So before we start with all the options, we need to talk about the computer setup. While Tomb Raider is a semi-old title, it's not supposed to be that high on requirements (all those who have a newer setup, might have better than recommended for this game), it still can be very demanding, especially if you set it to "Ultimate". Nevertheless, the game looks quite good even on lower settings. I'm not the one who can brag about having the greatest rig: I had to work with what I could afford at the time, which was CPU Intel i5 3350 QuadCore Ivy (3100MHz), 4 GiB DDR3 1600MHz, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti (1024 MB). You can see it's not even close to real high-end computers but it can coop with the games I want to play and enjoy them still.

Ok, for the purpose of this guide I'm gonna set it all to Ultra and show you what it looks like, and will gonna cut down settings from there and post screenshots to compare the difference. My GPU coolers are singing the "Take On Me" chorus at this point (yes, by A-Ha, why?). Also, due to compression and format converters, screenshots are not the greatest reference to a real thing, because of the accuracy and all, or better said for the lack of it. You can use them just to get an idea of what's going on. Don't take this for granted though. The true feeling comes only when you run the game.

Here we go. Tomb Raider at its full glory.



Maximum FPS count: 26
Minimal FPS count: 7
Most of the time frame rate: 22-24

Note that while I will try my best to explain these options and what they do, I will not cover every aspect of it and won't go into all the details **read at high speed** (this message brought to you by yours truly, and also I don't know everything). So if you really like to know more than what you read here, there is another yours truly named Google :) He's your friend. Use him gooooooooood.

So, the first picture (menu screenshot) shows some "screen effects" that can be switched on/off from game options before you run the game itself. I took a screenshot of the menu because I have finished the game already and I couldn't revisit locations that are affected by weather or environmental effects. What it does is adds a feeling that you're running behind Lara with the camera, so all rain drops hits your screen while you're cursing and removing that in post-production, and also when she falls, there are blood splats on the corner of your screen (imagine that), sun glare, etc. That sort of c..-ensured. You can notice by my last sentence that I choose to turn this off. Same as motion blur. There might not be a need to explain this option but here it comes anyway... TURN IT OFF! Who wants a shaky foggy screen while playing the game? I mean it's nice to know that it's there, but my eyes hurt, and honestly, it bugs me that I am not able to see Lara's b*errr, biceps? (while Lara is running :)

See? Nothing wrong with them off.
Framerate impact +2 FPS (but probably none).
This is in lack of real testing material, so I can't tell 100% accuracy.

As far as the rest of the options go..you're on your own :) Just kidding. Other than the resolution (which I recommend you to go as high as you can afford), you can change them from in-game without the need to restart. Well, you can actually change all of them from in-game, but it's better applied if you start the game with a specific set. Some of them will even ask you to restart the game, but I forgot which one. I will cover that when I stumble upon that option.

V-SYNC. ... the famous V-SYNC. Now I wish to just skip this, cause I don't feel like debating about what it does or does not. We will refer to google here, and I will just say, for every other game I play, It's usually ON. Here, in Tomb Raider, it's OFF. I really see no difference. The screen doesn't tear for me, and the frame rate is steady. (check ** to see why). The only thing I do notice, I get little a better camera rotation when it is off. Hardly noticeable. Might not be the same for you, so you experiment on your own about this. You wanna look for smooth camera movement, and avoid screen splitting while Lara is running. That's all! Oh and one more thing it will limit FPS count to your refresh rate of the monitor. Useful for stupid game developers who don't pay attention to this issue, then you hear your coolers go crazy cooling GPU that's rendering 20x more FPS while being in MAIN MENU!!! (Because there is nothing complicated for GPU to render there). That's right UBISOFT. Shame on YOU!

** (as an nVidia user, I have v-sync enabled in drivers by default for all applications, and also triple buffer on so I don't bother with each game individually). However, if you are gonna use this, I highly suggest you make separate rules for multiplayer FPS games. You can make specific rules for chosen games that you don't want to follow global driver rules. I use this for Counter Strike since if I have only 60 FPS, I'm already dead :|. You don't want the Triple buffer on for a game that needs a lot of keystrokes per second. For example fighting games like Mortal Kombat, you'd want the triple buffer off!

Next by order of in-game graphics options, the basic settings menu:

Refresh rate: 60 MHz, duh! (Unless you're playing on output other than a computer monitor, so then you probably know more about this than I do).

Fullscreen/Exclusive fullscreen: ON/ON. gees..there is always "unless"..so...unless you have a boss breathing on your neck, you want this off/off and hidden taskbar so you can have an impact on the gaming experience while pretending to do your job. Hey, at least you work at a place where you can play those freakin' games :) Try driving a truck for 48 hours and then complain. Just kidding. Leave me alone.

Display: 17 (just because you can).
Monitor aspect ratio: Auto
Quality: Custom is the correct way, (and we will get there).
Brightness: as you wish.

Next, please!

Let us clear something up first. This is by far the hardest game I've experienced for comparing between the settings and it is a pain in the "fractured, but whole"! Why? First, because the game looks damn good on almost all settings anyway. Second, and more important, it's filled with damn effects that make it so difficult to take a screenshot clear enough for comparison. Everywhere you go, there is a wind or a fog or a glare, or that stupid flickering light and electricity spark while somewhere inside, or...actually everything that will cloud your judgment when you look at the picture. Example:


The left samples are the ones I really tried to avoid all the effects, and have as similar screenshots as I could get! The right ones are the same settings, but something in the environment made the screen reflect a bit differently. You can see that sometimes there is hard to distinguish lighting effects from weather shadows. Also, I suggest that you save pictures on your hard drive before comparing and "slide mode" switch from one to another (because Steam uses float window for screenshots), or else you will really have a hard time noticing any difference or even seeing what the hell I mean.

From this set, there is one more picture on Low settings and here it is, but we are not setting the textures to low, because there is really no need to.


Let's start with the advanced graphic options already.

This option will affect your frame rate second to none, so... if you can run the game, you can set this option to whatever you feel like.

That said, let's compare the pictures in different locations and talk about them.

As you've imagined this option changes the resolution of the textures in the game.

LOW: There is really not much point in explaining this and telling you why you shouldn't use this setting. Use it only if you like playing games while having a fork stabbed into each one of your eyes, because...you know...knives hurt too much!

NORMAL: This is what I choose to go with only because I find it most likable for my taste. You can clearly see everything with enough details to not complain...much... Ok, to tell you the truth, the reason I choose this over High is Normal looks most like Ultra when comparing, and I generate a lot less heat from the GPU, thus coolers are spinning less and produce less noise. If you have like super quiet cooler and can handle GPU heat, go with Ultra.

HIGH:: This has even sharper objects and a clearer texture, but for some reason, it's strangely brighter than Ultra.

ULTRA: If you like it, you can go with this option. It won't consume so much of your resources as some other options we will cover. Compared to Normal, the only difference I see is even clearer graffiti. I'm having a hard time noticing other differences in my resolution, which is 1680 x 1050 (16:10).

Leave a comment if you do. See what I did here? Now I will have some comments. Oh boy oh boy.

This option should change the view of far textures. :| There are several possible options: Bilinear, Trilinear, Anisotropic 1x, 2x, 4x, 8x, 16x. Ummm yeap, we all know the geometric sequence, and you can go up to Anisotropic x131072 for all I care, IT LOOKS THE SAME TO ME, at least in this game. So you see, I won't upload 8 different screenshots for you to say I'm cheating and it is the same picture, no. Instead, I will just upload what is supposed to be the worst and best setting.


Nop...I see no differen... oh, wait! There it is. I can see wires on that crane over there! Yeeeey! I'm so happy now. Took me a year to notice :) If you plan on standing in one place and looking for wires you won't see, then care much about this option. Otherwise just ...well.. don't care much.

In reality what it should do? It makes distant objects a bit more detailed (depending on the amount of your setting), and it makes their transition from an unusable distant object to close-focused objects less noticeable. It's as if you would care much about those distant objects, you won't notice when the game will decide to make them useable or close when you're approaching them. Not that most of the time we're anyway looking in Lara's bu... Oh, look! Ammo! :)

This has some impact on your FPS, but it really depends on how the game itself implements it, as what your hardware is capable of doing. If you don't see the impact on FPS use it as high as you care.

If you don't notice the difference...
...then set this option to Anisotropic 4x, just because you don't care and your framerate will be the same... and YES, you will see crane wires on 4x, and you too will be happy like me :)

Most fun setting to mock :) This option changes Lara's Hair. Yes, you got it right. Only Lara's hair, cause you know she's advertising LOREAL ("Because she's worth it) shampoo. As developers claim, every hair on her head is separate and has its own behavior. ** At this point I can tell you that my hair looks less complicated for real life to render, so you can imagine what this option does to your GPU. Sure it's fun to look at at first, but be honest...once you saw it, will you care much during gameplay? Especially when it is unfair to other characters whose hair is not important, 'cause they're using just "Head & Shoulders".


Framerate difference: about 4-7. This option will consume more or less depending on other settings like shadows, texture filter, texture quality...etc. Overall it won't hurt your FPS too much (depends on what you wanna see when looking into numbers). GPU will be cooler when this is set to Normal.

You know how girls complain when you don't notice their haircut. Well here's a good place to practice seeing the difference (only, here is really noticeable). You can also practice do you care or not. I have this option set to Normal in Multiplayer, and TRESSFX in Singleplayer. It helps ping in MP.

** In this game, she doesn't beg attention to parts we got used to before, so they had to make some other part of her body noticeable :). Ironically, they chose hair :)

This is one of the options that have the most impact on requirements and FPS. First, if you don't know what Anti-aliasing is, my advice is to go youtube videos that explain it really well. Familiarize yourself with what does it do, how it works. You will need it not for just this game, but every other as well. That is if you care at all about advanced settings, or knowing what is it that you do here. I'm not gonna explain all the different methods of Anti-aliasing (AA in the future). In short, turning this option on makes diagonal and round edges appear straight with no staircase effect, and a different method is how good and detailed it does that. Still not clear enough? It masks pixels. There, can't be more simple than that. So, in Tomb Raider, there are 4 options you can choose from. Off; FXAA; 2xSSAA, 4xSSAA.

OFF: Picture looks sharpest but all edges are pixelated. Higher the resolution, the more pixels nubmer, harder to notice this. Still, you should avoid this and use at least some form of AA.
FXAA: While you can still see some pixels, they are harder to notice and you'd really have to stand and look for them or you'd have to zoom in pretty much. During gameplay, you won't notice this much and this option is acceptable.
2xSSAA: Nice. If you don't experience framerate drop or your GPU doesn't go to HOT, u can safely use this and be very satisfied.
4xSSAA: Let's take that "Nice" from above and overdo it. There, I hear that A-Ha song again! Shut up GPU, will ya?

The framerate drop between OFF and 4xSSAA is from steady 60 to around 17 for my configuration. Imagine that.

WARNING: This option is directly proportional to other options. More details and better textures = more stuff that needs AA, thus higher requirements.

Here are screenshots of AA in effect.
I dare you to notice the correct difference, based on everything I have said so far :)

Sigh..this has gone too lengthily. Shadows...not much to tell.. you know what it is, you figured when you were 2 years old. I feel now is a good time to insert a fun video. Not educational or relevant, just fun :) Believe if or not, it does the same in-game too, but unlike in real life, you can turn the damn thing off in games. Imagine that! If I could live my life and have options like in g... I digress. Back to the topic. Shadows are pretty demanding as far as GPU is concerned. Before, I used to turn this off whenever I could, cause I never cared much about shadows in the game. If they didn't annoy the hell out of me, they didn't help either. Well that was when shadows in the game were simple, mostly only on characters or important objects (objects rarely though). Nowadays, shadows are on everything. Turning this off would really be like heaven. Too bright to even look at it. Refer to the image, pretty please (Well this can be used as an exploit. Maybe not as much in this game as in others, but still. Someone is hiding in shadow in MP, you turn that off and you see his little bright round ear-holder ready for a headshot). Back to the game experience. Fortunately, you can turn on the minimal form of shadow and the game would look OK and GPU wouldn't cry for me Argentina. Shadow resolution doesn't hold much impact on FPS as much as GPU usage. No matter the shadow setting you use, the resolution will make them more distinguished. So when you look at screenshots, you won't notice if it's set on Ultra or on Normal unless you fast switch from one screenshot to another multiple times so you notice. You really notice only OFF and ON. Don't believe me? Try looking at one picture for 20 seconds. Then close, have 5 seconds rest, and look at another for 20 seconds. Tell me do you see it? If you do, you have an eagle eye, and you should be writing this guide instead of me :)

OFF: Babies won't be scared anymore.
NORMAL: Give up? ...Ok here it is, shadows are sharp at the edges.
ULTRA: Blurs edges a bit so they appear more in harmony with nature.


Shadow Resolution:

LOW: Shadows pixels are this big! Oh, Wait! Right...you can't see what I'm showing with my hand.
NORMAL: Double the number of pixels and half their size compared to LOW.
HIGH: Oh there is Lara on the ground, with a bow and everything.

From now on, significantly fewer screenshots. There is not much left to compare stuff on shots. Instead, I will say what I have to say, you will read (hopefully), test it out yourself, and make your own decision.

Understanding Depth of Field. If you're one of those who like realism more than anything, then focus on this one. While watching your monitor, put your hand in front of your head blocking the monitor view, but still focus on the monitor. The hand is blurry? OK, now focus on your hand. Now the monitor is blurry. That's what Depth of Field does to your games. Makes objects out of focus blurry. To be honest, I don't play games 'cause I want them to be realistic. I play them because I want to experience stuff I'm unable to experience in real life. I turn this option OFF cause I really really don't like a blur. Besides, I still have my real-life eye to make objects out of focus blurry enough. Why would we then need some artificial effect to make it blurry when the game decides.

Now you decide for yourself. FPS impact. Not much if at all, but again depends on the game. What about Tomb Raider? I feel like Cockatoo repeating over and over again. This game shows very little difference between options ON/OFF.

OK first, you need to know what is Ambient Occlusion (AO) in general.

It adds fake shadows where we should see them. It's tied to ambient light, which games use to display shadows. It's calculated whether the source of light is blocked by some object in the way. This might result in seeing fewer shadows than you should, so AO comes to save the day.
Well not for me, 'cause I sacked it. LEAVE MY GPU ALONE !!!! Also, I would really like to hear a different song from my GPU coolers.

Screen Space Ambient Occlusion developed by Crytek. It samples the depth of other pixels around the area and from that it calculates the shadow.

Performance impact - I really have no idea. I couldn't see the difference through my playtime. But that's why I have you. Test it, and leave a comment. Wink wink! See what I did here? Naaaah, you don't need to unless you'd like to.

To be honest with you, I had to google for this to be able to explain what it does, and I've come up with...nothing! Just kidding. Wikipedia (as always), has the best explanation, so I'm just gonna trust it and tell you what it says there.

Instead of rendering 3D objects directly to the display, the scene is first rendered to a buffer in the memory of the video card. Pixel shaders are then used to apply post-processing filters to the image buffer before displaying it to the screen. Post-processing allows effects (bloom, motion blur, SSAO, DoF, Shadows, etc...) to apply on the object according to the awareness of the entire image (since normally each 3D object is rendered in isolation) and is then displayed to you.

Now back at me. This is a major impact on a performance. Give it more stuff to process like better AA, more AO, more Shadows and it can suck up the life out of your PC. Even those high end darlings can struggle with everything with this option on. Get it? Less stuff turned on - this option has less to do, but then again...what's the use of it if everything that it should prerender is already turned off. You are right my friend, then there is no point in this option either.

Bottom line. If you don't mind a hardware consumption and want your PC to learn a new song, have this ON. Otherwise, turn everything off, including this.

I had this on OFF because I cared more about the story and game-play. YEA, Shut up, I know it's because I don't have a better PC.

Once I was a wooden boy, and now I am a real freakin' DX11 feature.
Although it's not much noticeable in this game which is weird, but first thing is first.

Tessellation takes texture polygons and breaks them into many small pieces giving much higher details or adding another perspective sort of. Those small objects now become elevated and have depth so it looks...well...more awesome and is really noticeable, unlike that DoF crap.

Back to the Tomb Raider. I didn't notice that much focused tessellation in this game as much as in the "Batman: Arkham City" for example. That game was released two years earlier than Tomb Raider so you got to ask the question who was lazy here? I will show you screenshots of TR just for you to see what it looks like, and I will show you Batman screens just to point out the difference between really great tessellation implementation and whatever this is. You'll get a better picture of what it does.

You will need to slideshow compare yet again.

Here you can clearly see a much more details and a better texture depth.

Performance hit? Well yes, of-course! Not as much as MSAA or all those other effects, compared to what this actually does, but be mindful that this is a DX11 technology vs DX9 or DX10, so if you are a sucker for the details, turn this one on, just be warned that in Tomb Raider, it has issues. It caused some unexplained crashes and freezes even with the latest patch. I have this one off because even if it was to be fixed, quality vs consumption ratio is unjustified. In Batman, HELL YES - ON! NEXT PLEASE!

OH could this be the last one? I can't believe it. Trust me I'm as revealed as you are. We'll keep this one short.

This adds darker shades and different intensities of light to the game. In other words, it makes the game look more realistic (here we go again with that realistic BS). If you have shadows on and you care much about them, keep this on. Minor performance hit. If you have shadows off or don't care if they're not as dark, turn this off.


The way I see it, if you turn enough small stuff you don't care about, it accumulates enough space for you to turn up one thing you care about. Like Lara's "Wash n' Go" hair that you don't wanna smell because she jumped up and down in a muddy puddle more than she should. I just hope the next game doesn't feature pink LARA with two eyes on each side of the head, OINK!

Ladies and gentlemen, we're done here and not a moment too soon. I hope you have enough information about these options and that you found my guide helpful in some way. See, most of these options work the same in the other games too but have a slight difference in implementation. Some games show more details and more differences between options, but when you understand what they do, you can decide whether you will care much about them or not...it's up to you. You can improve your frame rate in every game by turning off something you don't care much for during your play-through. That's the compromise for us, poor souls who can't spend a fortune on rigs. If you disagree or need more info, feel free to ask or comment. Thank you for reading this. If you liked it, give it a rate, I won't mind. Stay sane and have a good game y'all.