Not to paint them as notably fierce open-world rivals, however leaping into Saints Row after per week spent with Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered felt like being hurled backward in time. While Deep Silver Volition’s “what if millennials, however crime” reboot is vibrant and typically fairly fairly, you’ll be able to inform it’s not practically as serious about leading edge visuals or up to date PC tech trappings as the Spidey remaster is. Ray tracing? Yes however just for ambient occlusion. Upscaling? Never heard of it, officer.
The upside – in addition to Santo Ileso being a typically good place to go to, as Alice Bee present in her Saints Row assessment – is that it is playable on low-end and luxurious {hardware} alike. And, to its credit score, there is a wholesome record of customisable graphics choices too. I’ve subsequently embraced the previous, and spent hours in testing to discover out how one can tweak Saints Row’s settings for the best doable efficiency.
Liam just lately chatted to Alice about their favorite factor in Saints Row.
As ordinary, that meant calling on the RPS take a look at rig, with its Intel Core i5-11600K and 16GB of RAM. It’s far past the recreation’s minimal PC necessities, which you may also discover under, however will allow us to try how totally different GPUs carry out with out worrying about bottlenecks.
Saints Row system necessities and PC efficiency
Deep Silver have solely launched naked minimal specs for Saints Row; advisable specs are listed as TBD on the Epic Store, however this shut to launch day I wouldn’t count on to see them added. If taking a look at these places you in an upgrading temper, our best graphics card and best CPU for gaming guides have some options.
Saints Row minimal specs (1080p / 30fps)
GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 / AMD Radeon RX 480
VRAM: 4GB
CPU: Intel Core i3-3240 / AMD Ryzen 3 1200
RAM: 8GB
OS: Windows 10 64-bit
Storage: 50GB obtainable house
DirectX: DX11
You can select between operating Saints Row in DX11, Vulcan, or DX12 each time you launch it; except you’re enjoying on a really previous or very weak GPU, DX12 will most likely be your best guess.
In common, Saints Row runs fantastic. There are explicit missions that may tax your system tougher than the common free roam trip, however that inconsistency solely seems if you’d most count on it – i.e. when most of the scene is gleefully combusting. And though I’ve seen just a few takedown animations play out of sync, or that one pedestrian who immediately spawned ten toes off the floor, falling to earth in a panic, bugs/glitches that really have an effect on efficiency have eluded me.
Even the more and more greying Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 can deal with the Ultra high quality preset at 1080p; I used a 6GB mannequin for the bulk of my testing, because it’s nonetheless the most-used PC gaming GPU as per Steam’s {hardware} surveys. Using a customized benchmark run, as there’s no in-game device, this card averaged 47fps with solely a single, momentary dip under 30fps. Higher resolutions will want one thing stronger – the GTX 1060 solely scraped 32fps with Ultra at 1440p – although there are many choices there. I additionally tried an RTX 3070, which – nonetheless on Ultra high quality – eased to 85fps at 1440p and acquired a playable 45fps at 4K.
Really, the solely oddity to report is the ray traced ambient occlusion choice. Besides being an unusually particular RT setting in itself – AO doesn’t imply shadows usually, simply the darkish bits the place two objects meet – you additionally don’t want a appropriate GeForce RTX or Radeon 6000 collection GPU to allow it. Normally, these are a prerequisite to merely unlock ray tracing settings, not to mention run them effectively.
However, a graphics card with ray tracing-focused {hardware} will nonetheless cope a lot, significantly better with Saints Row’s restricted implementation. On the GTX 1060, I may solely get an honest 1080p framerate with each ray tracing and the high quality preset on Low, for a mean of 57fps. Without RT, the Low preset manages 84fps, in order that’s a painful drop. Meanwhile, the RTX 3070 and its purpose-built RT cores may run this setting on High high quality, at 1440p and with the Ultra preset, at 81fps: simply 4fps slower than with ray tracing turned off fully.
Saints Row best settings information
In the absence of any framerate boosters like Nvidia DLSS or AMD FSR, getting extra frames out of Saints Row will demand a decreasing of the graphics settings. Besides the presets – Low, Medium, High, and Ultra – there are practically twenty quality-related settings, plus just a few extra pertaining to framerates and common smoothness. For instance, it’s your decision to begin by altering the framerate cap from Uncapped, ought to your monitor help refresh charges above 60Hz. You may disable VSync, which it’s best to do on shows with FreeSync or G-Sync help. Most games-spec shows, together with all of the best gaming screens, help one or each.
To pinpoint which settings to sacrifice (and which to hold cranked up), I examined every one individually utilizing the GTX 1060 at 1080p; we’re in search of how a lot every setting, when lowered, improves common efficiency in contrast to the Ultra preset as-is. Here’s the full record, with my findings:
Graphics high quality preset: The aforementioned, all-consuming presets, starting from Low to Ultra. The High preset was solely reasonably quicker than Ultra, averaging 53fps to Ultra’s 47fps, although it was extra secure with fewer sharp drops. Low was unsurprisingly the best for pure efficiency, producing 84fps, although Medium – with 77fps – is a greater stability of smoothness and constancy. I’d really keep away from utilizing Low-level settings as a lot as doable, except you’ve gotten older {hardware} denying you the alternative.
Ray traced ambient occlusion: As per the above, this can be a respectable sufficient enchancment on the commonplace HBAO setting that it may be price enabling – and there’s little visible distinction between its Low and Ultra settings. Nonetheless, you could discover it tanking your PC except your graphics card is a more recent mannequin designed particularly for ray tracing; with the GTX 1060 I had to drop this and all different settings to Low, disregarding every little thing I mentioned one paragraph in the past, simply to hold issues semi-smooth.
Frame fee cap: Is your monitor 60Hz? Then you’ll be able to depart it on the default setting. Anyone else, change this to Uncapped.
Antialiasing: The default TSSAA 8x can keep in place. Both disabling AA and switching to FXAA acquired my GTX 1060 common up to 49fps, a 4% improve, however TSSAA’s strikingly smoother edges are price this price.
Scene element: Leave this on High. The Medium setting doesn’t enhance efficiency in any respect, and makes Saints Row look noticeably worse by reducing the distance at which environmental objects load in.
Shadow high quality: By distinction, this needs to be the first setting to get the chop. Lowering from Ultra shadows to Medium pushed common efficiency up to 55fps, a chunky 17% enhancement.
Water high quality: Although my benchmark run concerned crossing a lake and a not-so-casual stroll previous a river, dropping water high quality didn’t do a lot. Nothing, in truth: Medium high quality produced the identical 47fps that Ultra did.
Undergrowth: This setting impacts each the density and detailing of foliage like grass and small bushes. Curiously, it’s the solely graphics choice with an ‘Adaptive’ setting, which the Ultra preset makes use of. You may manually set it to High or Medium, and though there was no precise efficiency distinction after I tried them, each High and Adaptive made grass rather more plentiful at shut vary.
Post processing: Reader, I implore you, set this to Ultra. Not solely will decreasing it afford you no actual efficiency profit, however any setting under Ultra – even High – introduces a nasty blurring/ghosting impact. To the level that even your individual automotive, when dashing in a straight line and thus motionless relative to the digital camera, beneficial properties an inexplicable afterimage.
Depth of subject: Enabling or disabling DoF results in video games is usually only a matter of style, however in Saints Row, turning it off acquired me an additional 2% to efficiency.
Effects high quality: This is a difficult one as a result of for the majority of the recreation, turning down results received’t assist efficiency; it definitely didn’t in my benchmarks. However, the technically hardest components are such particle impact onslaughts that reducing them down would possibly make sense. I lean in direction of a better setting, admittedly: it’s doable to make sufficient constructive adjustments elsewhere that even weaker {hardware} can afford the occasional hit.
Texture cache measurement: Texture high quality by one other title. My rig really ran 1fps slower on Normal and Low than it did on High, so depart this one up all the method up.
Texture filter high quality: Another setting with little impact on efficiency. You would possibly as effectively depart this on the most: Anisotropic 16x.
General reflections: The first of Saints Row’s three reflections settings, and the least noticeable – by way of each the reflections themselves and the efficiency impression of decreasing their high quality. Keep this set to High.
Planar reflections: Sometimes thought-about a less expensive various to ray tracing, planar reflections present correct detailing on flat surfaces like glass. Consider dropping this to the Medium setting, which doesn’t damage high quality an excessive amount of however will assist efficiency. I acquired an additional 4% from this variation alone.
Screen house reflections: Yet one other setting to Leave on High, as dropping to Medium gave me an unchanged 47fps.
Vehicle shading: Although you may even see a refined distinction to paint job glossiness after switching this from High to Low, I’d say the 4% efficiency acquire makes for an excellent commerce.
Global illumination high quality: Tweaking this isn’t as impactful as it would sound. There’s solely a 2% efficiency acquire to be had from the Low setting, if my GTX 1060 is any indication, though it doesn’t look drastically worse than High both.
HBAO: Here’s the ambient occlusion for weaker GPUs. Switching this off completely produced a 6% efficiency acquire, which isn’t peanuts, although doing so makes the surroundings appear flatter and synthetic. Meanwhile, merely switching from it from High to Low didn’t change my PC’s efficiency by a single body per second. I’d say: simply go together with High.
Motion blur: Turning off blur – it’s all or nothing, there’s no adjustable slider – acquired me a 4% efficiency uptick. Not a lot, however worthwhile in a pinch.
Camera shake: Somehow, turning this off made the recreation run 4% worse. I’m stumped. Leave it on, I suppose, except you need it off for accessibility causes.
Since a complete lot of those settings don’t really impression efficiency, it’s best to use the Ultra preset as a place to begin and then change simply the few that do. Here, then, are Saints Row’s best settings to use on PC:
Ray traced ambient occlusion: Off, except you’ve gotten a really highly effective graphics card
Shadow high quality: Medium
Depth of subject: Off
Planar reflection: Normal
Vehicle shading: Low
Global illumination high quality: Low
Motion blur: Off
With these settings in place, the GTX 1060 climbed from 47fps at 1080p to 60fps: a 27% enchancment, and quicker than the High preset regardless of sporting quite a few Ultra-level choices.
If you’re keen to make harsher reductions – or your {hardware} is forcing your hand – then an almost-full complement of Medium settings is an honest various. Just be certain to hold scene element on High, and publish processing on Ultra; these will allow you to keep away from the pop-in and blurriness that their respective decrease settings will induce.
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/saints-row-pc-requirements-performance-and-the-best-settings-to-use
