Andromeda's graphical settings influence the game’s appearance and, by extension, affect how the game performs on your system. The game also includes a Resolution Scale setting that adjusts the game’s rendering resolution, meaning that you can render the game at a higher or lower resolution than your native resolution.
In this section, we’ll examine how each graphical setting affects the game’s visuals and performance.
Graphics Quality Presets
Along with a number of general modes, Mass Effect Andromeda also comes with an auto-detect feature which so far seems to be pretty accurate to what people's PCs can handle. The quality presets are ideal for those who don't want to touch individual settings, allowing you to change multiple settings at once.
From testing, going straight from Ultra preset down to Low results in a 70-75% performance improvement, although this obviously has a significant impact in the game's visuals.
In general, we’ve found that you’re better off adjusting the individual settings to cater your performance and visuals to your particular needs and tastes.
Drag the cursor to compare all settings on Low and on Ultra.
Chromatic Aberration
This is a post-process effect that simulates a more natural diffusion of light. Generally speaking, this is a very subtle effect in the game and only really shows off as part of the overall lighting effect. If you are running on lower qualities, this will be turned off by default.
Performance impact: ~2-4% between Off and On.
Texture Filtering
This setting relates to how the textures are applied to 3D models. In Andromeda, it applies to the overall texture shape and blocking on the models. It does not impact the quality of the textures used overall, as BioWare has provided separate settings for those in this game.
Performance impact: ~3-5% between Low and Ultra.
Resolution Scaling
Resolution Scale downsamples or supersamples the rendering resolution of the game. Lowering the setting will make the game look more blurry, but will improve performance dramatically. Bioware have included a number of set resolution presets or you can adjust the scale manually. Anything below 1 will downscale relative to your game resolution, with going above it will start to supersample the game.
Performance impact: ~65% performance loss when increasing from 0.42 to 1.
Drag the cursor to compare Resolution Scaling at 0.42 and at 1.0.
Antialiasing
Antialiasing smooths out edges of geometric objects in the game, eliminating jaggedness. Turning it off can give your PC a much easier time but expect your visual experience to drop accordingly.
Performance impact: ~10-12% between Off and TAA
Ambient Occlusion
This setting affects the shading of the game’s environment. Turning it up can add a lot of detail and depth to the game’s visuals, but at a fairly significant performance cost.
Performance impact: ~10-15% between Off and HBAO
Shadow Quality
One of the more painfully obvious settings in the game is the overall shadow quality. In a game such as Andromeda, with a large number of people, objects, and light sources, turning the shadows down to low has a very noticeable impact on the quality of the shadows in the game.
Performance impact: ~10-15% between Low and Ultra.
Drag the cursor to compare Shadow Quality on Low and on Ultra.
Texture Quality
This affects the appearance of the game’s textures, which cover the game’s characters and environment. Higher-quality textures eat up VRAM, which can affect performance on lower-end graphics cards.
Performance impact: ~2-3% between Low and Ultra.
Effects Quality
The Effects Quality setting in Andromeda covers a few things. Like in other games, it includes explosions, yet this setting (along with things like lighting quality) also impacts the look of biotic skills in the game. That being said, even the low quality explosions look pretty good. Their short-lasting nature gives a whole 'blink and you miss it' feel to them at first, yet later on in the game with bigger effects for improved skills, this could have a larger impact on your performance.
Performance impact: ~3-4% between Low and Ultra.
Terrain Quality
This setting influences the appearance of the ground. Going from Ultra to Low will make the terrain look more two dimensional (flat) and less detailed overall.
Performance impact: ~10-12% between Low and Ultra. Can vary depending on the planet you are on and the size of the area loaded.
Drag the cursor to compare Terrain Quality on Low and on Ultra.
Lighting Quality
The lighting quality setting primarily affects the game’s lighting effects. This impacts both the light source quality in the game, as well as other sources of light, like biotic skills. On low, lighting is not as detailed, yet still doesn't look awful if you're looking to save on performance.
Performance impact: ~5-8% between Low and Ultra.
Mesh Quality
This setting affects the model detail of objects far away from the player. By itself it doesn't have a huge impact, but when you combine it with settings, it can have a greater overall impact on visuals.
Performance impact: ~5% between Low and Ultra.
Vegetation Quality
To have vegetation or not to have it, that is the question. This setting directly impacts the volume of the various vegetation in the game, resulting in there simply being less of it on low compared to ultra. This is a planet specific change, so on some you might not miss it as much as others.
Performance impact: ~5% between Low and Ultra.
Drag the cursor to compare Vegetation Quality on Low and on Ultra.
Post Process Quality
This setting influences certain effects after their initial rendering, such as light blooms, depth of field, and color correction. Expect this to have a moderate performance cost, mainly due to the various visual processes this impacts. On the Frostbite engine, you can expect to be dazzled by the visuals if you're running this on ultra.
Performance impact: ~10-12% between Low and Ultra.
