If you've snagged an Xbox Game Pass subscription then the Gears 5 tech test has been playable over the whole weekend. It's been our first chance to go hands-on with Gears 5 ahead of its September 10th launch.

We've been busy benchmarking Gears of War 5 across a series of graphics cards, and now it's time to take a look at what all that expensive graphical hardware will get you with our Gears 5 Low vs Ultra graphics comparison sliders.

The remit is pretty simple: Here's a bunch of stills taking from Gears 5 gameplay using a GeForce RTX 2060, comparing the visual quality between Low and Ultra graphics presets. Simply slide your cursor across and you compare the visuals!

Gears 5 Low v Ultra Graphics Comparison  

Here we can see a general overview of how Gears 5 looks on Low vs Ultra during a multiplayer match. Low isn't truly ugly but it's really missing out on the enhanced texture work and more detailed character models of Ultra.

(slide your cursor over the images to compare)

This second pair of screenshots highlight the effect of foliage quality, shadow detail and texture quality. On Low, the leaves look very rough indeed with a blocky appearance. Lighting, too, benefits greatly from Ultra. There's a nice natural glow around the two lamps which is almost completely lost on Low.

While playing Gears 5 multiplayer, the end result is you probably won't be staring at the environment a great deal as you're running and gunning. While Low clearly has its downsides, it's still a pleasant enough visual experience on the whole if you're running lower-end graphics hardware.

Texture detail is the chief thing that stands out in the Gears 5 graphics comparison slider below. If you have limited VRAM then you will have to put up with unreadable text on objects with a very narrow draw-in distance. On Low, it all looks very Apex-y, while Ultra provides some lovely ambient occlusion and a pleasing sci-fi glow on the barrier.

And lastly, here's one final big-picture view of the graphical difference between Low and Ultra in Gears of War 5 within the large environments. 

Earlier today we took a look at the Gears 5 Tech Test for some benchmark tests across the Geforce RTX 2060 and Radeon R7 370, as well as a look at the system specs for Gears 5.