NEW Global Illumination Setting | Graphics Settings Comparison | Genshin Impact 4.0

#genshinimpact #fontaine #graphics
a quick comparison between genshin graphics settings, including the latest option Global Illumination.

contents
00:00 - Intro
00:10 - Render Resolution
00:42 - Shadow Quality
01:16 - Visual Effects
01:27 - SFX Quality
02:26 - Environment Detail
02:42 - Motion Blur
02:56 - Bloom
03:07 - Anti Aliasing
03:23 - Global Illumination

[doodezzzzzz]

*Guides for those potato bros*

FPS: Frame per Seconds, the higher the smoother your gameplay. I'd recommend setting to 60 or higher (if they eventually uncapped it) for any games. However, if you're on a potato device that overheats easily, lowering this can reduce temp and may give a more consistent performance at the cost of less smoother gameplay.

V-Sync: Eliminates screen tearing. I'd recommend disabling this as the game itself caps only to 60 FPS. Basically, if you have 60 Hz refresh rate monitor and your game runs at 100 fps (or any higher than your refresh rate), you'll get this "screen tearing" effect where the frame looks like it splits in half. This is true for any games. If you experience this effect, you may want to enable V-Sync to eliminate that "screen tearing" effect with a noticeable small-medium performance impact.

Render Resolution: Scales how the game renders with your selected resolution. I'd recommend this to 0.9 or 1.0. Any higher than 1.0 is not recommended, it means your game is rendering at higher than your selected resolution. Highly impacts CPU and GPU performance.

Shadow Quality: I'd recommend this setting to the highest possible.
- Lowest: No shadows. Characters only casts a small circular shadow on the ground. No performance impact.
- Low: Soft, low resolution shadows. Small GPU performance impact.
- Medium: Sharper, higher resolution shadows. Medium GPU performance impact.
- High: Sharper, higher resolution shadows with realistic shadow effect. Basically the same resolution as medium but it adds a realistic shadow effect where farther objects casts a more faded shadows onto the ground. Slightly higher than medium GPU performance impact.

Global Illumination: Affects something about how light bounces off objects. I'd recommend setting this to medium as there's not that noticeable difference on higher and it noticeably affects your performance. You can test this out on scenic locations. Medium GPU performance impact.

Visual Effects: I'm not sure what else this does besides giving an Ambient Occlusion effect on medium and higher. You can test this by seeing objects edges. I'd recommend this setting to medium as there's no noticeable difference on higher. Medium GPU performance impact

SFX Quality: Basically affects the effects your characters and enemies give on combat. The higher the more animation, effects, and particles your skills, elemental bursts, etc gives. I'd recommend setting this to medium. If you're having frame drops or dislike the excess effects during a combat, you may want to lower this setting. Medium GPU performance impact.
* Setting this to lowest also disables some of your UI animations such as the elemental burst icon

Environment Detail: Affects render distance, lights, and textures. Gives better parallax mapping effect on higher settings whereas there's no parallax in lowest. You can test this out on Mondstadt's rocky roads, lower your camera, and move it slowly. Also, setting this higher lets farther light sources illuminates. You can test this out on cities at night. Also, grasses and other nature textures also blends at the edges where they meet. These are the only things affected that I noticed, there's probably more that I don't know. I'd recommend this setting to at least medium. High GPU and VRAM performance impact.

Anti-Aliasing: Smoothens out pixelated-edges.
- Off: No anti-aliasing. No performance impact.
- FSR 2: This is AMD's Fidelity FX Super Resolution. It's supposed to be a technology to upscale your resolution, not as an anti-aliasing. Better result than SMAA. I'd recommend using this setting if you're using 0.9 render resolution or lower as it upscales your resolution. Medium GPU and CPU performance impact.
- SMAA: Great anti-aliasing. I'd recommend using this if your render resolution is 1.0. Noticeably less performance impact than FSR 2.
(It's disappointing how they didn't add Nvidia's DLSS but allows their game filter)

Volumetric Fog: Gives light rays effect when the sun/moon is obstructed. You can test this out by looking at the sun/moon and walking around trees, buildings, etc. I'd recommend enabling this. Small GPU performance impact.

Reflections: Gives a screen-space reflections effect on some materials. You can test this by looking at water surfaces or other reflective objects. I'd recommend enabling this. Small GPU performance impact (not sure why the default is disabled).

Motion Blur: Gives a blurred effect when something's moving fast on the screen. The higher the more smoother the blur (more samples). Some likes it and some don't. If you want this enabled, I'd recommend setting it to medium or high. Small-medium GPU performance impact.

Bloom: Gives a bright shine effect when there's something bright on the screen. I'd recommend enabling this. Small GPU performance impact.

Crowd Density: Whether or not uninteractable NPCs are visible. I'd recommend enabling this. Very small VRAM performance impact.

Co-Op Teammate Effects: Whether or not characters not controlled by you (in Co-op) have their effects visible. Small-medium performance impact depending on selected SFX Quality setting. Lower this if you're experiencing frame drops.
- On: Enables all teammates effects.
- Partially off: Only enables some important effects that affects other characters such as Bennett's elemental burst and other buffs/debuffs.
- Off: Completely disables all teammates effects. Highly NOT recommended

Subsurface Scattering: Gives a backlight effects on characters and objects. You'll notice characters has very slight shine on their edges if this is enabled. I'd recommend setting this to medium. Small performance impact

Anisotropic Filtering: Gives better texture resolution when the camera angle is off. I'd highly recommend setting this to 8x or 16x. Very small performance impact.

Dynamic Character Resolution: Gives better model mesh when on cutscenes or on character screens. You'll notice character edges are a lot smoother in the character screen. I'd highly recommend enabling this. Only impacts performance on cutscenes or character screens.

[taciturn-rated]

I appreciate you for this. Finally a video where there is a comparison of the varying degrees of "Global Illumination" on PC.

Most videos just... distinguish between "On" and "Off".

[JeyC_]

You should add side by side comparisons after, just my suggestion :)

[bsoboy]

I hate global lighting in genshin. The technology itself is amazing, but the developers were too lazy to adjust the different degree of light reflection of different materials, because of which when you turn on global lighting there are a lot of visual bugs and materials reflect light in the same way because of what is lost live contrast and difference between wood, stone, water, earth and so on. I would really like the developers to see this criticism and fix the global lighting and it looks like it should be. So that the earth does not reflect light like a mirror.

[Isekai]

Should i turn of (100%) my brightness setting ..?

[Hadi-yr]

here is a subscribe from me. please continue good stuff.. I like to appreciate a good intention effort

[nonenone]

environment detail is just an increased in range of things being rendered?

[vezetion]

what is the place called ur in at 1:34

[Nightmare_FeilianBeringal]

Global illumination only looks good extreme in fontaine, in the other nations I SEE NO DIFFERENCE, maybe because that setting is EXCLUSIVE for Fontaine.

[kakywisam]

If it was balanced Will it harm the iPad 9?😢

[zakewisam]

If it was balanced Will it harm the iPad?

[tivolibelen-osde]

isnt global illumination is just a SSAO?

[ElCzopo]

it looks nice in extreme, but the best effect is in rdr2

[amy-]

i only play with 1.0 scale 😂i need to buy a 2k monitor