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A reliable starting profile
Choose the game’s High or Very High preset, set the display to its native resolution, and disable motion blur, film grain and chromatic aberration if you prefer a clear image. Use the following as a first pass rather than a universal preset:
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| Setting | Starting value | When to change it |
|---|---|---|
| Resolution | Native | Drop to 2560×1440 or 1920×1080 only when the GPU is limiting frame rate. |
| Upscaling | Quality | Use Balanced if demanding scenes still miss the target; inspect foliage and fine geometry for shimmer. |
| Ray tracing | Off or Low | Enable it only after ordinary rasterized performance is stable. |
| Shadows | Medium | Lower this first when you need a quick performance gain. |
| Volumetrics, reflections and global illumination | Medium | Reduce these when GPU utilization remains near its limit. |
| Textures | High if VRAM permits | Lower one step if traversal causes memory-related stutter. |
| View distance and foliage | Medium or High | Reduce one step if forests, settlements or long sightlines cause dips. |
| Field of view | Lowest comfortable value | Widen it only when you need more peripheral awareness and can afford the extra rendering. |
MSI’s July 30, 2026 graphics guide identifies resolution, an available upscaler and shadow quality as the three changes that usually provide the quickest balance between image quality and frame rate. The exact result depends on the game, your CPU and GPU, and the scene being rendered.
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Which settings should you lower first?
Lower settings in an order that protects image clarity. Do not move every slider at once; a small change to a high-impact option is easier to evaluate than a broad cut that leaves you unsure what helped.
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- Confirm the bottleneck. Use an on-screen overlay for GPU utilization, CPU utilization, VRAM use, frame rate and frame time. Near-95–100% GPU utilization usually means the graphics card is the limit.
- Use the upscaler. Select Quality first. It reduces the internal render resolution while keeping the output at your chosen display resolution.
- Lower shadows to Medium. Shadow maps and cascades are expensive in forests, bases and settlements, while the visual difference is often modest during movement.
- Reduce volumetrics and reflections. Fog, smoke, clouds, water reflections and screen-space effects can consume substantial GPU time in storms and wet scenes.
- Lower foliage and view distance one step. These settings affect both geometry workload and the number of objects that must be streamed or simulated.
- Use a narrower field of view if comfortable. A wider view draws more of the world at once.
- Touch textures last when possible. Textures mainly consume VRAM; lowering them will not fix a shader or CPU bottleneck and can make surfaces look noticeably worse.
If the game remains below target after these changes, lower the output resolution or switch the upscaler from Quality to Balanced. A stable, clean 60 FPS is generally preferable to a fluctuating 70 FPS with severe traversal stutter.
Find out whether the GPU or CPU is limiting you
GPU-limited performance
When GPU utilization stays around 95–100% and frame time rises in storms, combat effects or dense vistas, reduce resolution, upscaling mode, ray tracing, shadows, volumetrics, reflections and foliage. Change one or two settings, repeat the same route, and check the frame-time graph rather than relying only on the average FPS counter.
CPU- or engine-limited performance
Low GPU utilization alongside low FPS means the processor, game engine, background software or streaming system may be limiting output. Reduce view distance, NPC distance, foliage distance and simulation-heavy options if the game exposes them. Close browser tabs, recording tools and launchers that consume CPU time, then retest in the same location. A lower resolution cannot remove a CPU limit, so do not sacrifice image quality until you have confirmed that the GPU is busy.
Memory- or streaming-limited stutter
If average FPS looks acceptable but frame time spikes while sprinting, driving or gliding through the map, watch VRAM use and texture-streaming behavior. Lower textures one step, move the installation to an SSD, close applications that consume memory, and apply a frame cap. Stutter can also come from shader compilation or an engine limitation; a cap improves pacing but cannot eliminate a game-side hitch.
Resolution and upscaling: the largest quality decision
Native resolution gives the clearest fine detail, but rendering every pixel can overwhelm a mid-range GPU in a large world. Keep the monitor’s native output resolution and let the upscaler render internally at a lower resolution when the game supports it. Quality mode is the usual starting point; Balanced is the next step when demanding scenes still miss your target.
DLSS, FSR or XeSS
Choose the upscaler that the game implements well and that your hardware supports. Compare moving foliage, thin branches, fences, distant wires and particle effects while walking, not just a still screenshot. Temporal upscalers can show shimmer, ghosting or soft detail; if those defects are more distracting than a small FPS gain, return to Quality or native resolution and lower a different setting.
Upscaling is not a substitute for fixing a CPU limit. It reduces GPU work, so it helps most when the graphics card is saturated. Use the performance overlay to verify that GPU frame time actually falls after enabling it.
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When to lower output resolution
Use 2560×1440 or 1920×1080 when native output plus Quality upscaling still cannot hold your target and the GPU remains the limit. Lowering output resolution is more obvious than reducing shadows or volumetrics, so treat it as a deliberate trade: fewer pixels, but usually a larger and more predictable GPU-time reduction.
Ray tracing, shadows and lighting
Ray tracing
Ray tracing can improve reflections, shadows or global illumination, but it is one of the highest-impact options in many open-world games. Leave it Off or Low while establishing a stable frame rate. Re-enable individual ray-traced features only after ordinary settings meet your target, and test a wet street, a torch-lit interior and a foliage-heavy exterior because their costs differ.
Shadow quality
Set shadows to Medium before lowering textures or output resolution. High shadow distance and resolution affect every sunlit outdoor scene, while contact shadows and cascade settings can add cost near the camera. If Medium produces crawling edges or visibly short shadow ranges, try High shadows with lower volumetrics instead; the best compromise depends on which artifact you notice during play.
Global illumination and ambient occlusion
Global illumination, ambient occlusion and screen-space lighting add depth to caves, interiors and foliage. Medium is a practical baseline. Lower them when GPU utilization is maxed, but preserve ambient occlusion if its loss makes ground contact and object separation look flat.
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Open-world settings that cause traversal dips
View distance
View distance controls how far geometry, vegetation and object detail remain visible. It is often more expensive than a menu preview suggests because it increases both rendering and streaming work. In NVIDIA’s Dying Light testing, lowering view distance at 1920×1080 changed frame rate by more than half in the tested scene. That percentage is game-specific, not a promise for every survival title. Test a mountain overlook, a settlement approach and a fast traversal route before deciding.
Foliage and vegetation
Foliage combines dense geometry, alpha-tested leaves, shadows and wind animation. Forests, fields during storms and overgrown ruins are excellent stress tests. NVIDIA’s Destiny 2 testing measured High foliage at 8.7 FPS slower than its reference setting, while Medium was only 4.6 FPS slower than Low in that scene and looked acceptable during play. Your result will vary with engine, resolution and hardware, but foliage is a logical early target when outdoor dips dominate.
Object, NPC and simulation distance
Some games separate view distance from object, NPC or simulation distance. These can be CPU-heavy because the game must update more entities, not merely draw them. Reduce them when GPU utilization is low and frame time worsens near towns, bases or large animal groups. Watch for gameplay consequences such as enemies appearing later or resource nodes loading at shorter range.
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Weather and volumetric effects
Rain, snow, fog, smoke and god rays can combine particles, transparency and lighting. Medium or Low volumetrics often recovers GPU time with less impact on gameplay readability than a large resolution cut. Compare a clear-weather route with a storm; if only the storm fails, this category is a likely culprit.
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Texture quality primarily decides how much data must fit in graphics memory. Keep High textures when VRAM usage remains below the card’s practical limit, because lowering them can make terrain, clothing and building surfaces look blurry without addressing other bottlenecks.
In NVIDIA’s Dying Light measurements, Medium textures used about 2 GB of VRAM, while High used roughly 3.3–4 GB. Heavy stutter indicated that the tested GPU had reached its memory limit. These figures describe that game and test configuration; monitor your own VRAM instead of treating them as requirements for every title.
Signs that VRAM is the problem
- Stutter appears when entering new districts or turning rapidly, even though average FPS is acceptable.
- VRAM usage stays at or near capacity while system RAM and GPU utilization fluctuate.
- Textures pop in, surfaces briefly blur, or the game pauses during traversal.
Lower textures one step, reduce texture-streaming distance if available, close memory-heavy programs and install the game on an SSD. If the hitch persists with ample free VRAM, investigate shader compilation, asset streaming and CPU frametimes instead.
Field of view, post-processing and clarity
Field of view
A wider field of view improves peripheral awareness but renders more world geometry. Use the lowest value that lets you track threats comfortably, especially in a first-person survival game where motion sickness and visibility matter. NVIDIA recorded an 11.7 FPS difference between 55° and 105° FOV in one Destiny 2 scenario. Treat that as an example of sensitivity, not a universal result; measure your own game at the FOV values you are considering.
Motion blur, film grain and chromatic aberration
These controls primarily change presentation and comfort. Disable motion blur if camera movement feels smeared, film grain if it obscures dark detail, and chromatic aberration if colored fringes distract you. EA documents them as separate graphics controls, so changing one does not require changing the others. They are usually lower priorities than shadows or view distance when the goal is higher FPS.
Sharpening and anti-aliasing
Use moderate sharpening after upscaling, then inspect foliage and diagonal edges while moving. Excess sharpening exaggerates shimmering and compression noise. If the game offers separate anti-aliasing modes, compare them in motion; a smoother image at a slightly lower internal resolution can be preferable to a jagged native image.
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Frame pacing, VRR and frame caps
A high average FPS does not guarantee smooth motion. Frame-time spikes are visible as hitching, especially during traversal. Enable FreeSync or G-SYNC when your monitor and GPU are compatible, then set a frame cap a few frames below the display’s maximum refresh rate. MSI describes adaptive sync as matching monitor refresh to GPU output, avoiding the latency feel associated with traditional VSync.
Choosing a cap
- For a 60 Hz display, cap near 58–60 FPS, depending on the game and VRR behavior.
- For 120 or 144 Hz, cap below the maximum only if the GPU can sustain that range; a stable 90 FPS can feel better than an uncapped 70–110 FPS swing.
- If VRR is unavailable, test the game’s VSync modes and choose the one with the least tearing and acceptable latency.
Use the same cap during comparisons. Otherwise, a short burst above the target can make one setting appear faster while its frame times remain less consistent.
A repeatable tuning workflow
- Set your target. Decide whether the priority is 60 FPS, a higher refresh-rate target or the most consistent frame time. Record the monitor resolution and refresh rate.
- Select a sensible preset. Start at High, not the maximum preset, unless you have confirmed that the game’s highest options are inexpensive on your hardware.
- Set resolution and upscaling. Use native output and Quality upscaling, then verify that GPU utilization and image quality are acceptable.
- Run the built-in benchmark. Rockstar Games support recommends using its Graphics Benchmark after experimenting with the quality slider and advanced settings. The same principle applies elsewhere: a repeatable benchmark is more useful than a random walk.
- Test a demanding route. Travel through dense foliage, enter a settlement, trigger weather effects and fight enemies. Include the situation that normally causes your dips.
- Change one or two options. Record average FPS, 1% lows or frame-time consistency, GPU and CPU utilization, and VRAM use.
- Repeat the route. Keep camera movement and weather as similar as possible. Compare the frame-time graph, not only the headline average.
- Stop at the visual-quality threshold. Do not keep lowering settings once the target frame rate is stable and the remaining dips are less distracting than the image defects introduced by further cuts.
Rockstar’s support documentation, updated April 30, 2024, notes that its quality slider analyzes a PC’s performance capabilities and adjusts background parameters according to resolution and the preference for performance or quality. It also cautions that settings have different impacts on different system configurations, which is why a benchmark and a demanding real-world route should both be used.
Practical profiles for common goals
Stable 60 FPS on a mainstream GPU
Use native output with Quality upscaling, Medium shadows, Medium volumetrics and reflections, High textures if VRAM allows, and Medium foliage and view distance. Keep ray tracing Off. Cap just below the display refresh rate and use VRR. If dense forests still dip, lower foliage first, then view distance.
High-refresh play at 90–144 FPS
Start with a lower output resolution or Balanced upscaling if necessary. Keep ray tracing Off, set shadows and volumetrics to Low or Medium, and use a conservative FOV. Prioritize frame-time consistency over maximum texture quality. A frame cap is especially important because open-world traversal can create large swings even when combat scenes are fast.
High visual quality with occasional dips
Use native resolution and Quality upscaling, retain High textures, and raise foliage or view distance only after measuring their cost. Keep ray tracing limited to the feature that matters most to you. Accepting a lower cap can produce a smoother experience than leaving every setting at its maximum.
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Limited VRAM
Use Medium textures, moderate texture-streaming distance and an SSD installation. Keep shadows and foliage at Medium, then tune resolution and upscaling for the GPU. Watch for traversal hitches after entering new areas; if they continue, lower textures again before cutting image-quality settings that do not affect memory use.
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Common problems and targeted fixes
“My FPS is low everywhere.”
Check GPU utilization first. If it is near full, enable Quality upscaling and lower shadows, volumetrics, reflections and ray tracing. If utilization is low, investigate CPU load, background programs, view distance and simulation settings.
“The game stutters only while moving through the world.”
Monitor VRAM and frame time, lower textures if memory is full, use an SSD, and cap the frame rate. Test a repeatable route so you can distinguish streaming hitches from random background activity.
“The image shimmers after enabling upscaling.”
Return from Balanced to Quality, reduce sharpening, or test native resolution with lower shadows and foliage instead. Judge thin branches, fences and distant vegetation in motion.
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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 glitches“Turning down resolution barely helps.”
You are probably CPU- or engine-limited. Restore the resolution, reduce view distance, NPC or simulation distance, close background workloads and inspect CPU frame time. A lower resolution cannot accelerate work that the processor must perform.
“High textures look good but cause sudden pauses.”
Lower textures one step and watch VRAM during the same traversal route. If the pauses remain with free VRAM, investigate shader compilation, storage speed and CPU frametimes rather than continuing to lower textures.
How to compare hardware or presets fairly
Use the same resolution, upscaler mode, FOV, frame cap and game version. Report average FPS and 1% lows, but also note frame-time consistency during traversal, VRAM capacity and usage, image quality in foliage and distant geometry, input latency, ray-tracing support, upscaler quality, and monitor refresh-rate and VRR compatibility. A preset that wins a short indoor benchmark may lose in a stormy forest, so include both a controlled test and a demanding open-world route.
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