Which graphics settings cost the most FPS, and which are almost free
Most guides tell you to drop everything to Low. That throws away image quality you did not need to lose. Tests of named games show a pattern: a handful of settings cost most of the frames, and several cost almost nothing. This guide collects measured results, says who measured them and when, and is upfront about the limits: the numbers come from different graphics cards, resolutions and years, so use them to rank settings, not to predict your exact FPS.
The pattern in one table
| Setting | Typical FPS cost | Visual loss when lowered |
|---|---|---|
| Ray tracing / path tracing | Highest: 20% to 75% in tested games | Noticeable in lighting and reflections |
| Reflections (screen-space, water, ray-traced) | High: 3% to 40% depending on the game | Minor to noticeable |
| Volumetrics (fog, light shafts) | Medium to high: 6% to 25% | Often minor |
| Shadows | Varies: 3% to 18% | Noticeable at the lowest levels |
| Anti-aliasing (MSAA) | High for MSAA: about 25% at 4x in one test | Edges look rougher |
| Ambient occlusion | Low: 0% to 15% | Minor |
| Textures | Near zero FPS, high VRAM use | Major when lowered |
| Anisotropic filtering, motion blur | Near zero | Minimal |
Ray tracing is the biggest single cost
In Hardware Unboxed testing reported by 80.lv in September 2023, Cyberpunk 2077 ray-traced lighting cost up to 48% of the frame rate and path tracing up to 74%. Tom's Hardware measured Black Myth: Wukong on an RTX 4080 Super at 4K (August 2024): full ray tracing cost between 20% and 41% on the Cinematic preset and between 2% and 30% on the High preset. In Alan Wake 2, Tom's Hardware found maximum ray tracing cost roughly 25% on an RTX 4090 and 4080 and 30% to 35% on other NVIDIA cards, but 57% to 58% on AMD.
No credible cross-game average exists, so treat 20% to 50% as the range for partial ray tracing and 40% to 75% for path tracing. If you want free frames, this is the first thing to turn off, and the visual price is real but usually smaller than the price of dropping the whole preset.
Reflections, volumetrics and shadows: pick your battles
In the same Cyberpunk testing, screen-space reflections cost up to 32% while volumetric fog resolution cost 8% and the various shadow settings about 4% each. In Red Dead Redemption 2, GamingBolt measured maximum reflection quality at about 40%, water quality at 34% and volumetrics at 25%, while PC Gamer found MSAA 4x cost around 25%. GamersNexus tested Starfield on an RX 7600 at 1080p in September 2023 and found volumetric lighting worth 6.6% to 9% when lowered and shadows worth 2.5% to 5.5%.
- Lower reflections and volumetrics before shadows if the visual loss is similar.
- Use a temporal or upscaling-based anti-aliasing mode instead of MSAA.
- Check one setting at a time: the biggest cost is often a single slider, not the whole preset.
The nearly free settings
NVIDIA's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare guide (2019) found maximum texture resolution cost under 2 FPS, motion blur at most about 5 FPS in heavy action, and bullet impacts under 1 FPS. GamersNexus found GTA V FPS effectively identical across texture settings on a Titan X in 2015. In Starfield, particle quality and motion blur showed no measurable difference.
Textures are special. They cost video memory rather than frame rate, so keep them high if your graphics card has the VRAM and drop them only if you hit the limit and see stutter or pop-in. Our VRAM guide explains how to tell.
Presets: High to Ultra is rarely worth it
| Game and test | Preset change | FPS gain |
|---|---|---|
| Black Myth: Wukong, RTX 4080 Super, 4K (Tom's Hardware, 2024) | Cinematic to Very High | +18%, no visible loss |
| Black Myth: Wukong, same test | Cinematic to High | +57%, minor loss |
| Cyberpunk 2077 (Hardware Unboxed via 80.lv, 2023) | Ultra to Low | +77%, major loss |
| Red Dead Redemption 2, RTX 2060 / RX 5700, 1080p (PC Gamer, 2019) | Ultra to Low | More than double |
| Apex Legends, GTX 1060, 1080p (PC Gamer, 2019) | Maximum to minimum | +65% |
The Wukong result is the useful one. Moving from the top preset to the next one down gave 18% to 57% more frames with little or no visible loss. If a game has an Ultra or Cinematic tier, High is almost always the better deal.
The biggest free-FPS setting is upscaling
DLSS, FSR and XeSS render the game at a lower resolution and rebuild the image. In Baldur's Gate 3 at 4K, PC Gamer measured DLSS Quality at +55% and Performance at +99%. Tom's Hardware also measured frame generation raising displayed FPS by about 1.8 times at 2x and about 3.3 to 3.5 times at 4x, but it does not reduce lag. Use the calculator to see the render resolution and likely gain for your own screen.
How old is this data, and what is missing
Several of the per-setting tests are from 2015 to 2023 and use older cards, so the exact percentages will differ on a modern GPU or after patches. We found no credible per-setting figures for Helldivers 2, CS2 or Rust, and some respected testers' articles could not be read in our research, so the table is the pattern across games we could verify, not a complete list. When a number here matters to you, test it yourself: change one setting, run the same scene and compare.
FAQ
What graphics settings should I lower first for more FPS?
Ray tracing and path tracing first, then reflections and volumetric fog or lighting, then shadows. Leave textures high if you have the video memory, because they cost very little FPS.
Do textures affect FPS?
Almost never. They use video memory instead. NVIDIA measured less than 2 FPS from maximum textures in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, and GamersNexus found no FPS change across GTA V texture settings. If you run out of VRAM you get stutter, not a lower average.
Is Ultra worth it over High?
Usually not. In Black Myth: Wukong, dropping from Cinematic to High gave 57% more FPS with only minor visual loss.
Does ray tracing cost a lot of FPS?
Yes. Tested costs range from about 20% to 50% for partial ray tracing and 40% to 75% for path tracing, and AMD cards often lose more in games built around NVIDIA's implementation.