It is time for the Age of Empires, as the latest entry in the fan-favorite series just launched on PC. Although the game isn't very demanding and will get good performance out of most modern hardware, but what if you want to squeeze a few extra frames out? What are the most demanding graphics settings? And how much FPS can we gain by turning them off or low?

In this article we will take a look at which聽Age of Empires 4 graphics settings are the best to turn all the way up to Ultra and which ones can get us a little FPS boost for no real visual loss when we turn them off or down. We've compiled a list below of the most demanding graphics options in the game, so you can get a handle on what to expect when you adjust different graphics settings in聽Age of Empires 4 to get the perfect balance of visual fidelity and FPS performance in game.

Below you will see every graphics option listed and benchmarked against a minimum graphics setting used as our baseline benchmark for Age of Empires IV. From there we see which graphics options have the highest performance impact on our hardware for the least visual improvement, and then we will see which options can be turned up to max and deliver the best visual improvement in AOE4.

If you want to look at some more graphics benchmarks with various gaming graphics cards running聽Age of Empires 4 then you can check out our聽Age of Empires 4 PC Performance Benchmarks聽article instead, or you can have a look at the various聽Age of Empires 4 PC Graphics Settings聽that we'll be discussing here in this article.

Age of Empires 4聽PC system requirements

Age of Empires 4聽PC performance report and graphics card benchmarks

For the performance cost result baseline we used the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060聽graphics card - which is close to the recommended GPU for聽Age of Empires IV - an聽Intel Core i7-10700K processor, and 16GB of DDR4 memory. We also ran the tests at 1440p as we can get more accurate results relative to each other, since at 1080p the GTX 1060 can achieve over 100fps which makes it harder to distinguish between the most demanding graphics options.

To standardize the benchmark tests we started up one of the early levels of the game during a big battle with 2 factions fighting against each other. Since most of your time in Age of Empires 4 will be spent in much calmer scenarios, we felt it was good to see what the most demanding moments would be like so you don't get caught off guard with dropped frames.

Additionally, since AOE4 includes a Min Spec Mode that can significantly improve performance by changing the Image Quality setting down to Low (and also prevents other options from going any higher), we chose to test the difference between Medium and High graphics settings for that setting specifically, and subsequently left it at Medium for the other options (it is also impossible to compare other settings in Min Spec Mode, again because it prevents other options from being raised higher).

If you see any significant discrepancy/difference between the benchmark tool FPS and actual FPS returned then please do share your findings in the comments below.

There's only a handful of graphics settings available in AOE IV, so we went through the 7 graphics options listed and tested each one in turn, recording the average frame rates for each and then comparing them to a baseline FPS that was recorded with all the graphics options either turned off or to their lowest settings.

To give us a comparable FPS baseline for聽Age of Empires 4 Frame Rates achieved when all AOE 4's graphics settings are on lowest or OFF.

The further to the right the bar goes, the more demanding the graphics option is.

What are the most demanding graphics options in Age of Empires 4?

As you can see in the FPS performance graph above, there aren't actually a whole lot of settings available in Age of Empires 4, and most of them won't actually affect your FPS all that much. However, there are still some settings worth pointing out which are certainly the most demanding.

The first of which is Anti-Aliasing with a 15.83% FPS performance cost. However, since this result was at 1440p, you can expect the FPS cost to be lower at 1080p and higher at 4K resolutions. But either way it is still the most demanding graphics option by a long mile.

Following that is Geometry Detail at a 6.09% FPS performance cost, with Texture Detail and and Shadow Quality not far behind at a 5.28% FPS performance cost each. Then there's Animation QUality at 3.38% and Physics at 3.25%. FInally, we have Image Quality at a measly 0.68% FPS performance cost.

Apart from that though, there isn't much else to mention. As we said there are not many graphics options available in AOE4, which luckily means there isn't a huge difference between Medium and High quality settings. If you want to enable Min Spec Mode though (that comes with a lot of limitations), you will need to turn the Image Quality setting down to "Low".

There are only a few graphics settings available in聽Age of Empires 4 in order for us to customize our FPS and get the right balance of FPS performance and visual quality.

Below we've provided both a score for the performance impact as well as a priority score designed to recommend which graphics settings you should prioritize turning up (the higher the number, the better).

Obviously, these scores are subjective and we really do encourage you to share your own thoughts in the discussion area below on what you think are the best聽Age of Empires 4 graphics settings are. But for now, let's jump in...

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Image Quality聽High setting performance impact

Image Quality聽graphics option Medium compared to聽High

Image Quality聽option range:聽Low/Medium/High

Performance impact:聽1/5

Priority:聽4/5

What does the聽Image Quality setting do in Age of Empires 4?聽Adjusts the overall image quality.

Games saved in a higher setting will become invalid when this is set to a lower setting.

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Animation Quality聽High setting performance impact

Animation Quality聽graphics option Low compared to聽High

Animation Quality option range:聽Low/Medium/High

Performance impact:聽2/5

Priority:聽1/5

What does the聽Animation Quality setting do in Age of Empires 4?聽Adjusts the quality of animations used.

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Shadow Quality聽High setting performance impact

Shadow Quality聽graphics option Off compared to聽High

[slide聽your cursor over the images to compare. Click to enlarge]

Shadow Quality聽option range:聽Off/Low/Medium/High

Performance impact:聽3/5

Priority:聽2/5

What does the聽Shadow Quality setting do in Age of Empires 4?聽Controls overall shadow quality for units and buildings.

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Texture Detail High setting performance impact

Texture Detail graphics option Low compared to聽High

[slide聽your cursor over the images to compare. Click to enlarge]

Texture Detail option range:聽Low/Medium/High

Performance impact:聽3/5

Priority:聽5/5

What does the Texture Detail setting do in Age of Empires 4?聽Controls the resolution of textures in the game. Higher settings will improve image detail and clarity but require a higher performance computer. High quality is targeted for 4K, Medium quality is for 1080, and Low is for lower memory systems.

Notes: You need at least 8GB RAM for High

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Geometry Detail Maximum setting performance impact

Geometry Detail graphics option Low compared to聽Maximum

[slide聽your cursor over the images to compare. Click to enlarge]

Geometry Detail option range:聽Low/Medium/High/Ultra/Maximum

Performance impact:聽3/5

Priority:聽4/5

What does the Geometry Detail setting do in Age of Empires 4?聽Adjusts the geometry level of detail.

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Anti-Aliasing High setting performance impact

Anti-Aliasing graphics option Off compared to聽High

[slide聽your cursor over the images to compare. Click to enlarge]

Anti-Aliasing option range:聽Off/Low/High

Performance impact:聽5/5

Priority:聽3/5

What does the Anti-Aliasing setting do in Age of Empires 4?聽Smooths out jagged edges in the game at the cost of performance.

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Physics聽Ultra setting performance impact

Physics聽graphics option Low compared to聽Ultra

Physics聽option range:聽Low/High

Performance impact:聽2/5

Priority:聽4/5

What does the聽Physics setting do in Age of Empires 4?聽Adjusts the Physics level of detail.

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Age of Empires 4聽graphics settings performance results and conclusion -聽Looking over all the results above we can see that Age of Empires 4 does not have a huge selection of graphics settings to choose from, and an even smaller difference between the Low and Ultra of each in terms of performance cost and image quality.

However, that doesn't mean there aren't any settings worth mentioning, such as Anti-Aliasing which is the most demanding graphics option at a 15.83% FPS performance cost. However, this was at 1440p resolution, and so the FPS cost will be smaller at 1080p, and higher at 4K.

Following on from that is Geometry Detail at a 6.09% FPS performance cost, and Texture Detail and Shadow Quality coming in close behind at 5.28% FPS cost each. Then there's ANimation QUality at 3.38%, and Physics by 3.25%. Lastly we have Image Quality at a 0.68% FPS performance cost.

The Image Quality setting is surprising, given how between Low and Medium settings can mean an improvement of around 100fps, but between Medium and High the difference is negligible. The Physics setting is also more likely to be more tacing during siege moments where a lot more physics-based objects will be present.

Another note is the Shadow Quality setting, which is deceptive in its naming. For instance, in the 'off' setting you would probably expect the shadows to disappear, but instead they are just at their lowest quality, not completely removed like when enabling Min Spec Mode.

Furthermore, many graphics settings will require a complete game restart in order to properly take effect, even if the game doesn't prompt you (which it usually does). So if you change any graphics settings you may want to restart your game to notice any actual effects.

And that's it for the most important graphics options in Age of Empires 4! As always聽we're now passing it onto you guys! We would love to hear your thoughts on what graphics settings you turn all the way up in Age of Empires IV for little to no performance impact, and which options you turn down to get some extra frames so we can all benefit from better performance and image quality in this gorgeous looking and highly anticipated game!