If you have read through enough settings guides, you will notice the same handful of settings come up again and again as the biggest FPS drains: shadows, ambient occlusion, view distance, anti-aliasing type, and texture quality relative to VRAM. Rather than researching each new game from scratch, it is worth building yourself a personal template – a mental (or written) checklist of your preferred starting point for any new game you install.
Key takeaway: a personal settings template built from your own hardware's strengths and weaknesses turns a 20-minute settings hunt into a five-minute pass for every new game you install.
Step one: know your hardware's specific weak points
Every budget system has a different bottleneck. Some have a decent GPU but limited VRAM, making texture quality the priority setting. Others have a weak CPU paired with an adequate GPU, making view distance, shadow draw distance, and crowd density (all partly CPU-bound) more important than purely GPU-bound settings like anti-aliasing type. Spend ten minutes with Task Manager's Performance tab open while playing a demanding game to see whether your CPU or GPU usage sits higher, since that tells you where to focus first.
- Note your GPU's VRAM amount and your CPU core count from Task Manager's Performance tab.
- Write down (in a notes app or even on paper) your default starting values for the five or six settings that matter most for your hardware.
- Include your preferred anti-aliasing type (usually TAA), your target texture quality tier, and your view distance/LOD starting point.
- Add your frame rate cap value and whether V-Sync should be off by default.
- Note your preferred upscaler and mode (FSR Quality, DLSS Quality, etc.) if your GPU supports one.
An example starting template
| Setting | Starting value |
|---|---|
| Textures | Medium (VRAM-limited) |
| Shadows | Medium, ambient occlusion off |
| Anti-aliasing | TAA |
| View distance / LOD | Medium, vegetation distance lowered |
| Upscaling | FSR Quality, or DLSS Quality on RTX |
| Frame cap | 58fps on a 60Hz screen, V-Sync off |
Tip: save this table somewhere quick to reach, like a pinned note on your phone or a sticky note app, so you can glance at it the moment you install a new game rather than hunting through menus blind.
Adjusting the template per game
Your template is a starting point, not a rigid rule. A CPU-light indie game might run comfortably at higher settings across the board, while a demanding open-world release might need everything on your template dropped a tier further. Apply your preset first, check the frame rate in a demanding area of the game, and only then fine-tune upward or downward from there, rather than starting from the game's own default "High" or "Ultra" preset each time.
Keeping the template updated
Revisit your template whenever you change hardware – a new GPU, more RAM, or an SSD upgrade can shift which settings matter most. It is also worth updating it after you discover a setting you consistently change across several games, since that is a sign it belongs in your baseline template rather than being adjusted individually each time.
Before you start: avoid copying someone else's "optimised settings" video or list wholesale without adjusting for your own VRAM and CPU core count – a preset built around a different GPU's strengths can genuinely be worse than the game's own default preset on your specific hardware.
Frequently asked questions
- Should my template include resolution scaling every time?
- Yes, it is worth including your default upscaling technology and mode, since most modern games support at least one option and it is one of the biggest single FPS levers available.
- How often should I update my personal preset?
- Whenever you notice yourself changing the same setting across multiple new games, or after any hardware upgrade, whichever comes first.
- Does this replace per-game benchmarking?
- No, treat the template as your starting point, then spend a few minutes confirming frame rate in a demanding area before committing to those settings long-term.