New Graphics Card Too Expensive? 10 Ways to Squeeze More Performance From Your GPU
If you're i of the millions of people who accept tried—and failed—to purchase a new graphics card this year, you probably already know this tale of tech woe. As the supply squeeze for semiconductors trundles on through the kickoff half of 2022 with no signs of slowing, many buyers simply have no good way to get their hands on a new GPU at a reasonable price. (Afterwards all, who wants to resort to renting a bot?)
Supply-side semiconductor shortages, rises in the value of cryptocurrencies, and an overall increased need for electronics during the COVID-19 pandemic have all converged to send GPU prices shooting far north of their proposed listing prices—if you can find sure models at all. Then if you're not content to back up the scalping economy (and its absurd prices), until some semblance of normalcy returns you need to know: What tricks and techniques can you use to squeeze the most out of a card y'all already own?
Permit's check out some of the most common options for gamers who are waiting for that elusive dose of sanity to heal the GPU marketplace. It may take a while.
1. Tweak Your In-Game Settings
First upward, the obvious stuff. If y'all're having trouble running your favorite games at your preferred frame rate, the initial stride to take is to tweak your in-game graphics settings downward in quality, or to reduce the overall resolution, to increment the overall frame-per-second (fps) rate.
In general, the nearly taxing elements for a GPU to render in a game tend to be the anti-aliasing quality and texture quality. These two settings can usually be turned up or down through a serial of "levels." Simply whether you lot have this option, and what form it takes, depends on the game.
For example, in the popular AAA title Ruby Dead Redemption 2, you'll see four anti-aliasing options: TAA (temporal anti-aliasing), FXAA (fast-approximate), MSAA (multi-sampling), and None. Each of these comes with its ain benefits and drawbacks, and the performance bear on of each setting volition vary depending on the GPU yous're using to power the game.
The best way, in this circumstance, to run into how to go more than performance out of your current GPU would be to run the in-game benchmark test at each anti-aliasing level, along with applying any other settings adjustments y'all care to brand, and comparing the results in a systematic style. You'll want to change but 1 variable at a time. Only select games have built in benchmark tests, though; in the case of RDR 2, it's under the graphics settings menu. (See how we test graphics cards.) Be sure to mark downwardly both the performance numbers (measured in fps) and to observe the visual quality to see if it rests in a place you're happy to call "skilful enough for now."
If the championship you're trying to tune lacks an in-game benchmark, you tin can employ a tool like FRAPS to aid record your frame rate and make adjustments accordingly. (Hit the link for a primer on how to utilise FRAPS, but comport in mind that y'all demand to use the same run-through or methodology for each examination, or else the frame-charge per unit comparisons will not be meaningful.)
In sum, this discussion applies to every setting in your game, whether it's the anti-aliasing intensity, the texture quality, the shadow level, or something else. There'south no going around the basic laws of GPU scaling hither: the more settings yous plough downward in order to proceeds in frames, the worse a game will await. The more than of them you turn up, the harder the GPU works and the more heat is issued. Thermodynamics are a hurting!
However, things have started to change in recent years with a few innovative approaches to that historic period-old trouble. Take DRS, for one.
2. Appoint Dynamic Resolution Scaling, If You Tin can
Dynamic Resolution Scaling (DRS) is a recently introduced feature that has only started to gain traction in the mainstream, every bit more and more developers look to offering ways to run their games at optimal frame rates on sub-optimal hardware.
DRS is bachelor only on a game-by-game basis, significant that it has to be an option in your game's menu to exist turned on. It works to increase your frame rate by dynamically adjusting the return resolution of a scene depending on the number of elements onscreen. In not-technojargon? The more stuff the GPU is being asked to render, the more it will downrender that image to keep frame rates above a consistent level.
For example, you're in a small hallway with just a few enemies visible. That's an piece of cake task for your GPU to handle, resulting in college frame rates. Step out into a wide vista with more than enemies, spaceships shooting down from the sky, and tracers everywhere? The frame rate tanks.
DRS solves for this, and while it'south non always the best choice for getting college frame rates out of your carte du jour, it volition help to provide a more than consistent frame rate throughout various scenes and ready pieces. Want to try it out? Just check your game settings for a DRS toggle and flip it on.
three. Got a Radeon Card? Consult Your Settings Advisor
For owners of AMD Radeon cards who can't determine which settings they desire to sacrifice in the service of higher frame rates, the latest version of the visitor's Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition (which is its GPU-management and performance-monitoring suite) comes with what the company is calling its Radeon Settings Advisor (RSA).
RSA is part of the full Radeon suite. It's a real-time reporting system that tracks how well a game performs on your current setup. But every bit of import: It makes automatic suggestions for which settings can exist tweaked to provide the all-time visual experience at a more consistent frame rate.
This takes a bit more of the guesswork out of the equation, though we'd always recommend that you melody your game to your ain visual preference earlier taking the communication of a method governed by bogus intelligence. The reason why? Coming right upwards.
4. Prototype Sharpeners: Radeon Image Sharpening, Nvidia Freestyle, and ReShade
That reason is image sharpeners. Gaining in popularity over the past few years, "sharpeners" like Nvidia's Freestyle employ a secondary filter over your game to make clean up any rough edges that might be introduced when you plough down the render resolution or anti-aliasing level.
AMD'south Radeon Epitome Sharpening (RIS), on the other hand, is a chip more advanced. Rather than simply applying a flat filter over the entirety of the image, RIS applies an algorithm called Contrast Adaptive Sharpening (CAS), which uses different elements in a scene to decide which edges demand to be sharpened, and which of them can exist left alone.
CAS has the distinct advantage of being open source, giving anyone with whatsoever graphics card (AMD or Nvidia!) the option to plow on the feature every bit long equally the game natively supports it. The feature has been patched into many of the games that we apply for benchmarking new video cards. Yous can see the consequence of using either CAS or DLSS (more on DLSS later) on AAA games like Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Expiry Stranding in our latest results, from the Radeon RX 6700 XT launch, below...
In our testing, nosotros found that on average, gamers can crank their render resolution down as much as 35% with RIS enabled without seeing a noticeable degradation in image quality, which translates to a 35% increase in frames per 2d. Nvidia'south Freestyle isn't every bit forgiving, though, and RIS generally produced better image quality throughout, thanks to its more than targeted approach to the problem.
In the example of these sharpeners, turning them on is generally a elementary toggle in supported games. The question is whether a given game supports the technology, and which 1(s).
5. Another Perk for AMD Card Owners: Radeon Boost
If you have a Radeon RX 400 card or newer, the AMD Radeon Boost setting is an interesting mode to become a higher boilerplate frame rate and reduced latency out of some of today's virtually popular multiplayer games. Much like DRS, Radeon Boost uses the movement of your mouse to decide when you lot're rapidly turning your character in such a way that a bit of video-carte du jour corner-cut won't be noticeable.
Think of it like this. When you lot're going for what'south unremarkably referred to as a "movie shot" in a multiplayer shoot-'em-up, you're rapidly moving your mouse from one office of the screen to another to try and focus in on the head of your enemy as quickly as possible. In these situations, having a higher frame rate is more important than how proficient that caput looks when you click on it.
Radeon Boost adaptively downrenders the resolution of the game while the camera is in motion. providing a momentary "boost" to your frame rate. Once you lot stop moving the mouse, the game reverts to rendering at its native resolution.
We've tried the feature for ourselves over multiple demos, and while it tin can provide a substantial average uplift to your frame rate, its limited support (less than two dozen games know how to employ it) prevents it from beingness the sort of "catch-all" bonus that AMD owners might be looking for.
Still, the list of Radeon Boost-enabled games includes some very heavy hitters:
- Noon Legends
- Borderlands 3
- Telephone call of Duty: Mod Warfare
- Call of Duty: WWII
- Cyberpunk 2077
- Destiny two
- Fallout 76
- Fortnite
- Chiliad Theft Auto Five
- Metro Exodus
- Overwatch
- PlayerUnknown'due south Battlegrounds
- Resident Evil 3
- Rise of the Tomb Raider
- Shadow of the Tomb Raider
- Sniper Elite 4
- Warframe
- The Witcher iii: Wild Chase
For the esports set who play one of the games on this listing, in the correct circumstances it could be worth the price of entry. And speaking of a high cost of entry...
vi. Turn on DLSS...If Y'all Tin (GeForce RTX Owners Only)
So, you lucked into an Nvidia 20 Series graphics card with an "RTX" badge on it before supply stale up and prices on both the xx Series and the newer GeForce RTX 30 Series went into orbit? So, by far, using DLSS is the fastest and easiest way to go more performance out of the Nvidia graphics card you already own. With one big caveat.
DLSS is, for lack of a more complicated technical explanation in the service of time, magic. The engineering science employs bogus intelligence to smooth out aliasing in games. In our testing, we've seen that it can increase your frame rates past as much equally 70 percent in select cases, without any discernible affect on the visual quality of your game.
That big catch? DLSS has seen only limited implementation in games, and the game has to support it for y'all to engage it. As of this writing in April 2022, DLSS 2.0 (the but version worth using, in this apprehensive benchmarker's opinion) is available in fewer than three dozen titles. If you lot regularly play ane of the enabled games, such as Call of Duty: Warzone, the boost is undeniable, even so.
Quite literally in the center of writing this story, a DLSS 2.0 update went out for the new COD: Warzone mode, and the reactions are already pouring in (specifically from yours truly): This is the futurity of gaming. Unfortunately, it'southward nonetheless, indeed, more often than not the future for now. (The only other games pushed in this update were Bladepoint and Mortal Shell, inappreciably the blockbuster global 100-million-player phenomena that is COD: Warzone.)
We expect this to change in the coming years, though, as Nvidia recently announced DLSS base integration with both Unreal Engine 4 and Unity, 2 of the virtually commonly employed game engines in circulation today. Until then, though, considering that the engineering is limited both by the number of games too equally by the specific cards it volition work on (that is, GeForce RTX ones just), it just isn't an everyday choice for about people.
Users should know that for a lot of the aforementioned tech, DLSS is an "all or none" state of affairs. It overrides your choices on anti-aliasing, DRS, or the option to enable AMD's FidelityFX CAS. That said, nosotros don't mind handing over command of those settings in exchange for threescore% or more frames per second in COD: Warzone with nothing more than a firmware patch and a software update. That'southward money not spent on a new video card that you could put toward a higher-resolution monitor, and still not see a drop in frames because DLSS would exist picking up the slack all the way up the chain.
DLSS is finally, afterward a turbulent start, first to evidence some maturity in its infinite. If y'all ain a GeForce RTX card, and so DLSS (if supported in a given game) should always exist your first and last resort to find whatsoever extra performance hiding in the virtual GPU burrow cushions. If information technology'southward supported, just await for the toggle in the game's menus and plough it on.
7. Tweak Two Central Windows 10 Settings
For those on Windows x, two settings buried in the Graphics Settings section of your Display Settings window, VRS and Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling, could assistance you eke out a few actress frames in certain games that support either feature. To get to them, correct-click on the Windows desktop, cull Display Settings, and then whorl downwardly to the very lesser and click Graphics Settings. (If you don't see them, make sure your installation of Windows 10 is current via Windows Update.)
Turn on Variable Charge per unit Shading
The kickoff is Variable Rate Shading (VRS), a newer technique that works in only 2 games you can play at the fourth dimension of this writing: Gears 5, and Gears Tactics. If either of those are your matter (and they very well may be, equally ane of them earned our Editors' Choice laurels), you can come across the benefit of this new engineering. Information technology changes the way that shaders are calculated, in so few words.
Not a Gears geek? Read on.
Turn on Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling
Some other minor buff in the world of GPUs came about more recently, in the May 2022 Windows 10 update. It practical changes to what's known every bit the "GPU scheduler," which is basic terminology in the education gear up that tells your GPU how much or how niggling power to use for whatever particular task. The GPU scheduler in Windows has been the same all the way dorsum to the days of Windows Vista, and information technology was just recently updated every bit a part of the Windows 10 2004 feature build.
We haven't tested the feature for ourselves, but other outlets have all come to the same conclusion, thus far: It's mildly helpful, but it'southward even so besides early on to tell how big a deal information technology will be longer-term. Games launched prior to the latest May 2022 update were designed with the original GPU scheduler in listen, pregnant that they wouldn't even know how to accept reward of the optimizations if they could.
Even with optimizations, it's believed that the primary beneficiary of the technology volition be games that tin can leverage CPU six cores or more than, such as Yard Theft Car V or Civilisation Six. If you lot play either of these games regularly, yous could see a minor percentage gain past turning it on, but again, this feature is reserved to fringe cases.
8. Have a Drinkable at the Resizable BAR
Another recently introduced feature, Resizable BAR, has actually been sitting in the depths of beta BIOS builds on motherboards for a while now. (It'southward also known as Smart Admission Retentivity, or SAM, on AMD-based systems.) But recently, it got flipped on as the emergence of PCI Express iv.0 buses on motherboards accept allowed for a more efficient communication pipe to open up up between uniform CPUs and GPUs.
The feature starting time made its appearance during the launch of AMD's Radeon RX 6000 Series of graphics cards. When nosotros tested the feature then, it provided only a small bump overall, with frame results that were upwardly to 8% faster in certain cases. This often wasn't plenty to help the RX 6700 XT keep upward with its Nvidia competition (specifically the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Founders Edition) in DirectX 11 games, though...
Speaking of which, if you lot plan to play lots of games that use DirectX eleven, err on the side of caution. Stick with your Nvidia bill of fare, if you've got one, to get the best possible frame rates in those games until drivers for the Radeon RX 5000 and RX 6000 Series GPUs shake out in future updates.
Turning on Resizable BAR or SAM, if you're able, happens in the BIOS, and it requires belatedly-model components, and so it may exist less useful for folks with older hardware they are trying to extend the life of. It also may require updates to the motherboard and mayhap the video card firmware. Bank check your motherboard manufacturer's website for the advisable BIOS updates required, as well equally instructions on where to find the toggle for your specific model. One time over again, our Resizable BAR primer has much more on the compatibility issues.
9. And Then There Was Overclocking
Though it has been macerated in effectiveness in contempo years, the oldest, almost-vetted method of getting more power out of your GPU is overclocking.
As cards take grown in power and complication, the clock-speed ceiling that a GPU tin reasonably expect to hit above its base rate has lessened, and menu makers have gotten quite good at leaving little performance untapped in their designs. But that doesn't mean it'due south incommunicable to become what yous need out of your bill of fare in a pinch. Applications like AMD's WattMan and Radeon Overclocking Software requite an array of novice-friendly options to melody your graphics card. Nvidia users aren't suffering for pick, either. They tin utilise third-political party software options such as MSI Afterburner and EVGA Precision X1, which tend to work with the widest array of third-party GeForce cards.
In our own reviews, we've seen cards similar the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT that could comfortably stick at an overclock of nearly 25%. Whether or not that translates 1:1 into that much functioning depends on the game, though. In our stock overclock testing, we saw that 25% overclock return around 10% faster frames in our test runs, on average. And that'due south just on air cooling...
Purchase a GPU Waterblock
One of the few classes of computer components that hasn't seen a surge in cost over the by year are coolers. Specifically in the case of GPUs, that means airtight-loop liquid cooling systems with GPU waterblock adapters. While that may audio like a mouthful, what you're getting is pretty basic: the aforementioned kind of water cooling you'd attach to a CPU, except with a customized cake designed to fit over a specific GPU. (GPU waterblocks are model-dependent, designed to interface with and mount on specific video card PCBs.)
GPU liquid cooling is a reliable, if expensive, way to significantly reduce the temperatures of your GPU to a point where you lot can overclock by multiples more what's possible with traditional air cooling. Some all-in-one (AIO) liquid GPU cooling systems are going for as low every bit $70 right now on Amazon, and though your costs volition vary depending on the carte du jour, it will likely all the same be far less than the price of even a new, current-generation midrange GPU right at present.
The best function, though? In one case you finally do get the new graphics menu you've been waiting for, in most cases you'll only have to bandy out the waterblock for the new backplate, while keeping the rest of the liquid cooling arrangement intact. This means fifty-fifty more performance out of your new GPU, and cooler operating temperatures all around. Who wouldn't similar that? (Check out our GPU overclocking primer for much more than on how to actually pull off a graphics overclock.)
10. Always Melody for Your Ain Eyes
Settings advice and extra card- and game-specific features are all well and good. Just ultimately only you lot know how well you can actually run into anything. When turning down settings on your favorite games to let your GPU to catch up, you'll be the all-time and merely guess of what can exist sacrificed and what stays, in the terminate.
Books have been written about the phenomenon of "pixel pitch," and you lot tin read an abridged version in our roundup of the best 4K monitors. It comes downward to this: Are you nearsighted, farsighted, or astigmatic? Use trifocals or bifocals? Have 4K monitor, or a 1080p one? All of the above? None? The list of variables that become into "what a monitor looks like to you, specifically" goes on, and on, and on.
The beginning step in determining your personal display perception? Kickoff with tools like these from workstation maker Puget Systems to make up one's mind what monitor is right for your vision commencement, so piece of work backward from there. After that, it's all about coloring in personal preference during the tuning process. Depending on your optics, and your visual tastes, you'll be able to tell whether to sacrifice shadows for textures, let for worse anti-aliasing for higher draw distance, turn on RIS or not, then on.
Ultimately it'due south virtually nevertheless the game looks best to y'all, or at least keeps y'all competitive without sacrificing speed, if that'due south your thing. For some, that'll mean an insistence on frame rates that lock above a buttery-smooth 144fps; others won't settle for less than an elite 360fps. Many won't demand more than 60fps at 4K, and some won't be happy until their 8K Tv set is running at 120Hz.
Conclusion: All Hope Isn't Lost, Folks!
Certain, the GPU marketplace is a bloodbath for buyers these days, and reports from vendors, manufacturers, foundries, and fabricators all advise that the high prices we're seeing on outset- and second-paw GPUs won't be going down anytime soon. Still, factor in and apply every relevant optimization and setting tweak we've mentioned here, and yous could see significant gains on your frame rates using the hardware yous already own. For example, if y'all applied DRS, Hardware GPU scheduling, Resizable BAR, and a RIS sharpening level of around 35% (with an equal downrender practical), yous could expect a considerable boost to your performance.
Alternately, depending on the game and if you have the correct GeForce card, Nvidia GeForce RTX owners could just flip on DLSS 2.0 for an instant boost, save their bucks, and wait in earnest to encounter what an eventual, ostensible Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 can practise in Ultra Performance mode cranked to the max.
Over again, it should be stressed that your results will vary. Dozens of factors are at work here, and those tin can change depending on the game you lot're playing, the hardware you lot're playing on, the version of Windows you run, whether information technology's common cold or hot exterior...again, the listing goes on. But in today's video card marketplace, driven past soulless bots pumping up prices, trying anything is still ameliorate than nothing.
All that said, if you're determined to go along trying to get an all-new GPU for yourself, we've drummed upwardly a serial of guides that can assist you find a GPU at a off-white price. Or, if y'all're actually, really desperate, fight fire with fire and check out how we joined the ranks of the bots. (Why not let the machines do the difficult part for you, right?)
Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/graphics-cards/43384/new-graphics-card-too-expensive-10-ways-to-squeeze-more-performance-from-your-gpu
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