Configure your game correctly / Why is full-low bad on Shadow ?!

Alexandre ARNOUD

Nov 28, 2022 • 2 min read

In order to properly configure your game on Shadow, you must use 100% of the Nvidia GPU and reduce as much as possible what consumes the CPU, a GPU that is bored or calculates too simple operations will saturate the CPU and require more work or will generate what is called a CPU Bottleneck. The goal is to have the least loaded CPU possible in order to feed the GPU as quickly as possible with new information. You will also need to close unnecessary browsers / applications during a game session and keep your graphics drivers as up to date as possible.

The preferred options consuming GPU

Resolution -> Higher is better
Display resolution / Scaling -> 100%
Multithreaded Rendering -> On
DirectX 12 / Vulkan (but sometimes DirectX 11 may gives better results)
Textures / Terrain / Material / Effect Quality ->as high as possible (Medium / High / Ultra)
Anisotropic Filtering (AF) -> as high as possible (Medium / High)

The options to reduce that are consuming CPU

Shadow -> Off / Low / Medium
Dynamic lighting -> Off
Particles -> Off / Low / Medium
Draw Distance / Far Distance -> As low as possible
Anti-Aliasing (AA) -> see “options to be tested on a case-by-case basis”
Motion Blur -> Off / Low
Water Reflection -> Off
Physics (Except Nvidia PhysX Games)

The options to be tested on a case-by-case basis

DLSS / Lens Quality -> On / Off
Shader Quality -> Low / High
Borderless Fullscreen - Exclusive Full screen (to avoid some game DRM Content Protection or to prevent triggering Anti-Cheat (ex: Fortnite, Overwatch)
Anti-aliasing (AA) -> in the order TXAA -> MSAA -> FXAA -> SSAA / Off
Adaptive V-Sync (in the Nvidia Panel)

The options to deactivate

Windows Hardware GPU Scheduling -> Incompatible with Shadow
Core Isolation / Memory Integrity (Off by default) -> Incompatible with Shadow and require VT
HDR -> Incompatible with Shadow
Windows Game Mode -> Performance drop
Sound AC3 / DTS / Atmos / Spatialization -> Incompatible Shadow
V-Sync -> Reduce performance as Shadow deal with it already
Double and Triple Buffering -> Linked to V-Sync, those options shouldn't be used on Shadow (and Deactivated in Nvidia Control Panel, main and per app profiles)
GPU Scaling <100% OR >100% -> Reduced performance / may give Input lag

The options to improve stream quality

Enable H265 (HEVC) in Shadow launcher
Enable 4:4:4 in Shadow launcher (only when using Nvidia 1650+ GPU on Windows and if GPU supports it on Linux)
If you experience flickering, make sure local screen and stream is configured with the same refresh rate and resolution
Disable any enhancement on local screen OSD menu (Ex: ActiveSync/GSync/...)

Don't hesitate to share your tips in comments !