This is a guide on how to optimize GTA 5 for PCs with Nvidia cards. Note that Nvidia offers the easy option of one click PC optimization via GeForce Experience. You can also update to GTA-specific GeForce drivers from here.
Nvidia Percentage Closer Soft Shadows create shadows that soften progressively as you get further from the object casting it. You activate it by selecting NVIDIA PCSS under Soft Shadows. You can also activate these effects to improve this effect further:
- Shader Quality: Very High
- Shadow Quality: Very High
- Grass Quality: Ultra
- High Resolution Shadows: On
NVIDIA TXAA Anti-Aliasing has been customized by Nvidia for select high end cards. If you have a GeForce GTX 600, 700, 800, or 900 Series Kepler or Maxwell GPU, you will want to choose TXAA, and pair it with Dynamic Super Resolution. Otherwise, your best choice is DSR with FXAA, which performs better than MSAA at lower resolution.
Anisotropic Filtering is already used natively by the game. You can enable NVIDIA Control Panel Anisotropic Filtering for some improvement.
Distance Scaling is worth prioritizing over other effects because of how extreme pop-in can occur on lower detail levels. Extended Distance Scaling, however, is best reserved for the most powerful rigs.
In contrast, Extended Shadow Distance has minimum impact to performance at any level. It increases the number of shadow, amount of detail, accuracy, etc. It is best to keep it always on.
Grass Quality has the largest performance impact in any setting. Normal removes all foliage, so you want to set this at at least High. If your PC is new, you can opt for Very High, and if it is top of the line, Ultra.
High Detail Streaming While Flying allows you to increase or decrease visual fidelity for better performance. Generally, you should just turn it on if you’re in the air a lot, and turn it off otherwise.
High Resolution Shadows have a huge effect on performance. If your PC can’t handle it, opt for Soft Soft Shadows, to mask discrepancies in shadow performance.
Depth of Field is a personal preference for some users. If you do use it, you will lose as much as 1.6 frames per second during gameplay.
Long Shadows can be safely turned off, as its effect can barely be seen.
Nvidia found it hard to assess the effect of Particles Quality. In general, it produces slightly higher details, but it never led to a huge reduction in performance.
Population Density was also hard to assess. In general, Nvidia recommends 75 % Population Density, but always be ready to tweak it. This setting can be exacerbated by other effects like reflection and shadow to hurt performance.
Population Variety has zero effect on performance, and is ultimately dictated by your VRAM. Nvidia suggest it be turned off for better textures and shadows.
Post FX is best set at very high, as you lose any benefit if you go any lower, and it seems to have a minimum effect on performance.
Reflections is best set at High. At Normal, image quality takes a serious hit, and Very High and Ultra impact performance immensely. You can safely disable Reflection MSAA at any level.
Shader Quallity is best set at High, or Very High if your PC can handle it. It has a minimum impact on overall fidelity at these settings.
Shadow Quality is worth enabling, but it has a moderate performance impact. High Shadow Quality amy be sufficient used with any Soft Shadow setting outside of Sharp.
Tessellation generally does not have a visible effect on performance. Maxwell GPUs can do tessellation three time faster than other cards.
Water Quality has minimum effect to performance and looks wonderful. Set it to at least High.
Texture Quality performs evenly at any setting, but if you lack VRAM, you can lower it to High.
Speaking of VRAM, you need at least 1335 MB VRAM to use best textures at 1080p, and 1211 more MB for 8x MSAA. A 4 GB GPU will allow you to enable every setting at 1080p, and a Titan X to enable every setting in higher resolutions.
Nvidia has added 3D support via their 3D Vision glasses. If your monitor is G-Sync, it should be compatible with the glasses.
