The locust swarm is invading and it's up to us to stop them in Gears Tactics. But before we save the world, we want to make sure our optimal graphics options are set correctly. Its time to explore which is best and which is the most resource hungry graphics settings in this Most Important Graphics Settings Guide for Gears Tactics.

Below you will see every graphics option listed and benchmarked against a minimum graphics setting used as our baseline benchmark. From there we see which graphics options have the highest performance impact on our hardware for the least visual improvement, and then we will see which options can be turned up to max and deliver the best visual improvement in Gears Tactics.

If you want to look at some more graphics benchmarks with various gaming graphics cards running Gears Tactics then you can check out our Gears Tactics PC Performance Benchmarks article instead, or you can have a look at the various Gears Tactics PC Graphics Settings that we'll be discussing here in this article.

Gears Tactics System Requirements

For the performance cost result baseline we used a GeForce MSI GTX 1060 graphics card, an Intel Core i7-3770K processor, and 8GB of DDR3 memory. The tests were performed using Gears Tactics' in-game benchmarking tool. On the whole we have found this tool to be pretty representative and similar to the ingame performance and its consistency offer us a great way of testing like for like, when considering graphics options compared to other graphics options and their relative performance impact.

We went through the 30 graphics options in Gears Tactics and tested each one in turn, recording the average frame rates for each and then comparing them to a baseline FPS that was recorded with all the graphics options either turned off or to their lowest settings.

Gears Tactics Graphics Options Performance Breakdown

The further right the bar goes, the more demanding the graphics option is.

The first thing we will notice is that PC gamers have a lot of graphics options in Gears Tactics to adjust and customize, which is great! It means more opportunities to work on that perfect equilibrium between balancing our game visuals and the performance demand on our own personal hardware combination. We can also turn some of those pesky post process effects off that we may not like, such as depth of field or lens flares (to each their own of course).

What are the most demanding graphics options in Gears Tactics?

Taking a look at the chart above, we can see that there are some variations among each setting, and unlike other recent titles, there are several graphics settings in Gears Tactics that can be quite demanding on your system. Things like Planar Reflections, Dynamic Shadows and Ambient Occlusion all see a 15% or more drop in your frame rate.

All Gears Tactics Graphics Settings Tested

Best Texture Settings in Gears Tactics

Character Texture Detail

Character Texture Detail graphics option Low compared to Ultra

[Slide over to compare Low vs Ultra or click for enlarged image]

What does the Character texture detail setting do? Adjusts the size of character and weapon texture maps. Increasing this option will add more detail into character and weapon models, most noticeable in cutscenes, and less noticeable in gameplay as the camera is further away from the models.

Which PC hardware is the most important to this Gears Tactics graphics setting?

GPU impact: Low

CPU impact: Minor

VRAM impact: Moderate

Performance Impact - 1/5

Priority - 5/5

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World Texture Detail

World Texture Detail graphics option Low compared to Ultra

[Slide over to compare Low vs Ultra or click for enlarged image]

What does the World Texture Detail setting do? Adjusts the size of world texture maps. Increasing this setting in Gears Tactics will affect the overall textures in the world during both gameplay and cut scenes, making the world look more realistic and increasing immersion.

Which PC hardware is the most important to this Gears Tactics graphics setting?

GPU: Moderate

CPU: Minor

VRAM: Major

Performance Impact - 3/5

Priority - 5/5

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Effects Texture Detail

Effects Texture Detail graphics option Low compared to Ultra

[Slide over to compare Low vs Ultra or click for enlarged image]

What does the Effects Texture Detail setting do? Adjusts the size of visual effects texture maps. Increasing this setting will increase the detail in certain visual effects like when fire is present on screen.

Which PC hardware component is most important in delivering this Gears Tactics graphics setting?

GPU: Minor

CPU: Minor

VRAM: Minor

Performance Impact - 1/5

Priority - 4/5

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Texture Streaming

Texture Streaming graphics option Low compared to Ultra

[Slide over to compare Low vs Ultra or click for enlarged image]

What does the Texture Streaming setting do? Adjusts the rate for streaming textures. Higher settings will require more video memory, but will load textures faster. In Gears Tactics, you’ll notice this more with all textures in-game as they’ll load into the world faster and reduce the effects of texture pop-in. We noticed barely any effect on performance so should be turned up high, though it will require more VRAM.

Which PC hardware component is most important in delivering this Gears Tactics graphics setting?

GPU: None

CPU: Minor

VRAM: Moderate

Performance Impact - 1/5

Priority - 2/5

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Texture Filtering

Texture Filtering graphics option Bilinear (Low) compared to 16x Anisotropic (Ultra)

[Slide over to compare Low vs Ultra or click for enlarged image]

What does the Texture Filtering setting do? Increases the quality of textures by preserving detail in textures and reducing blur when viewing them at oblique angles. You’ll notice this effect more on flat surfaces whilst playing Gears Tactics.

Which PC hardware component is most important in delivering this Gears Tactics graphics setting?

GPU: Minor

CPU: None

VRAM: None

Performance Impact - 3/5

Priority - 4/5

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Shading Quality

Shading Quality graphics option Performance compared to Best

[Slide over to compare Low vs Ultra or click for enlarged image]

What does the Shading Quality setting do? Sets the quality of physically based materials in-game. When playing Gears Tactics, you’ll notice this more in the detail of textures and materials, by adding more details and textures to certain surfaces, most noticeably on the ground. Very demanding on your system, so should only be enabled if you’ve already got some frames to spare.

Which PC hardware component is most important in delivering this Gears Tactics graphics setting?

GPU: Moderate

CPU: Moderate

VRAM: None

Performance Impact - 4/5

Priority - 4/5

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Cone Step Mapping

Cone Step Mapping graphics option turned off compared to turned on

[Slide over to compare Low vs Ultra or click for enlarged image]

What does the Cone Step Mapping setting do? Adds surface depth to certain materials based on the distance to the player. In Gears Tactics, this effect is most noticeable with certain ground pavings like rocks and cobblestone.

Which PC hardware component is most important in delivering this Gears Tactics graphics setting?

GPU: Minor

CPU: None

VRAM: None

Performance Impact - 2/5

Priority - 4/5

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Sharpening

What does this Sharpening setting do? Sharpens the texture details in a scene. Higher settings may interfere with edge aliasing. Obviously, this is more noticeable around the edges of objects in Gears Tactics, but also generally affects all textures.

Which PC hardware component is most important in delivering this Gears Tactics graphics setting?

GPU: None

CPU: None

VRAM: None

Performance Impact - 2/5

Priority - 2/5

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Best Environment Settings in Gears Tactics

Volumetric Fog

Volumetric Fog graphics option turned off compared to turned on

[Slide over to compare Low vs Ultra or click for enlarged image]

What does the Volumetric Fog setting do? Affects how light is scattered in a scene, can be toggled on or off. When fog is present in-game, this effect will be more noticeable as it changes the way light is affected by the fog itself. Highly increases immersion for certain cutscenes. Not very demanding during gameplay, but may have more noticeable performance drops during cutscenes.

Which PC hardware component is most important in delivering this Gears Tactics graphics setting?

GPU: Moderate

CPU: Minor

VRAM: Minor

Performance Impact - 3/5

Priority - 3/5

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Planar Reflections

Planar Reflections graphics option turned off compared to turned on

[Slide over to compare Low vs Ultra or click for enlarged image]

What does the Planar Reflections setting do? Allows reflective surfaces like puddles to reflect objects that are off-screen. In Gears Tactics, you’ll see this effect mostly in flat reflective surfaces that are parallel or perpendicular to the camera, such as puddles on the ground. It’s very taxing on the system though, so should only be enabled if you have some extra frames to spare.

Which PC hardware component is most important in delivering this Gears Tactics graphics setting?

GPU: Major

CPU: Moderate

VRAM: None

Performance Impact - 5/5

Priority - 1/5

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Glossy Reflections

Glossy Reflections graphics option turned off compared to turned on

[Slide over to compare Low vs Ultra or click for enlarged image]

What does the Glossy Reflections setting do? Further increases the details of screen space reflections by reflecting light in more directions. In Gears Tactics you’ll see this effect on most reflective surfaces and objects. Performance impact is pretty negligible on higher-end GPUs, but may be more taxing on older models.

Which PC hardware component is most important in delivering this Gears Tactics graphics setting?

GPU: Major

CPU: None

VRAM: None

Performance Impact - 1/5

Priority - 3/5

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Screen Space Reflections

Screen Space Reflections graphics option turned off compared to Ultra

[Slide over to compare Low vs Ultra or click for enlarged image]

What does the Screen Space Reflections setting do? Allows reflective surfaces to reflect objects that are on-screen. More noticeable on reflective surfaces like when the ground is wet. Difference between High and Ultra is barely noticeable, so if you’re experiencing performance drops try lowering from Ultra to High settings instead.

Which PC hardware component is most important in delivering this Gears Tactics graphics setting?

GPU: Moderate

CPU: None

VRAM: Minor

Performance Impact - 4/5

Priority - 2/5 

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World Detail

World Detail graphics option Low compared to turned Ultra

[Slide over to compare Low vs Ultra or click for enlarged image]

What does the World Detail setting do? Sets complexity of world details based on distance from the player. Texture pop-in will occur more frequently on lower settings. In Gears Tactics, you’ll see this effect at work in all details of the world by adding more complexity to the scene. Pretty taxing on your system, but highly increases the quality of scenes when in-game.

Which PC hardware component is most important in delivering this Gears Tactics graphics setting?

GPU: Moderate

CPU: Moderate

VRAM: None

Performance Impact - 4/5

Priority - 3/5 

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Contact Shadows

Contact Shadows graphics option turned off compared to turned on

[Slide over to compare Low vs Ultra or click for enlarged image]

What does the Contact Shadows setting do? Generates more detailed shadows between objects and light based on screen space. You’ll see this effect more in the quality of shadows around objects that are touching each other, enhancing realism and immersion. Performance impact is pretty low, but can be enabled for use in just cinematics instead of gameplay as well.

Which PC hardware component is most important in delivering this Gears Tactics graphics setting?

GPU: Moderate

CPU: None

VRAM: None

Performance Impact - 3/5

Priority - 2/5 

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Shadow Resolution

Shadow Resolution graphics option Low compared to Ultra

[Slide over to compare Low vs Ultra or click for enlarged image]

What does the Shadow Resolution setting do? Sets the resolution of shadow maps. Lower resolutions generate less detailed shadow maps. In Gears Tactics, you’ll see this affect all shadows and increase the detail within shadow textures. Barely affects performance, but the difference between 2048 resolution and 4096 resolution is hardly noticeable.

Which PC hardware component is most important in delivering this Gears Tactics graphics setting?

GPU: Moderate

CPU: None

VRAM: Moderate

Performance Impact - 2/5

Priority - 1/5 

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Dynamic Shadows

Dynamic Shadows graphics option turned off compared to Ultra

[Slide over to compare Low vs Ultra or click for enlarged image]

What does the Dynamic Shadows setting do? Sets the graphical fidelity of dynamic shows. Lower settings can reduce or even remove some shadows in the world. Turn off if you’re experiencing major performance issues, as it’s one of the most demanding settings in Gears Tactics. Though the difference between Low and Medium settings is negligible, except that on Low it will completely remove character shadows.

Which PC hardware component is most important in delivering this Gears Tactics graphics setting?

GPU: Moderate

CPU: Moderate

VRAM: Minor

Performance Impact - 5/5

Priority - 2/5

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Particle Spawn Rate

What does this Particle Spawn Rate setting do? Adjusts the spawn rate of certain particle effects. Lower settings can reduce or even remove some particle effects from the world. Has no effect on performance in Gears Tactics, so should be judged by personal preference. If you like rain effects then crank it to Max, but if you’re into more subtle rain effects then keep this setting low.
Which PC hardware component is most important in delivering this Gears Tactics graphics setting?

GPU: Minor

CPU: Minor

VRAM: None

Performance Impact - 1/5

Priority - 3/5

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Dynamic Object Lifetime

What does the Dynamic Object Lifetime setting do? Sets how long certain objects stay on screen, like dead bodies. Also has barely any effect on performance with just a small VRAM drain and should be kept at maximum if you want increased immersion.

Which PC hardware component is most important in delivering this Gears Tactics graphics setting?

GPU: Minor

CPU: Minor

VRAM: Minor

Performance Impact - 2/5

Priority - 4/5

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Best Post Process Settings in Gears Tactics

Sub Surface Scattering

Sub Surface Scattering graphics option turned off compared to turned on 

[Slide over to compare Low vs Ultra or click for enlarged image]

What does the Sub Surface Scattering setting do? Affects the simulation of light passing through objects, mostly the skin of characters. Has no impact on performance and should be enabled for higher quality skin, especially for cutscenes. Though the effect is subtle and barely noticeable when left off.

Which PC hardware component is most important in delivering this Gears Tactics graphics setting?

GPU: Minor

CPU: None

VRAM: None

Performance Impact - 1/5

Priority - 2/5

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Depth of Field

Depth of Field graphics option turned off compared to turned on

[Slide over to compare Low vs Ultra or click for enlarged image]

What does the Depth of Field setting do? Will blur the scene depending on the distance from the focal point of the camera. Another effect based on personal preference, though arguably more important for cutscenes than in gameplay.

Which PC hardware component is most important in delivering this Gears Tactics graphics setting?

GPU: Moderate

CPU: Moderate

VRAM: None

Performance Impact - 5/5

Priority - 2/5

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Motion Blur

Motion Blur graphics option turned off compared to turned on

[Slide over to compare Low vs Ultra or click for enlarged image]

What does the Motion Blur setting do? Adds blur to moving objects and camera movement. Again, based on personal preference. Can make cutscenes more cinematic whilst barely increasing immersion during gameplay.

Which PC hardware component is most important in delivering this Gears Tactics graphics setting?

GPU: Minor

CPU: None

VRAM: None

Performance Impact - 3/5

Priority - 2/5

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Anti-Aliasing

Anti-Aliasing graphics option Performance (Low) compared to Best (ultra)

[Slide over to compare Low vs Ultra or click for enlarged image]

What does the Anti-Aliasing setting do? Smooths the jagged edges of objects on screen with temporal anti-aliasing. Balanced mode seems to add a more haze effect around objects, so is more ideal to be kept on performance mode or best quality. Though, if you want anti-aliasing with less of a performance hit, then you’ll have to deal with the strange haziness effect.

Which PC hardware component is most important in delivering this Gears Tactics graphics setting?

GPU: Minor

CPU: None

VRAM: None

Performance Impact - 3/5

Priority - 5/5

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Bloom Style

What does this Bloom Style setting do? Sets the style of bloom. Standard spreads the light equally in all directions. Whilst anamorphic simulates bloom to stretch at the sides. There is an argument to be made that changing to anamorphic decreases performance by adding another layer of the simulation of light, however the impact is negligible and should be down to personal preference. If you like big blockbuster movies, stick it on anamorphic.

Which PC hardware component is most important in delivering this Gears Tactics graphics setting?

GPU: None

CPU: None

VRAM: None

Performance Impact - 1/5

Priority - 3/5

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Bloom

What does the Bloom setting do? Sets the intensity of the glow effect from light sources in the world. Down to personal preference again, but does increase cinematic qualities in cutscenes.

Which PC hardware component is most important in delivering this Gears Tactics graphics setting?

GPU: Minor

CPU: None

VRAM: None

Performance Impact - 2/5

Priority - 3/5

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Lens Flare Intensity

What does the Lens Flare Intensity setting do? Sets the intensity of lens flares from bright light sources when viewed at certain angles. Lens Flare Intensity option requires the Bloom graphics setting to be enabled. Just like bloom and bloom style above it, this can make Gears Tactics seem a lot more cinematic, but is purely down to preference.

Which PC hardware component is most important in delivering this Gears Tactics graphics setting?

GPU: Minor

CPU: None

VRAM: None

Performance Impact - 2/5

Priority - 4/5

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Ambient Occlusion

Ambient Occlusion graphics option turned off compared to Ultra

[Slide over to compare Low vs Ultra or click for enlarged image]

What does the Ambient Occlusion setting do? Generates screen space shadows at the edges of objects. This option is very taxing on your graphics card's performance, however, keeping this setting on Medium instead of Off will add some really nice visual fidelity. Although if you are looking to save some FPS then the difference between High and Ultra on the Ambient Occlusion settings is barely noticeable, so drop it down to medium or high to save some FPS, if you need.

Which PC hardware component is most important in delivering this Gears Tactics graphics setting?

GPU: Moderate

CPU: None

VRAM: Minor

Performance Impact - 5/5

Priority - 4/5

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Best Gears Tactics Advanced Settings

Mesh Complexity

Mesh Complexity graphics option Performance compared to Best

[Slide over to compare Low vs Ultra or click for enlarged image]

What does the Mesh Complexity setting do? Sets the complexity of static meshes in the world, and affects the dynamic meshes used for characters. More noticeable in the complexity of rounded objects like the characters faces, however it’s also very noticeable on similarly rounded structures in the game world of Gears Tactics.

Which PC hardware component is most important in delivering this Gears Tactics graphics setting?

GPU: Minor

CPU: None

VRAM: Minor

Performance Impact - 2/5

Priority - 3/5

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Variable Rate Shading

What does this Character texture setting do? Can increase performance by reducing the quality of shading techniques in certain situations, like moving objects, whilst maintaining edge quality. Performance mode will increase performance but decreases visual fidelity. Currently only available on RTX graphics cards, as it makes use of the Turing architecture. But the feature may come to more graphics cards in the future with the implementation of DirectX 12 Ultimate.

Which PC hardware component is most important in delivering this Gears Tactics graphics setting?

GPU: Minor

CPU: None

VRAM: None

Performance Impact - 3/5

Priority - 2/5

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Tiled Resources

What does the Tiled Resources setting do? Increases the efficiency of texture streaming by loading textures with VRAM. Should be left on for better performance, but some older hardware may not support it. However our tests revealed no significant increase in performance when enabled.

Which PC hardware component is most important in delivering this Gears Tactics graphics setting?

GPU: Moderate

CPU: Moderate

VRAM: Minor

Performance Impact - 2/5

Priority - 4/5

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Async Compute

What does the Async Compute setting do? Interleaves both compute work and graphics work on the GPU. Should be left on for better performance, but some older hardware may not support it. Higher end graphics cards will benefit most from this, whilst in our tests it actually decreased performance. We recommend testing this option yourself with Gears Tactics’ built-in benchmarking tool.

Which PC hardware component is most important in delivering this Gears Tactics graphics setting?

GPU: Minor

CPU: None

VRAM: None

Performance Impact - 4/5

Priority - 3/5

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Diagnostic Mode

What does the Diagnostic Mode setting do? Helps diagnose problems by logging hardware and computer state data. We noticed a slight drop in frame rate with this option turned on in Gears tactics, however this could be due to variables in the benchmarking tool instead, though we do recommend only turning this option on if you’re having significant performance issues and want to easily diagnose the problem. Otherwise, you might as well turn this option off. Nice to have the option included.

Which PC hardware component is most important in delivering this Gears Tactics graphics setting?

GPU: None

CPU: Minor

VRAM: None

Performance Impact - 2/5

Priority - 1/5

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Gears Tactics graphics settings roundup and conclusion - On the whole thats a great set of graphics options to twiddle and adjust in Gears Tactics. Definitely share your thoughts on your favourite graphics options to turn on and off below. Gears Tactics is a good looking game and while you ideally want to get it running in medium graphics settings or better you can definitely enjoy the tactical aspect of the game while playing it in Low graphics settings to save some of those FPS.

Low graphics settings can be seen to get around 66 FPS using an ageing Radeon R7 370 according to our tests, whereas you can bump it up to Medium settings and still get a playable 46FPS in 1080p. But with an Nvidia GTX 1060 you will be able to push the game up to Ultra 1080p and return 64FPS.

Let us know below how you are doing with Gears Tactics or share any thoughts you have regarding your favourite graphics settings in this game or any game.