4Game

Dear Tarkovians,

Because the questions pops up regularly:

Texture Quality

Texture Quality affects the maximum mipmap level of textures. Some textures don't have mipmaps and therefore always render in their highest quality.

If you have less than 10 GB of VRAM, don't use Texture Quality "HIGH". EFT allocates 9,5 – 10 GB on average with "HIGH".

If you have more than 6 GB of VRAM, you can use Texture Quality "MEDIUM". EFT will allocate 5,5 – 6 GB on average with "MEDIUM". If you only have 6 GB of VRAM, you should monitor VRAM usage or, when in doubt, use Texture Quality "LOW".

If you have less than 6 GB of VRAM, use Texture Quality "LOW" and enable "MIP Streaming". EFT uses ~4,5 – 5 GB of VRAM with "LOW". "MIP Streaming" will reduces the usage further.

Unless you have a very old GPU, Texture Quality does not cost you FPS. So, if you have the available VRAM, use it! So far I couldn't find any other graphics settings affecting VRAM.

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Mip Streaming

Mip Map Streaming reduces the total amount of VRAM needed for textures by only loading mipmaps (in lower quality) needed for rendering the current camera position in a scene. As a result some textures look like shit. It also costs a little bit of CPU resources.

"MIP Streaming" + "High Texture Quality" reduces the VRAM usage to 6 GB (from 10) but like I said, some textures don't look good. That's why, in my opinion, only use Mip Streaming on older GPUs with less than 6 GB of VRAM.

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GPU Usage

In short, there is probably nothing wrong with your rig, if you don't have a very high GPU usage in EFT. The best way to test your graphics settings and FPS is to start an offline raid without bots.

Set up your resolution/graphics settings/post fx and test different maps/areas. If you are happy with your FPS, perfect. Offline, GPU usage will, in most cases, be higher than in an online raid (or with bots), that's because there is currently not much going on and your CPU doesn't have to work hard on all the simulation stuff. If you play Online, you will get lower FPS, but this FPS drop is not caused by your GPU but your CPU. Changing graphics settings will not give you magically more FPS.

If you have a beefy GPU and play on a lower resolution like 1080p, a low GPU usage is normal. Your beefy GPU doesn't have to work hard to give you good fps. Stable FPS (and a stable frame time) are more important anyway.

I've an 3080 TI. My GPU usage (offline, no bots) is about 43%@1080p. If I crank my resolution up to 4k I get ~97% GPU usage. My GPU now has to work much harder to give me nice FPS. Obviously, I get a FPS hit at 4k, but it's still reasonable. In my case, I wouldn't see much difference in FPS between 1080p and 2k. That's because my GPU can render both resolutions comfortably. Only at 4k my GPU starts to struggle.

Sooo, if you have a low GPU usage, you are either underutilizing your GPU (e.g. you play with a beefy GPU at a lower resolution like 1080p) OR you are heavily CPU bound and the CPU cannot feed data to the GPU fast enough.

If you think you are underutilizing the GPU, crank up either the resolution (e.g. DSR, but, depending on the card, it may eat FPS) or fine-tune the graphics settings to put more load on your GPU (more flexibility).

If you think you are heavily CPU bound, I'm afraid you are most likely out of luck. Overclocking might help a bit but comes with additional challenges. RAM speed can also play a role.

CPU/GPU-boundness explained

Mip Map Streaming

In case you wonder why you should use fullscreen mode and disable fullscreen optimisation

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Thank you for coming to my TED talk.