Crimson Desert: Die besten Einstellungen für die meisten FPS

MeinMMO explains the best settings for Crimson Desert. We show you what to pay attention to and how to get the most FPS.

You want to get a few more FPS out of the action-adventure and are looking for the best settings without having to compromise on graphics quality? We present the best options and explain where you can save the most performance.

We also generally recommend taking a look at the system requirements of Crimson Desert before dealing with the settings.

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General tips and notes:

Crimson Desert surprisingly requires little video memory. Even at high texture quality, we never exceeded 6.5 GB VRAM at WQHD. The test used a RX 9070 with 16 GB VRAM.
The game heavily loads the graphics card; the processor is not as critical in the game and is not fully utilized.
The biggest impacts on graphics quality come from ray tracing and lighting quality. While ray tracing has limited effects on FPS itself, performance drastically drops with ray generation / ray reconstruction.
FSR/DLSS does not significantly raise the framerate but stabilizes it. With FSR/DLSS, you get consistent and stable FPS; without upscaling, the FPS in the game fluctuate much more.
Shadow and lighting effects have a strong impact on performance. Reduce the setting here if you want to gain FPS.
Using FSR currently has issues with weather effects like rain, according to developers. This is expected to be fixed with a bug fix (as of: 25.03.2026).

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Best settings: Video

Display mode: Full screen (exclusive)
- Impact: Low
- Why: Exclusive full screen mode gives the game priority over Windows background processes. This ensures the most stable frame times and usually prevents issues with overlays or other programs.
Display: Select main monitor
- Impact: None
- Why: Ensures that the game runs on the monitor with the highest refresh rate (Hz).
Resolution: Native to your monitor
- Impact: High
- Why: Resolution is the biggest factor for GPU load. Always choose the native resolution of the monitor and adjust performance via upscaling (DLSS/FSR) rather than lowering the resolution, as this would otherwise make the image blurry.
V-Sync: Off
- Impact: Low
- Why: V-Sync prevents screen tearing but adds noticeable input lag. If you have a monitor with G-Sync or FreeSync, you should disable V-Sync in the game because then the monitor takes over this task.
Upscaled mode: NVIDIA DLSS (NVIDIA) / FSR (AMD)
- Impact: High
- Why: The AI-based methods compute the image internally at a lower resolution and upscale it. Both provide a massive FPS boost.
Upscaled resolution: Quality
- Impact: Medium
- Why: The “Quality” mode offers the best balance. The image often looks calmer and sharper than the original while you achieve significantly more FPS. “Performance” should only be used on very weak hardware.
Frame generation: If needed
- Impact: Massive FPS boost
- Why: Creates artificial intermediate frames. The FPS indicator can improve significantly, but the gaming experience (latency) does not improve to the same extent. Ideal for story-driven games, less so for competitive shooters.
FSR Ray Generation/ DLSS Ray Reconstruction: Off
- Impact: High
- Why: This setting has massively reduced performance for us. It’s best to leave the setting disabled and forgo a few details.
HDR (High Dynamic Range): On (if the monitor supports HDR)
- Impact: Minimal
- Why: Significantly expands the color spectrum and brightness differences. It costs little performance but requires a good monitor (at least HDR 600), as otherwise the image may look “washed out”.
Contrast: Standard / 50
- Performance impact: None
- Why: This is purely a visual preference. Too high contrast can cause details to disappear in dark areas (“Black Crushing”).

Best settings: Graphics

Preset: Custom
- Impact: None
Model quality: High
- Impact: Medium
- Why: Determines the number of polygons for objects and characters. On “High”, silhouettes remain smooth and detailed even from a distance without overloading the CPU.
Texture quality: Depending on the VRAM of your graphics card
- Impact: Low (As long as the graphics memory is sufficient)
- Why: Textures use little computing power but consume video memory (VRAM). If the GPU has enough memory, you can safely increase the setting.
Shadow quality: Medium / High
- Impact: High
- Why: One of the biggest performance hogs. “Medium” often provides sharp shadows close by and saves massive computing power compared to “Ultra”, where shadows are calculated at extreme distances.
Ray tracing: Off / On (at least RX 6000 / RTX 2000)
- Impact: High
- Why: Calculates physically correct light rays. Looks great but reduces performance. However, the losses are smaller than in other games.
Lighting quality: High
- Impact: Medium
- Why: Regulates the complexity of light sources. “High” creates a believable atmosphere without putting as much strain on the graphics card as ray tracing.
Reflection quality: Medium
- Impact: Medium to High
- Why: Determines the detail level of the world reflected in puddles or windows. “Medium” usually uses screen space reflections (SSR), which looks good and saves FPS.
Enhanced weather effects: Medium
- Impact: Medium
- Why: Affects particles like rain or snow. Too high settings can temporarily reduce performance, especially in stormy scenes.
Water quality: Medium
- Impact: Medium
- Why: Regulates wave action and transparency. Since you are not permanently in the water, you can save performance here without affecting the look of the rest of the world.
Shade density: Medium / High
- Impact: Medium to High
- Why: Determines how much grass and shrubbery is rendered. In forested areas, “Ultra” can heavily tax the CPU. “Medium” often prevents the annoying “popping” of grass that occurs at lower quality.
Volumetric fog quality: Low / Medium
- Impact: High
- Why: Creates dense light beams and fog banks. Looks great but is technically extremely demanding. One step lower often provides a significant FPS gain.
Effect quality: Medium
- Impact: Medium (noticeable during battles)
- Why: Regulates explosions and spark flying. On “Medium”, the game remains stable even in heated battles, while “High” often leads to stutters.
Simulation quality: Medium
- Impact: High (CPU load)
- Why: Affects the physics of materials, debris, or AI behavior. This setting primarily places a load on the processor.
Post-processing effect quality: Medium
- Impact: Low to Medium
- Why: Consolidates effects like depth of field, motion blur, and bloom. A medium value provides a cinematic look without making the image look “washed out”.