I've been squirrelled away in the PC Gamer office all week testing Halo: Campaign Evolved on all manner of hardware, including a beastly rig with an RTX 5080 and Ryzen 7 7700X3D. To my surprise, the difference between Low and Ultra is incredibly subtle and, frankly, not worth the performance hit.
Across the majority of my testing, I saw the swap from Low to Ultra take a big bite of performance (around 20%). That may not be a huge deal at close to 200 fps, but in my RTX 4070 Super rig, that makes the difference between being able to run the game at a consistent 60 fps at 1440p with no upscaling.
Below, you can see the difference between Low and Ultra in the very first mission of the game. Other than the UI element up the top left, you'd be forgiven for assuming there is no difference between the two images.
Low | Ultra
Image 1
Image 2
I did spot a slightly bigger difference between Low and Ultra when you are sucked up into the spaceship on the third set of missions. Though blood textures look nearly identical, the light hits the gun every so slightly differently, and shadows are a tad softer on Ultra.
Low | Ultra
Image 1
Image 2
Perhaps the biggest change I noticed between Low and Ultra is in foliage, as some detail is removed on the former. Lighting looks a bit worse too. But it's not a huge detractor from my enjoyment of the game.
Low | Ultra
Image 1
Image 2
From my testing, there is a reason to go for the Ultra preset: if you want to play the game with DLSS or FSR set to Low (which renders 33% of the resolution and upscales it). The swap between Low and Ultra when DLSS is set to Low has a very small effect on the fps, so I'd probably just opt for Ultra in that specific use case. However, with DLSS at Ultra, I saw dips of 22%, so I'd once again pick Low here.
Avg FPS
1% Low FPS
Rig 1 (Ryzen 5 5600X, RTX 3070, 32 GB)
51
45
Rig 2 (Ryzen 7 7800X3D, RTX 4070 Super, 32 GB)
74
55
Rig 3 (AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D, RTX 5080, 32 GB)
118
100
Rig 4 (AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D, AMD RX 9070 , 32 GB)
101
90
037.575112.5150
| Product | Value |
|---|---|
| Rig 1 (Ryzen 5 5600X, RTX 3070, 32 GB) | 51 Avg FPS, 45 1% Low FPS |
| Rig 2 (Ryzen 7 7800X3D, RTX 4070 Super, 32 GB) | 74 Avg FPS, 55 1% Low FPS |
| Rig 3 (AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D, RTX 5080, 32 GB) | 118 Avg FPS, 100 1% Low FPS |
| Rig 4 (AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D, AMD RX 9070 , 32 GB) | 101 Avg FPS, 90 1% Low FPS |
Naturally, which combination of graphics settings and upscaling you use will be dependent on what your rig can run, but I'd be picking Native or Ultra upscaling with Low graphics over Medium upscaling with Medium graphics any day.
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Gaming handhelds get access to a special 'Very Low' graphical setting, which works well, with a little bit of upscaling sprinkled in. Particularly, in my time testing the game on the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X at 1080p, I recommend the Very Low setting with FSR Medium upscaling.
You can see my results for that test below:
Asus ROG Xbox Ally X performance
Avg FPS
1% Low FPS
FSR Low
49
39
FSR Medium
43
34
FSR Ultra
33
27
FSR Native
22
19
TSR Low
33
30
TSR Medium
32
28
TSR Ultra
31
26
TSR Native
20
14
015304560
| Product | Value |
|---|---|
| FSR Low | 49 Avg FPS, 39 1% Low FPS |
| FSR Medium | 43 Avg FPS, 34 1% Low FPS |
| FSR Ultra | 33 Avg FPS, 27 1% Low FPS |
| FSR Native | 22 Avg FPS, 19 1% Low FPS |
| TSR Low | 33 Avg FPS, 30 1% Low FPS |
| TSR Medium | 32 Avg FPS, 28 1% Low FPS |
| TSR Ultra | 31 Avg FPS, 26 1% Low FPS |
| TSR Native | 20 Avg FPS, 14 1% Low FPS |
Unless you're getting performance into the hundreds and a drop of 30 fps doesn't affect you, I'd be picking Low for my playthrough of Halo: Campaign Evolved. Just remember to turn off motion blur while you're in the settings, too, as it's not pretty.
James is a more recent PC gaming convert, often admiring graphics cards, cases, and motherboards from afar. It was not until 2019, after just finishing a degree in law and media, that they decided to throw out the last few years of education, build their PC, and start writing about gaming instead. In that time, he has covered the latest doodads, contraptions, and gismos, and loved every second of it. Hey, it’s better than writing case briefs.