What is this "64 bit render targets" option?

[gyuuula]

The important part is here:
"64 bit format. This has good precision, and also leaves us with another channel were we can store an extra attribute"
In other words, it can draw paralax textures (google it, if you don't know, what that means)

"32-bit wide RenderTargets. In order to use this, you only store the depth of the pixel, instead of the whole position."
It is the good old regular rendering option. Consumes less memory, but doesn't look as good with deferred lightning, and can't use paralax.

I'm pretty sure, that the base game textures don't contain paralax information, but if you have textures packs like Vivid Textures installed, it makes sense to enable 64 bit rendering.

Edited December 29, 2016 by gyuuula

[Franpa]

Old topic but it's the top search result on google for this setting so it should be clarified what the option is for: It is for HDR capable monitors and likely pointless if your monitor doesn't support HDR.

[pritster5]

The important part is here:

"64 bit format. This has good precision, and also leaves us with another channel were we can store an extra attribute"

In other words, it can draw paralax textures (google it, if you don't know, what that means)

 

"32-bit wide RenderTargets. In order to use this, you only store the depth of the pixel, instead of the whole position."

It is the good old regular rendering option. Consumes less memory, but doesn't look as good with deferred lightning, and can't use paralax.

 

I'm pretty sure, that the base game textures don't contain paralax information, but if you have textures packs like Vivid Textures installed, it makes sense to enable 64 bit rendering.

This is completely false. This has absolutely nothing to do with being able to use parallax textures.

 

The MOST important place where 64-bit render targets are used is the Sky in Vanilla SSE.

 

32-Bit render targets typically cause banding which can be masked well with dithering or a little bit of film grain.

 

Using 64-bit render targets means that you can have more precise colors for the sky and have a greater range of precision which reduces banding. It's pretty much useless to leave it enabled if you are running the game with an ENB, since that has a dithering option by default that is MUCH more performance friendly and accomplishes the same goal.

Edited December 24, 2017 by pritster5