Ultra Settings Suck

things only got worse since this video

I find myself coming back to this video in 2024 and appreciating that 2kliksphilips predicted so many things.

7 years later and this video is as relevant as ever. We live in a time where games are more unoptimized than they really should be, and the "ultra settings" dilemma continues to haunt us.

well the 5090 is .........

Ultra settings are trash.

I hate those types of settings. Sure, they look better but I give ZERO fucks on how my favorite games on PC look. I prefer the highest frame rates over stupid graphics.

Damn, we have came a long way since then

Now its 2024 and RTX/RX Graphic cards are handling 4k with ease atleast the ones you should buy

ultra settings sucks, but choosing playing at 4k with low settings sucks more and is such a boring way to play the game, using optimized settings that makes the game look the best while still running well is the best method and with rt now out even though its demanding i still think its worth it over playing at higher res that you cant really tell the difference due to diminishing returns

I think the majority of the people would prefer FPS more than the look... So thus DLSS and FSR is great for them, I mean yeah they won't get native res but on other hand they get a boost of 25-40 FPS, which is insane!!!

Max has been dead for like 10 years even 8 years ago it didnt show games showing a big difference from high,why people have made vids showing games benchmarking running in max is very odd its not realistic

I can hardly agree to anything of this.
e.g. it's rare that Ultra Settings make a really big difference performance-wise compared to high. To my experience and probably depending on the used card it's more the other way around; losing another 5-10 FPS (dropping from 70 to 60 FPS or so) for less jaggies, sharper textures and less flickery shadows. On the other hand I'm for sure not an average gamer.

Such a good video. Way ahead of its time than everyone else who did this same video.

I’m from the future! I have a 3070 and a 12th Gen i7. I still can’t run at ultra 😂

“This video is brought to you by INTEL HD 520”

update vid plz

I think this is more of a misunderstanding of the purpose of those benchmarking graphs. Usually the priority is *not* to represent a "realistic" use case scenario, but rather, it is to make the differences between the products being compared as big as possible so that you can have a fair comparison of each product's maximum potential. This means that benchmarkers deliberately create GPU-limited scenarios when comparing GPUs, which means turning up the resolution and graphics settings, and CPU-limited scenarios when reviewing CPUs. I feel like people often misunderstand this which can mislead them. Benchmarking graphs like these are primarily supposed to be used for relative comparison, not really for absolute numbers; as said in the video there may often be better performing options that look similar, that's just not the point of the benchmark. Furthermore, in reality the differences between between these products may in many scenarios be less pronounced than in the benchmarks, that's because the benchmarks are deliberately designed to make these differences apparent. I really hope that more people will keep these things in mind when interpreting benchmarking graphs and making buying decisions.

Doom interal is fps cap same like cs go

This video just woke me up. For years I haven't bothered with anything but ultra because that is how you are playing "badass". I am going to try turning down some settings and get better fps.

ultra been dead for years now sense 2016 games look almost same as the settings below which is high or very high its just a small change I only use high

So its still weird to me channels still use max as if they dont know it make no sense to use max

I grew up with the genesis, playstation, N64 where slowdowns and 16 fps was common, and pc gamers cobbling together crazy builds just to PLAY games. The modern pc gaming community just seems like it's, for a large majority, people with well paying jobs or kids with wealthy parents running 3080's and 90's and complaining on not hitting 144 fps on ultra with RTX on. The world feels different man.

Honestly Just play 4k at only High Settings not Ultra or Max.

I've been binging your videos for a few weeks now. It blows my mind that you seem to have video for almost every tech question that pops into my head recently. I am currently using a 1070 card but like... I seriously can't think of a reason to upgrade it, I get high frame rates at high settings (mind you I play at 1080p0. What would I get? A 3060 ti for 800 dollars in Canada as of writing this? I'm sure id notice an increase in performance at higher resolutions, but 800 dollars worth of performance? not even close. In 2022 RTX seems even more like a gimmick, I frequently check it out on games with my RTX capable laptop, but I certaintly wouldn't pay extra for the feature set (although it seems to help blender render times). Currently games are being made to run on ps5s and xbox series x, Gamers Nexus showed that theIR hardware performs somewhere in the ballpark of a 1060 up to a 1080 in some games (of course with AMDs implementation of ray tracing). Games are being made and will continue to be made for that generation of hardware. We've seen the smallest bump in 3d graphics in these new generation of consoles. It kind of makes you think that Nvidia has reached a ceiling with rasterization and are relying on pumping up electricity demands of GPU and RTX is kind of a way to "reset the clock" so to speak. Anyways thats my rant, very happy to have a 1070, and even if it stops performing at ultra settings it still doesn't justify anything from either team. I hear when you have a 4k monitor but downscale to 1080p to looks even better than 1080p native so theres that too. pce.

Who's watching this in 2022

I’m on an RX560 and LOVE playing around with settings to get more performance and make it look like high or ultra. Not much matters except shadows, shaders and textures (texture filtering is a hit and miss). Otherwise I find I can max everything but these and still stay in an acceptable range. 3440x1440 monitor. At the moment I use lossless scaling for my anti aliasing. Tbh I am not sure if it is actually better but it makes me feel cool!

Ultra is good on games that new hardware can run without any problems. For old games for example

Sticking to 1080p is always good with the hardware increasing

We need 16k min for VR. 16k is an absolute neeeeeeeeeeeeeed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I agree. That's why I always wait for Digital Foundry or Hardware Unboxed optimized settings.

AAA sucks

This video / topic has become kinda relevant now, thanks to Hardware Unboxed's recent video about it.

average 4k 30fps fan vs. average 720p 120fps enjoyer

I always tweak every setting of every game to the minimum that makes a certain graphic element visible in gameplay. Siege for example: shadows on low turns it off, on medium it turns on and from then on it just gets higher res, so there's no reason going beyond medium for that one. It's the way I get the best visual/performance ratio, works every time.

I hate to say it, but I think you missed the point of hardware reviews. They’re not going to study games to find the optimal settings because the entire point of a hardware review is to see how it performs across an objective measurement that can be used with other hardware.

Haven’t you done hardware reviews? Shouldn’t you know this? 😂

"Our standards have slowly RYZEN over the years"
Captions 👌

rtx 3090

Motion blur
Film grain
Bloom
Chromatic aberration
Depth of field

Dated post processing effects that I always turn off.
Motion blur is good for games running at 30fps but I think we are done with this frame rate since xbox series X and PS5 can now run games at 120fps and every major game has 60fps+ performance option.
Film grain purpose was to mask imperfections and add "realism"/film like feel to the game but now that we have better textures and stuff like AA, DLSS it is only useful if you want the game to look more like a movie.
Bloom is probably the most annoying shader effect. It was so overused in older games like GRID, Syndicate or games made in UE3 in general. I can't really see a purpose of it other than blinding the player.
Chromatic aberration adds distortion to an image. This lens effect is usually used around the edges. This is very apparent in VR headsets because they actually have lenses... It is basically something you want to avoid in real life, yet so many games have this effect... because again, it adds realism.
Depth of field in first person perspective games is very annoying because you look at the monitor and your eyes are not being tracked. The only good use of this is when you, as a character, focus on something (like ADS)

I think that we are past that thing where post processing adds realism to the game and there are many better ways of shading and processing an image right now.

5 years on and I'm here feeling like an old man talking about vinyl. "Why did you take 25% more of my GPU and an extra 75 flipping WATTS to make the game look WORSE?" I mean, having been a kid, I tend to defer to kids with regards to "taste" and "culture" as it's very rare for anything I liked 20 years ago to be relevant today... but do high schoolers actually prefer to have motion blur turned on, for example? I personally hate it.

I happily enjoyed vanilla World of Warcraft at 17 fps. In the Barrens. The... BARRENS. For those of you who have never played the game, the name signifies it's emptiness.

i hate ppl that say that you need expensive stuff for 4k, like bruh, if his 670 could run games at 4k im sure my gtx 1650 can do it as well

Me, watching this video in 4k , crying in the corner for the potato quality of total war warhammer 2 on low to run it at 25 fps

me watching this in 2021 with a 3090: yeah!! hell yeah!!!!

graphics dont matter to me but 30 fps is a genuine eyesore now

I mean, there is no "ultra" on Crysis 3 but okay. Very High and Ultra aren't the same, Ultra is usually a future-proofed preset above Very High

That’s some nice word play with the thumbnail.