nothing's perfect.)  Also best for play across multiplexed monitors (game resolution spread across 2, 3, 4 or more screens).  Reference Model during Live: NVidia GeForce GTX 285.  Recent Cards: NVidia GeForce RTX 2080, AMD Radeon RX 5700.  No on-board graphics will qualify for this category regardless of who makes them.

 

Important to note: on-board and discrete is not the same when it comes to laptops.  A laptop with discrete graphics will outperform on-board graphics (Intel HD Graphics/Iris Pro, AMD Radeon APU/Vega) any day, even if the discrete graphics have the same distinction that it cannot be upgraded because both of them are built-in.

 

With all of that given above, it's hard to say what a recommended setting list is because user preferences vary so widely:  Particularly in looks, FPS, visibility.

1. Looks: having all the shadows, environmental effects, depth-of-field, bloom and other 'chrome' to high amounts, if not maxed out.  This is for those who hold screenshots and streaming quality higher than issues like pop-up or draw distance.
2. FPS: Frames per second.  Simply put, putting the draw rate over all else, looks be damned.  More often than not, this is the camp I fall into.
3. Visibility: having particle effects, draw distance, anisotropic filters, anti-aliasing, and other 'non-chrome' settings (ones that make a graphics card really 'work' at the game) at full blast.  This is for people who want no surprises when they play the game; costumes never 'tear', powers never look like colored sparks flying from one toon to another, and if a mob is coming, they see it as far away as possible.

As a former boss told me once when presented with three options for an outcome like this, you can pick two.  Or one, if you want to knock only one of them out of the park.  You can't have all three without compromise, unless you are rocking a High Performance card in the first place.

Edited September 17, 2019 by Tahquitz

[Fan Mail]

Thanks, I'll check out the link.

Edited September 17, 2019 by tafilr