Introduction
As a Roblox developer it is currently too hard for players themselves to optimize their own experiences themselves because Roblox forces too many critical visual settings to be tied only to the graphics slider which changes multiple settings at once. While the system is simple, it removes player choice and often causes problems in experiences that don’t offer their own graphics settings. (Like an option to disable shadows, post processing effects, etc.)
Not every developer introduces custom graphic settings into their games and many older Roblox experiences have not included them at all. As a result, Players are forced to Roblox’s defaults, which means critical options like anti-aliasing, render distance and shadows cannot be changed independently and creates a situation where performance and visuals are completely out of the player’s control.
(I understand there are posts like this, It's 2023, *please* give us discrete graphics options, but I feel like I go into more detail.)
Problems & Use Cases
1. Render Distance and Gameplay Visibility.
On lower graphics levels, the engine aggressively reduces render distance, often making gameplay-critical objects disappear entirely. Many players lower graphics to improve their frame rate, but they may not want their render distance reduced in the process. Because the graphics slider links both fidelity and distance together, players are forced into a trade-off that can harm gameplay: smooth performance comes at the cost of seeing important parts of the game world.
For Example, here I have this nice grass field,
However, its too laggy because maybe of the textures, maybe turning down my render distance will help. To turn down my render distance I must turn down my graphics quality!
Yes, sure the render distance is lowered, meeting the needs of the player, but what if the player wanted to keep the nice textures, depth of field, sun rays, etc.?
2. Lighting Technology Flexibility
Currently, Roblox uses Unified Lighting, where the developer chooses between different shadow styles (e.g., Realistic or Soft). However, this choice is still global to the entire game and cannot be changed on a per-player basis. This creates the same issue as before. On weaker devices, “Realistic” shadows can significantly reduce performance. On stronger devices, “Soft” shadows may feel underwhelming and fail to take advantage of available hardware.
Unlike many other engines where players can set “Low / Medium / High / Ultra” lighting or shadow quality independently, Roblox forces the developer’s single choice onto all players, regardless of their device capabilities.
For Example, Here I have my version of the Iron Cafe
Sure, the lighting is good but maybe a low-end laptop could not run that at a stable / high FPS and the player wishes to maybe switch the lighting from “Realistic”, to “Soft.” Yes there is a way to do that, but its only accessible through the graphics slider.
For a quick comparison here’s Level 21 graphics with Soft Lighting VS. Level 1 graphics
Level 21 with soft lighting:
Level 1:
They do look the same on the surface but the Level 21 version is a lot more smoothed out (thanks to anti-aliasing, which isn’t available at level 1 graphics) and there’s still soft shadows visible within the scene, Overall level 21 looks better but player’s cannot achieve that if the games “LightingStyle” is set to “Realistic”
3. Overall Mixing And Matching
Right now it just is not possible for players to select what they do and don’t want to see. Maybe some players want to see cool PBR Textures but no Anti-Aliasing, Maybe some players want to see some downscaled / low res textures with Anti-Aliasing. This is possible in games like Fortnite, where you can edit multiple different settings to fine tune to the players needs.
Some May Argue That:
“Roblox Is supposed to be simple, adding too many settings will break the simplicity”
While this is a fair argument to make, other games on PC, Console and Mobile do provide users with better control over their graphic settings. A game like Minecraft for example; you can change the graphical fidelity with shaders, texture packs etc. whilst decreasing the render distance to balance performance. Not only that, but the “Advanced” settings does not need to replace the slider entirely, There could be a “Manual (Advanced)” graphics mode where the players can then modify their settings.
“More control could let players ‘break’ a game’s visuals or design intent.”
Developers already face this with the current slider. Low graphics can break render distances or disable shadows that were part of the design. By letting players tweak specific settings (instead of a slider), we actually reduce the risk of gameplay-breaking compromises. Developers who want stricter control could perhaps lock certain settings from being edited, much like Developers can lock if “Shift lock” is enabled or not.
“Developers Can Just Make Their Own Graphic Settings.”
Whilst this is true, some developers don’t have the time, resources or just incentive to do so and even if the developers do implement their own way to change the graphics settings they are limited to what they can actually change, as previously mentioned, developers cannot change the render distance, Anti-aliasing, Lighting Technology on the fly for certain users.
If this issue is addressed…
It would improve my development experience because I would no longer have to worry about players losing access to critical gameplay elements or suffering performance issues due to Roblox’s “one-size-fits-all” graphics slider. Players would have more flexibility to configure visuals in a way that works best for them, even in experiences that don’t include custom graphics settings.
