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1Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute2Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems3Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFor a quality-preserving starting point on PC, use Model Quality Ultra, Texture Quality Cinematic, Shadow Quality Ultra, ray tracing On, Lighting Quality Ultra or Cinematic, Reflection Quality Cinematic, Volumetric Fog High, and most remaining quality settings at Cinematic. Set Blur Intensity to 0. Then tune render resolution and the more demanding settings to suit your hardware and frame-rate target: no preset guarantees smooth performance on every PC.
Recommended starting settings
These settings follow TechSpot’s tested recommendations for balancing image quality and performance. They are a baseline to test, not a universal preset or an FPS guarantee.
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| Setting | Starting value |
|---|---|
| Model Quality | Ultra |
| Texture Quality | Cinematic |
| Shadow Quality | Ultra |
| Ray Tracing | On |
| Lighting Quality | Ultra or Cinematic |
| Reflection Quality | Cinematic |
| Advanced Weather Effect | On |
| Water Quality | Cinematic |
| Foliage Density | Cinematic |
| Volumetric Fog | High |
| Effect Quality | Cinematic |
| Simulation Quality | Cinematic |
| Post-Processing Effect Quality | Cinematic |
| Blur Intensity | 0 |
Use native rendering, or the highest render resolution your PC can sustain at the frame rate you want. If you need more performance, test upscaling at a quality-oriented setting before making broad cuts to detail. TechSpot listed DLSS 4.0 and FSR 4 Native among its low-noise upscaling recommendations, but its image-quality observations came from a pre-release build and should not be treated as a permanent ranking of current options. TechSpot’s settings analysis gives the test context.
How to tune for your PC
Crimson Desert performance depends on the GPU, CPU, output resolution, software configuration, and individual graphics settings. Pearl Abyss says its figures are based on internal testing and may vary with hardware, software, and settings; DirectX 12 is required. See Pearl Abyss’s PC performance specifications.
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- Choose a target first. Decide the output resolution and frame rate you consider acceptable. A 4K target asks more of a system than 1080p, and the same settings can produce different results across PCs.
- Establish a repeatable comparison. Start from the recommended settings and compare changes in the same scene, with the same output resolution and frame-rate target. Change one setting at a time so you can tell whether it helped.
- Try render resolution or upscaling. If performance falls short, test the highest internal render resolution that meets your target, using a quality-oriented upscaling option if needed. Watch for clarity loss or lighting noise, particularly indoors.
- Test demanding quality settings next. Model Quality is one of the more performance-demanding settings in TechSpot’s tests. Lower it incrementally and compare the result rather than assuming a particular tier will deliver a fixed FPS gain.
- Keep useful visual detail where possible. Leave settings that make little measured difference at higher quality until your own comparisons show they are a worthwhile trade-off.
Which settings are worth lowering?
Texture Quality
Texture Quality had virtually no performance impact in TechSpot’s tested scenes. Setting it to Low reduced texture fidelity and saved about 0.5 GB of VRAM in most of those scenes. That may be useful if memory is constrained, but it is a poor first cut when the goal is more frame rate without an obvious visual cost.
Water, effects, simulation, and post-processing
TechSpot measured little performance impact from Water Quality, Effect Quality, Simulation Quality, and Post-Processing Effect Quality. Lowering Water Quality could remove surface interactions and ripples, so test the visual change before keeping the cut.
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Shadows
In TechSpot’s test, moving Shadow Quality from Cinematic to Ultra improved performance by about 2%; lowering it further did not provide additional gains in that test. Treat this as a test-specific observation, not a prediction for another PC.
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Model Quality
Because Model Quality was among the more demanding individual settings in TechSpot’s analysis, it is a reasonable setting to evaluate when performance remains short after render-resolution adjustments. Reduce it in steps and weigh the frame-rate change against the visible loss in model detail.
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Should you turn off ray tracing?
Not automatically. In TechSpot’s test, turning ray tracing off reduced reflection, shadow, and global-illumination quality but did not improve performance consistently; in some cases the test lost one or two frames per second. The guide therefore recommends leaving it on for most hardware, while noting that older GPUs may need a Low preset or other compromises. Your own comparison is the deciding factor.
Ray Reconstruction and lighting trade-offs
TechSpot also found that AI denoising reduced noise in many scenes but forced Max Lighting and carried a substantial performance cost in its test build. On its RTX 5060 Ti 16GB, Ray Reconstruction reduced performance to roughly one-third of the Cinematic preset, with about half the loss attributed to forced Max Lighting. It also reported issues such as rain fading. These are findings for that hardware and build, not a general forecast; check how the current version behaves on your system before using the feature.
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What low-, mid-, and high-end recipes can—and cannot—tell you
Dot Esports offers illustrative tier-based approaches: low-end systems prioritize stable performance with lower resolution and low settings; its mid-range example uses 1080p native or 1440p with quality upscaling and a mix of High and Medium settings; its high-end guidance raises detail and uses quality upscaling at 4K. These are editorial examples, not tested guarantees that a given PC will hold 60 FPS. Read Dot Esports’ tier-based settings suggestions, then validate any recipe against your own target and hardware.
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