This section takes a close look at the graphical options in Rocket League, and their effects on the game’s performance.
The ‘performance impact’ in each subsection below is the measured difference in average FPS between playing the game with all settings at their highest and turning only the setting in question down to the lowest (or off) while leaving all others untouched.
It is also worth pointing out that the performance impact is not necessarily perfectly additive. So if disabling one setting increases FPS by 10% and disabling another increases FPS by 10%, disabling both would not be expect to increase performance by 20%. Instead, the increase would likely be somewhere from 12-18% total.
Overall Quality Settings
Although you can (mostly) do this with the render quality setting, to completely enable all or disable/lower all available options requires you to manually change a number of them in the settings. Do note that, although your FPS will go through the roof dropping all of these options down, the quality has an equal and opposite experience.
Performance Impact: ~100% between High Performance or Off and High Quality
Drag the bar to compare Overall Quality Settings on High Performance or Off and High Quality.
Anti-Aliasing
A common feature in most games these days, designed to smooth out jagged lines; yet it can be at risk of creating a slightly blurred image.
Performance Impact: ~5-10% between Off and MLAA
Drag the bar to compare Anti-Aliasing Off and on MLAA.
Texture Detail
This simply adjusts the quality of the textures shown; yet it does affect everything on the screen, so it can give you back some FPS if you're struggling.
Performance Impact: ~5% between High Performance and High Quality
Drag the bar to compare Texture Detail on High Performance and High Quality.
Particle Detail
One of the most match-dependent options in the game, as this comes down to unique game modes (different goal types), boost trails, effects, pickups, explosions... it's a pretty exhaustive list. Because of this, you can see a really nice performance gain if you lower this in busy matches. But for the same reason, it can't really be seen in still comparison shots.
Performance Impact: ~2-8% between Performance and High Quality
World Detail
As the developers have put a fair amount of effort into making the various arenas feel unique, the smaller details on show with these do add to your performance requirements. This setting simply adjusts the level of visible detail in the world.
Performance Impact: ~3% between Performance and High Quality
Drag the bar to compare World Detail on Performance and High Quality.
Light Shafts and Lens Flares
I've placed these two settings together because they go hand-in-hand the majority of the time. There is simply an on/off option for these, so leave them on if you want your very own J.J. Abrams gameplay.
Performance Impact: ~3% between Off and On
Drag the bar to compare Light Shafts and Lens Flares Off and On.
Dynamic Shadows
This does what it says on the tin. Determines if cars and the ball have shadows or not!
Performance Impact: ~1-3% between Off and On (depending on player count)
Drag the bar to compare Dynamic Shadows Off and On.
Motion Blur and Ambient Occlusion
I've placed these two toggles together as, like particle detail, they are hard to showcase in comparison stills and their impact on performance is quite match-dependent. Motion blur is a personal preference (it does look cool when you boost, but you can lose a little on-screen detail and crispness to the visuals) and ambient occlusion can make some smaller details on cars pop out of the screen more.
Performance Impact: ~5-10% between Off and On (depending on environment)
Weather Effects
It wouldn't be a good game of football without a little rain! Note that, on arenas with active weather effects, this will result in things like rain being directly in your line of view on the field. However, if there's a background world effect for rain or fog, that will remain.
Performance Impact: ~5% between Off and On (depending on environment)
Drag the bar to compare Weather Effects Off and On.