1.0 Disclaimer
1.1 System specs
2.0 Display settings
3.0 Graphics settings
4.0 Other aspects that affect performance and graphics
5.0 Closing thoughts
1.0 Disclaimer
After playing Rainbow 6: Siege on PC for about 670 hours I've tested various settings, measured framerates and compared in-game visibility in different light settings. The guide is based on my personal observations, reading multiple tweaking, settings guides on Reddit,
Google, watching Youtube RB6s tweaking tutorials, talking to professional Siege players and casuals on Twitch. This guide is an attempt to find the balance between visibility, performance and eye-candy on low-end systems. It is aimed at players with low-end machines (see 1.1) but you could adapt these settings to work well on a medium or high-end machine if you increase certain settings (see 2.1; 3.0; 3.8; 3.9).
My guide will currently not provide any gameplay footage because my PC is not powerful enough to record gameplay without having a significant effect on framerate. With these settings my framerate is around 80 FPS.
Note: There are other performance guides out there that focus on maximum performance and visibility which I suggest for those who are highly competitive or have a high-end pc.
1.1 System specs
Hp Elite 8300 SFF (small form factor office pc from 2012, limited space for GPU)
CPU i5-3470 @ 3.20GHz
RAM 16 GB DDR3 1600MHz
HDD 7200RPM
GPU Geforce 1050 Ti 4 GB low profile (the best GPU that works and fits in my pc without needing a external power source)
OS Windows 10 64bit
2.0 Display settings
2.1 Resolution: 1440x900
Increase this if you have a better PC.
2.2 Vsync: Off
Causes mouse lag, keep off.
2.3 Aspect ratio: 3:2
Feel free to use whatever you want, I find this one the best for visibility and getting headshots.
2.4 Field of view: 76
Change depending on your preference. 76 is my personal preference for easier headshots. If you have a bigger monitor and/or very good eyesight you might want to increase FOV.
2.5 Refresh rate: 60 or more.
The higher the better, whatever is the highest on your system is best.
2.6 Calibration (brightness): currently 63
Change depending on your preference. Three major factors affect this setting:
Your monitor settings (contrast, saturation, brightness etc).
External GPU driver color settings (for example Nvidia Control panel).
Your IRL lightning setting. You have to play around here and find the sweet spot. For example if it's bright in your room you will use brighter settings in game. Lower settings make the game more atmospheric but visibility decreases dramatically.
2.7 Display mode: Full screen.
Many users claimed to get better framerate in full screen, I had the same results. Borderless windowed mode was a fix to some users who encountered the "game alt tabs randomly" bug.
3.0 Graphics settings
3.1 Texture quality: Very high
Makes textures clearer. Decrease if you have performance issues. Download the Ultra HD Texture pack on Steam (30GB rip) if you have a high-end pc.
NB: Higher texture quality means that your game load-times will be longer (yes, you can be the special player who may be votekicked for being the last one to load the game as match starts).
NB2: This setting has a major impact on games performance.
3.2 Texture filtering: Anisotropic 16x
3.3 LOD quality: Ultra
3.4 Shading quality: Low
Anything above low will decrease your in-game visibility dramatically.
3.5 Shadow quality
Low: no directional shadows, game is brightest, good visibility.
Medium or High: directional shadows, game slightly darker, good visibility.
Above high will decrease your in-game visibility dramatically.
3.6 Reflection quality: High
It's just eye-candy, does not impact visibility or FPS in a meaningful way.
3.7 Ambient occlusion: Off
Increases visibility drastically.
3.7.1 Lens effect: Off
Increases visibility drastically.
3.7.2 Zoom-in depth of field: Off
Increases visibility.
3.8 Anti-aliasing
T-AA-2X (on lower resolution) to smooth out the jagged edges in-game and reduce graphical artifacts.
Off (on higher resolutions such as 1920×1080, 2560×1440 and 3840×2160).
Render scaling: 50 (increase if your system can handle it, increases visibility).
T-AA Sharpness: 100 (personal preference).
4.0 Other aspects that affect performance and graphics
4.1 NVidia control panel
Adjust desktop color settings > Digital vibrance: + 85% (adds more color to the game, increase to add more color, increases visibility). AMD has an alternative solution, I do not own a AMD GPU (feedback welcome).
4.2 Adjust priority class of the game
Use Task Manager every time or set up a permanent solution with something like Process Lasso (external software) > Active Processes > RainbowSix.exe > Right click > Priority class: Always high or above.
4.3 Ini tweaking
x:\Users\xxx\Documents\my games\Rainbow Six - Siege\xxxxxx-xxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx > GameSettings.Ini > MaxGPUBufferedFrame=1
1 for max performance. Anything above 1 may cause input lag.
5.0 Closing thoughts
Test the game in terrorist hunt. You want a steady framerate of around 80 (or above) or whatever you are comfortable with.
There is no optimal graphics settings guide for this game. If a tutorial claims something is the best, don’t take it for face value and test it (and other settings) yourself. Various aspects of hardware and software can provide very different experiences.
Trust in your own test findings and gameplay experiences. If a setting feels best for you, it’s best for you #truth #telling.it.like.it.is #toxic #patriots. While there can be some agreement on what the best settings for visibility or looks are, they don’t account for the size of your monitor, eyesight or natural lightning conditions or dust in your GPU among other factors.