1080p on a mid-range GPU — realistic settings

Quick one for the people who have put more hours into this than me. I got it working once and then could not repeat it, which is the frustrating part.

Half the advice online is a year out of date, which is why I wanted a current thread. Would rather learn the right way now than build a bad habit.

Depends on your setup, but broadly verify the files before anything else; it catches more problems than people expect.

From experience, do the cheap diagnostic first — it costs nothing and rules out half the causes.

I went through this last month. it is almost always a setting rather than hardware, so try the free fixes before spending anything.

I went through this last month. the averages hide the problem; look at the one percent lows instead.

Short version: that behaviour is intentional, even though it is poorly explained in-game.

Depends on your setup, but broadly it depends heavily on your specific setup, so take any single number with a grain of salt.

Report back once you have tried it.

Not the answer you want, but the difference is real but small enough that you may not notice it while playing.

Worth checking first: worth testing on a second account to rule out something profile-specific.