Total War WARHAMMER III: Recommended Graphics Setting (Campaign & Battle)

I have gone through all the graphical settings for Total War: Warhammer 3 and tested the performance impact of each using the two in-game benchmarks.
These tests were carried out on the release version of the game v1.0.0 12381.2524378 (17/02/2022).

Use my findings to tweak your own settings to get those extra frames!

This guide can be used for any system – I’ve just added my own specs here for reference.

CPU – Intel Core i7 10700K 5.0GHz OC (Liquid Cooled),
CPU Cooler – NZXT Kraken X52 AiO,
GPU – ZOTAC Gaming AMP RTX 2080Ti (2115MHz Core, 7200MHz Memory),
RAM – Corsair Dominator Platinum 32GB DDR4 (3000MHz, CL15),
Storage – 500GB Samsung 870 EVO Plus NVMe SSD (Boot/Games Drive),
Storage – 1TB Samsung 850 EVO SSD (Programs/Games Drive),
Storage – 4TB WD Black External HDD (Backup/Emulation Drive),
Case – Fractal Design C Tempered Glass.

Monitor – Acer Predator X34 (Ultrawide 3440×1440, 100Hz, IPS, G-Sync),
Keyboard – Corsair K70 LUX RGB (Cherry MX Brown),
Mouse – Logitech G900 Chaos Spectrum,
Headset – Creative Sound BlasterX H7 (Tournament Edition),
Sound Card – Creative Sound BlasterX G5,
Spatial Sound – Dolby Atmos,
RGB Lighting – NZXT HUE+

CAMPAIGN BENCHMARK with the low preset and AA turned off as a baseline.
Results are shown as: AVERAGE (LOWEST, HIGHEST)

Low Preset (No AA) – 113.1 (85, 145)
Medium Preset (No AA) – 80.5 (64, 107)
High Preset (No AA) – 61.9 (41, 88)
Ultra Preset (No AA) – 54.4 (32, 77)

TAA High – 96.8 (76, 121)
TAA – 99.4 (76, 123)
FXAA – 111.5 (84, 143)

Ultra VFX – 107.7 (75, 137)
High VFX – 108.3 (75, 137)
Medium VFX – 113.1 (85, 146)

Ultra Trees – 106.5 (76, 141)
High Trees – 107.9 (82, 132)
Medium Trees – 109 (83, 142)

Screen Space Reflections ON – 102.8 (82, 128)

Ultra Shadows – 95 (75, 123)
High Shadows – 96.4 (75, 123)
Medium Shadows – 99.7 (77, 128)

Ultra Grass – 112.9 (87, 145)
High Grass – 112.9 (87, 144)
Medium Grass – 112.8 (85, 145)
Margin of error here.

Ultra Terrain – 104.3 (72, 138)
High Terrain – 104.3 (70, 137)
Medium Terrain – 105.3 (82, 138)

Ultra Buildings – 111.5 (84, 138)
High buildings – 111.8 (85, 142)
Medium Buildings – 112.3 (84, 141)
Margin of error here (apart from highest result)

High Fog (only available when shadows aren’t off – testing done with shadows on medium) – 94.1 (72, 124)

High Lighting – 98.8 (65, 129)

SSAO ON – 99.6 (79, 123)

Screen Space Shadows ON – 106 (80, 130)

BATTLE BENCHMARK with the low preset and AA turned off as a baseline.

Low Preset (No AA) – 150 (131, 170)
Medium Preset (No AA) – 120.5 (103, 144)
High Preset (No AA) – 81 (54, 100)
Experienced my first and only crash here, after about 60 benchmark runs
Ultra Preset (No AA) – 65.3 (44, 85)

TAA High – 119.3 (106, 129)
TAA – 124.6 (104, 139)
FXAA – 148.5 (127, 161)

VFX Ultra – 121.5 (68, 155)
VFX High – 130.7 (74, 165)
VFX Medium – 150.6 (129, 186)
Ouch them lows on higher settings.
Visual bug with Skarbrand when higher than low (atleast in the benchmark)

Trees Ultra – 151.3 (128, 168)
Trees High – 151.5 (129, 179)
Tress Medium – 149.6 (129, 169)
Margin of error

Unit Detail Ultra – 150.3 (133, 166)
Unit Deail High – 149.9 (128, 166)
Unit Detail Medium – 149.4 (129, 169)
Margin of error

Screen Space Reflections – 137.8 (112, 149)

Lighting Quality High – 136.5 (110, 149)

Shadows Ultra – 132.4 (107, 149)
Shadows High – 135.7 (112, 150)
Shadows Medium – 141.3 (117, 153)

Grass Ultra – 145.4 (112, 165)
Grass High – 146.9 (118, 165)
Grass Medium – 148.9 (126, 165)
Worth noting the battle benchmark has next to no grass on the map

Terrain Ultra – 149.6 (130, 165)
Terrain High – 149.3 (130,165)
Terrain Medium – 149.6 (134, 164)
Margin of error

Unit Size Ultra – 143.5 (114, 151)
Unit Size Large – 144.9 (117, 156)
Unit Size Medium – 147.7 (125, 165)

High Fog (only available when shadows aren’t off – testing done with shadows on medium) – 122.8 (109, 141)

SSAO ON – 133.8 (149, 112)

Screen Space Shadows – 145.4 (116, 150)

Cloth Physics OFF – 149.8 (131, 171)

The settings that I have settled for after 4 hours of being in the benchmarks (over 60 runs, one crash):

Anti-aliasing – Off (using Reshade SMAA),
Texture Filtering – 16x (16x and high quality in Nvidia control panel),
VFX – Medium,
Tree Detail – High,
Unit Detail – Ultra,
Depth of Field – Off (personal preference),
Screen Space Reflections – Off,
Lighting Quality High,
Texture Quality – Ultra,
Shadow Detail – Medium,
Grass Detail – High,
Terrain Detail – Ultra,
Building Detail – Ultra,
Unit Size – Ultra,
Porthole Quality – 2D,
Fog – Low,
SSAO – Off,
Screen Space Shadows – Off,
Cloth Simulation – On.

Capped my FPS to 60fps, with nvidia control panel vsync and gsync.