Preset buttons treat every setting as equal. They aren't. A handful of options — usually shadows, volumetrics, and whatever the engine calls its most aggressive ray-traced effect — cost several times more than everything else combined, while being the hardest to notice in motion.
- Turn on the upscaler's quality mode before touching anything else — it's the biggest single win.
- Drop shadows one notch. You will not see it. Your frame time will.
- Halve volumetric quality (fog, god rays) — the most expensive pretty-but-invisible effect.
- Leave texture quality alone if you have the VRAM; it's nearly free and the most visible setting.
- Only then consider resolution.
The goal is a stable frame time, not a peak frame rate. A capped, steady output feels smoother than a higher average with dips — which is why the last step in any tuning session is a frame cap just under your sustained level.
