As we’ve done in the past for GTA V and Watch_Dogs 2, we’re now taking a look at Destiny 2’s texture resolution settings. Our other recent Destiny 2 content includes our GPU benchmark and CPU benchmark.
All settings other than texture resolution were loaded from the highest preset and left untouched for these screenshots. There are five degrees of quality, but only highest, medium, and lowest are shown here to make differences more obvious. The blanks between can easily be filled in.
The screenshots are shrunken to 1080p (but taken at 4K) for size reasons. For the 4K comparison, check the video below.
Wide View Textures
Highest
Medium
Lowest
This is the view from the singleplayer spawn point and the first thing seen when entering the game. Most textures are too distant to matter, but the quilted texture of the Guardian’s gloves and the scratches on her revolver do blur at lower settings. Shadows from a bright flash of light make the “highest” screenshot look more detailed than it actually is, but the real difference can be spotted on the girder at the top-center of the screen.
Control Panel
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Medium
Lowest
Detailed lettering is amazingly sharp at higher resolutions: this is a game that was designed with 4K TVs in mind. The lettering becomes nearly illegible at “lowest,” and the concrete textures blur, but it’s the already low-res textures like those on the wall at the right that really lose all definition when they’re turned down. The leftmost rock loses texture detail as well, and is particularly noticeable between highest and lowest.
Enemy (Static)
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Medium
Lowest
Luckily for us, there are a couple of enemies at the very beginning of the game that are baked into the level. The chestpiece and helmet show minute paint textures and pitting, still visible at medium but completely lost at lowest. The shoulder and neck segments of the armor go from mildly blurry to Quake-level textures with visible pixellation.
Lockers
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Medium
Lowest
The most visible degradation here is in the numbers, but the red and blue labels barely lose any fidelity at all. Minor details like screwholes and chips in the metal blur but are less noticeable.
Banner
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Medium
Lowest
This room isn’t strongly affected, except for the banner, which loses its woven texture. The containers -- like the crates and jug -- retain most of their texturing, so we’re mostly looking at differences in the banner weave and sharpness at the edges of the crossed swords.
Continue to the next page for more.
Gold Door
This page consists of the last round of textures for the comparison. Note that our video contains all of these in swipe overlay format, so it might be easier to compare one texture to the next. We also zoom into more heavily impacted areas of the textures to help highlight changes. As the video is in 4K, it's easier to see some of the impact than with these 1080p resolution textures.
The gold doors primarily show differences in tiny, sharp areas of transparency in the gold seal blur into a yellow mess at the lowest resolution, outlining everything in yellow.
Here's an example:
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Medium
Lowest
Exit Sign
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Medium
Lowest
This is the same style of control panel seen earlier, but the wall texture behind it changes completely with resolution. Small specks of color are smeared out and the whole wall becomes a blue blur.
Wall
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Medium
Lowest
Geometry remains crisp at any texture resolution, as seen on this wall. The edges of the pits are unchanged, but the textures within blur. This screenshot also offers a closer look at the revolver, which loses a few barrel scuffs.
Robot
Highest
Medium
Lowest
The mystical crossed swords on this robot-thing’s chest (I never played Destiny) is crisp and smooth-edged at highest, but becomes jagged at lower settings. The dark areas on its legs and hands lose nearly all detail, as does the metal pipe on its chin, which has a slight bumpiness at highest.
Box
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Medium
Lowest
Note the lettering on this label, which remains completely clear at highest settings, gets fuzzier at the lowest settings. Some of the smaller dents and scratches toward the bottom of the crate become less noticeable.
Crate
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Medium
Lowest
The fabric covering of the crate has an interesting jagged texture to it, which blurs into a pixellated blob. The round design becomes jagged and indistinct.
Things seen at a distance don’t suffer much at all from a reduction in texture resolution, especially if they’re geometrically complex, which can add detail and shadows that don’t rely on 2D textures. The amount of detail in the highest-res textures is impressive, though, especially on a 4K display.
We'll revisit graphics quality with a Destiny 2 graphics optimization guide upon launch, which is October 24 for PC.
Editorial: Patrick Lathan
Video: Andrew Coleman
Host: Steve Burke