Whether nosotros like information technology or non, the beginning of a new console generation brings both trouble and opportunities for PC gamers. Those shiny, new consoles are outfitted with mid to enthusiast-class hardware, driving PC system requirements up. You'll find that, all of a sudden, AAA games aren't running at a flawless 60 FPS on a mainstream GPU anymore. And so while the boilerplate new game may be more than resources intensive, that too means titles can take amend advantage of modern PC hardware.

It's been this fashion for the past few generations. Dorsum in 2005, early-generation Xbox 360 games like F.E.A.R. and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, punished even top-tier gaming PCs. In 2022, Assassinator's Creed: Unity, pegged as Ubisoft'due south first "true" next-gen game, ran at an bloodcurdling 24 FPS at 1440p on the flagship GeForce GTX 980. While Unity certainly isn't representative of the performance profile of all early eighth-gen games, it was markedly harder for PCs to run games that came out after the PS4 and Xbox I than before.

Hither at the end of 2022 (every bit if we don't have enough problems, already), the PlayStation five and Xbox Series Ten accept once once again driven upward the hardware baseline. Modernistic titles like Assassin's Creed: Valhalla and Cyberpunk 2077 struggle to run well at 4K, fifty-fifty on height-tier systems. And while settings tweaks can help, in that location's a limit to how much functioning you can claw dorsum this way, peculiarly on older platforms.

There is one other way to significantly boost performance: resolution scaling.

Resolution scaling is a bang-up selection if you're looking to eke out an additional 10-15% performance later tweaking settings. If you're playing at a higher resolution like 4K, and yous combine resolution scaling with image sharpening (run across here for GeForce and Radeon solutions), the results are often very close to native.

What custom resolution should you employ? This depends on the native resolution of your monitor. A resolution scale of 83 percent is typically a adept compromise betwixt epitome quality and operation. At 4K, this ways a custom resolution of 3200 10 1800. At 1440p, we're talking almost 2133 x 1200. At 1080p, pixel density on well-nigh displays is already quite low, so nosotros'd avoid scaling there if at all possible.

If you're really short on performance, a .83 per centum res scale at 1080p translates to 1600 10 900. Keep in mind that this resolution calibration number is non set in stone. You can get higher or lower, depending on your performance expectations, your native resolution, and your monitor's pixel density. To find other custom resolutions, simply multiply your native resolution past the scale cistron on both axis.

While many games now offer resolution scaling options in their settings menus, you'll demand to set up custom resolutions in Windows for total compatibility. We'll walk you through how to do that in this piece, and share 4K benchmarks highlighting the performance impact. Our examination rig features a GeForce RTX 3080 and a Ryzen 9 3900X. Despite these formidable specs, depending on the game we can become GPU limited at 4K and resolution scaling yields a considerable performance boost.

As a brief side annotation, Nvidia's DLSS is similar to resolution scaling in that it besides renders the game at a lower internal resolution simply and so upscales it and enhances the image using temporal anti-aliasing (TAA) and deep learning. A proper DLSS 2.0 implementation should be better than manifestly resolution scaling, but it'due south supported on a per game ground. We have run some DLSS tests for this feature as well.

Both Nvidia and AMD offer custom resolution options in their respective control panels. But for this commodity we'll be using the platform-agnostic CRU (Custom Resolution Utility) instead. We've found that custom resolutions in CRU tend to have fewer compatibility issues and reliably show upwardly in all games, unlike the control panel custom resolution options. Allow's get started!

i. Download and run CRU

CRU creator ToastyX has a post on the Monitor Tests forums where he updates the latest versions of CRU. You tin can also download it from TechSpot. You don't need to install CRU, just unzip the files in a folder and y'all're skilful to go.

2. Run CRU as an administrator

Under "Detailed Resolutions," click on Add together.

This volition take you to a new Detailed Resolutions window. Here, enter your custom resolution in the ii boxes highlighted beneath.

Enter the resolution width and height. You don't need to touch whatsoever other settings.

If yous want, yous tin can set up a custom refresh charge per unit equally well. That's some other potential performance-boosting tip nosotros'll talk nigh later in this article. Once y'all're done, click OK and exit the app.

3. Restart your graphics driver

In the CRU folder, you will find a file chosen restart64.exe. Run that as ambassador. This will restart your graphics driver. Y'all will run across your screen blink and some things will briefly break (peculiarly hardware-accelerated apps, overlays, games, or Steam). This is normal and you'll just demand to run them again.

The new custom resolution will show up globally in Windows settings and in all apps and games that permit you to change the resolution.

Pro tip: if you lot're gaming on a TV or a upkeep monitor, make sure to enable GPU scaling in Nvidia/AMD control panels. While display scaling is marginally (circa i ms) faster, low-end TVs and monitors practise a terrible job of scaling, significantly affecting epitome quality with custom resolutions.

Testing resolution scaling

Our exam rig:

  • CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 3900X
  • GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080
  • RAM: two x 8GB 3600MHz DDR4
  • Motherboard: MSI Magazine X570 Tomahawk WiFi
  • Storage: 2 ten 480 GB NVMe SSDs
  • PSU: XPG Core Reactor 850W

Only how much of a performance gain tin you expect from resolution scaling? At 83 res scaling, y'all should exist getting roughly 15 per centum higher frame rates, especially if you're scaling down from a very high resolution.

We tried out resolution scaling in a number of titles including Assassinator'southward Creed: Valhalla, Red Expressionless Redemption 2, and Borderlands 3, check out the benchmarks beneath...

Gearbox's latest shooter is hard on GPUs at top-end settings. We ran the game with the volumetric fog dialed down a notch. Fifty-fifty and then, nosotros only boilerplate 66 FPS at native 4K, with occasional dips below 60. At 3200 x 1800, we managed an 84 FPS boilerplate. This is a remarkable 27 percent higher.

The latest game in the Assassin's Creed franchise was congenital for the PlayStation five and Xbox Series 10 first. This is a cantankerous-gen title that scales all the way down to the base of operations Xbox 1. However, information technology'southward punishing at top-end settings. When maxed out, the GeForce RTX 3080 delivers a 50 FPS experience. Fifty-fifty with our custom settings, the game only managed 57 FPS at native resolution. At 1800p, though, the frame rate shot up to 68 FPS, a nineteen percent heave. This made a 60 FPS lock far more feasible.

Rockstar's Red Dead Redemption 2 features one of the almost detailed open worlds nosotros've seen to date. The game ran well at max settings, but settings tweaks can go a long way to improve the state of affairs. With our custom settings, the game already ran at a very respectable 79 FPS at native 4K. Resolution scaling pushed things farther. At 1800p, we saw an average frame rate of 96 FPS. This opens the door to enabling extremely enervating settings similar Tree Tessellation that nosotros'd otherwise go out off.

Horizon Zilch Dawn was a PlayStation 4 exclusive that stunned at launch. On PC, character and surround quality holds up against the best of this year'south AAA titles: it actually looks and runs better than Assassin's Creed: Valhalla. Yet, yous will need an RTX 3080 or meliorate to max this game out at 4K. On other cards, resolution scaling is a viable option to boost performance.

At native 4K, our system manages a smooth 78 FPS, but there are gains to be made here. At 1800p, we run across a remarkable 96 FPS average. While this appears like a dead ringer for RDR2'due south performance profile, minimums are far meliorate in Horizon Zero Dawn: at 1800p, a 1% low of 77 FPS, meaning effectively no dips beneath 60 FPS. If you have a pixel-dense 4K loftier refresh monitor, resolution scaling opens the door to high frame rate gaming in this title.

Significant performance gains

As expected, all games we tested showed meaning frame rate gains when playing at a lower resolution. A 17% reduction in pixel count netted upward to a 27 percent improvement to the average frame rates. Modernistic game engines oftentimes tie certain visual furnishings to the frame buffer resolution. For example, at native 4K, quarter-resolution blastoff effects would render at 1920 10 1080, while they'd render in at 1600 x 900 if you lot're running at 3200 ten 1800.

What about DLSS ii.0?

We too tested DLSS ii.0 in Watch Dogs: Legion (and no, Nvidia didn't make us exercise it). Conventional resolution scaling isn't perfect and does have an image quality impact: you're rendering fewer pixels. This is especially noticeable when it comes to afar and high-frequency detail. Sharpening can aid, but it'due south not a magic bullet.

DLSS ii.0, well.... kind of is. As our previous tests with Wolfenstein: Youngblood and Control demonstrated. By leveraging RTX tensor cores, the DLSS AI algorithm is able to showtime with a lower-resolution input and effectively recreate missing pixels, to the point that high-quality is indistinguishable from native rendering. At the lower end, paradigm quality is sacrificed, but as you'll see, the performance gains are tremendous.

With DLSS set to quality, we averaged 55 FPS. This fashion offers image quality that's really marginally better than native res with TAA. It also runs far, far ameliorate. Nevertheless, we're in sub-60 FPS territory here, with occasional dips below fifty.

DLSS Balanced offers a very, well, counterbalanced performance profile. The 62 FPS average with i% lows in the 50s isn't ideal, only it pairs well with the game's Adaptive V-Sync mode.

With DLSS ready to performance mode, we exercise see image quality take a bit of a hitting. Still, the average frame rate shoots up to 72 FPS, with a 60 FPS one percentage low. If you're looking for a smooth 60 FPS lock, Functioning mode is the style to get. Lastly, we tried out DLSS Ultra Operation mode, just nosotros really wouldn't advise using it.

Nvidia claims that DLSS Ultra Operation is merely meant for 8K displays, and in this case, it's more than just marketing speak. With Ultra Performance mode enabled at 4K, the game is upscaling from a mere 720p. While still frames await surprisingly decent, ghosting and artifacts impact visual quality as presently as yous pan the camera.

Ultra Operation netted us an 86 FPS average, with a 66 FPS 1%. That's a decent bump up from Performance mode, only the hit to image quality just isn't worth information technology.

Bonus round: Custom refresh rates

The problem with sub-threescore FPS averages isn't then much lag as it is stutter. When your frame rate fluctuates between the mid-50s and low-60s, frame pacing is constantly off-kilter, leading to a lower perceived frame charge per unit. If you're unable to hit 60 FPS at native res, but as well unwilling to use a custom resolution, there is a third selection: custom refresh rates. Practice note this is non for everybody (as in, not everybody will similar the end result), merely it's worth trying if your GPU doesn't fully get you there.

CRU'south detailed resolution menu lets you modify the refresh rate as well as the screen resolution. If you want to set a custom refresh charge per unit, follow the same custom resolution instructions, but instead of inputting a custom resolution, enter a custom refresh rate.

Nosotros've found that 55 Hz and l Hz are great options. 55 Hz is most indistinguishable from sixty Hz. However, it's a ten percent lower performance target. 50 Hz is less responsive. However, it's far smoother than a panel-ish thirty Hz. Information technology as well gives your system 10 FPS of headroom when y'all endeavour to lock to the refresh rate for a consistent experience. In Cyberpunk 2077, I've found that a 50 Hz refresh rate offers a far smoother, more consistent feel than the 50-60 FPS figures we otherwise get.