I realise I could solely have your consideration so long as there’s nonetheless time left in your Elden Ring obtain—it is a recreation that almost all of us have been eager to play for a really very long time, so I am going to minimize proper to the chase. You need this recreation to run at its very best and look its most stunning, and I have been taking part in it for the previous week to search out out simply how to try this. Beneath you may discover my suggestions for the most effective settings for Elden Ring.
Whereas most have been exploring the huge Lands Between of Elden Ring, I have been eyeing up objects and analysing body drops. It isn’t the prettiest job however somebody’s bought to do it. And I am going to admit, I’ve additionally been exploring the huge realms of Elden Ring within the evenings too, however I guarantee you that was solely so I may greatest serve up these findings with confidence that they’re going to maintain all through the sport’s many numerous, and infrequently grotesque, places.
It is vital to nail Elden Ring’s settings good. The sport has a definite artwork model that is each fairly crisp, slicing, and fairly simply scaled again to fundamentals. That’s to say, if you happen to put this recreation on the Low preset, it could look a bit worse for put on.
However concern not, there are numerous settings that you would be able to maintain cranked up and nonetheless retain prime efficiency. You simply must know the place to look.
Elden Ring PC efficiency
First up, some dangerous information if you happen to do not already know: Elden Ring is locked to 60 fps. It isn’t the best body price a PC gamer expects in 2022 however it’s what FromSoftware calls for of us so as to play Elden Ring.
There’s a glimmer of hope for an unlocked framerate in some unspecified time in the future. Darkish Souls 3 and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice had been each locked to 60 fps, although someday after their respective releases there have been unofficial mods that managed to put off that cap. Maybe the identical will someday be true of Elden Ring, although I’ve already skilled one odd error the place the sport would not let me log on attributable to a framerate mismatch. Maybe meaning on-line functionality won’t survive any such mods later in life.
For now, although, it is a extra mundane 60 fps for us.
That cap really makes issues a bit simpler for the PC gamer attempting to maximise efficiency: all it’s good to do is hit that 60 fps mark in-game with the best visible settings doable.
That’s a straightforward process for homeowners of most fashionable GPUs, particularly mid- to high-end RTX 30-series and RX 6000-series graphics playing cards. There needs to be zero subject in hitting a gradual 60 fps common at 1440p, and one thing near that at the very least 99% of the time. In my testing, AMD’s Radeon RX 6900 XT simply dispatches Elden Ring at 4K, and I dare say any high-end graphics card will probably be pushing 60 fps with ease.
That is true even with the Most preset enabled, which actually makes Elden Ring look as epic because it ought to.
The really useful specs for Elden Ring aren’t too demanding, however an excessive amount of avid gamers will slip into the minimal required specs for this recreation by proudly owning a GTX 1060—the GTX 1060 continues to be the most well-liked graphics playing cards utilized by PC avid gamers based on the Steam Hardware Survey for January 2022. That is occurring six years after its preliminary launch.
In the event you’re attempting to push 1440p with a much less highly effective or older GPU, or 4K with a more moderen one, you might discover some optimisations are required to hit an ideal 60. With even a way more highly effective Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Tremendous calling the pictures I discovered Elden Ring required a little bit of tweaking within the choices menu to get operating at its greatest. Granted, I used to be operating the sport at an almighty 4K, however this was required so as to present any comparative benchmarking outcomes attributable to that 60fps cap.
PC Gamer take a look at rig: AMD Ryzen 7 5800X, MSI MPG X570 Godlike, Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Tremendous, WD Black SN750, 32GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4, 850W EVGA G2, 360mm AiO CPU cooler.
I would positively view these preset graphics settings as fall backs, nonetheless. The Low and Medium presets reasonably overtly minimize visible constancy even in settings which haven’t got too nice an impression on efficiency total.
In my testing, for instance, Shader High quality, Results High quality, Reflection High quality, and even International Illumination High quality all had minimal impression on efficiency, however had been sorely missed when it got here to how the sport appears when considerably lowered.
Moderately then, you wish to be good about what you trim, and what you allow, so as to hit that 60 fps body cap.
There’s really not one particular person setting that makes a huge effect to efficiency. Texture High quality presents, as anticipated, essentially the most spectacular uplift, however that is a mere 2 fps for ditching Most high quality in favour of Low high quality. In the event you minimize your high quality neatly, nonetheless, it can save you on frames whereas conserving the higher a part of Elden Ring’s beautiful appears intact.
Elden Ring greatest settings
With this mix of settings I managed to hit a way more admirable framerate on the RTX 2070 Tremendous at 4K. And the important thing factor is I did not must drop each particular person setting right down to medium to do it. There’s nonetheless loads of definition within the ultimate body, too. You actually do not wish to hand over an excessive amount of for 4K, and I’ve discovered this manages to maintain Elden Ring wanting gorgeous and ship the efficiency I am after.
What are the most effective settings for Elden Ring on PC?
- Texture High quality: Medium
- Antialiasing High quality: Low
- SSAO: Medium
- Movement Blur: Off
- Depth of Discipline: Off
- Shadow High quality: Medium
- Lighting High quality: Excessive
- Results High quality: Excessive
- Volumetric High quality: Medium
- Reflection High quality: Excessive
- Water Floor High quality: Excessive
- Shader High quality: Excessive
- International Illumination: Excessive
- Grass High quality: Excessive
I even ran round a reflective lake full of scary issues to see if leaving Reflection High quality and Water Floor High quality settings on excessive would demand far more of my GPU in sure areas; to my shock, it did not have a lot of an opposed impact on framerate in any respect even then.
So there are some settings you do not have to sacrifice for prime efficiency, even when the default presets would have you ever accomplish that. That is a giant win for our extra laser-focused in-game optimisations.
How far you possibly can push this recreation actually is determined by your actual graphics card and PC construct, although our really useful Elden Ring greatest settings ought to give you base to construct from if you happen to’re struggling to hit that almighty 60 fps.
The settings that take advantage of distinction at 4K ought to roughly nonetheless matter most when operating Elden Ring at 1440p and beneath. Although additionally keep in mind that your CPU might be a limiting think about hitting 60fps total. If that is the case then you definitely’re seemingly higher off conserving any CPU hogging utilities disabled whereas taking part in and cranking up the visuals as a lot as your GPU can deal with.
I not often noticed my take a look at machine’s AMD Ryzen 7 5800X spike above 35% CPU utilisation in-game. Earlier Darkish Souls video games have often struggled in sure areas with excessive CPU utilisation, however in my exploration I have never but discovered that to be true in Elden Ring.
That is to not say that is positively not the case, as I’ve not had an opportunity to fully discover the complete world of Elden Ring, however in my travels of each overground and underground areas I’ve not observed any significantly excessive CPU utilization.
I additionally suppose it is price noting that some stuttering or framerate dips can happen within the recreation, even with the day-one patch (ver. 1.02) put in. This does not appear to be tied to any single graphical setting, because it persists even when all are set to Low or Off. And that is true even of a strong PC able to operating Elden Ring with out breaking a lot of a sweat.
I am going into higher element about what you possibly can count on in a particular publish concerning the day-one Elden Ring patch performance, however basically it comes right down to Elden Ring was struggling pre-release model 1.01, and now it is fairly a bit higher in launch model 1.02. There’s nonetheless some stuttering, however not like earlier than, this appears to be tied to precise in-game occasions, reminiscent of loading right into a model new space. It is positively a lot improved over the pre-release expertise, so hopefully there will probably be future enhancements to return that eradicate it altogether or near-enough.