How to improve FPS in Destiny 2 (PC)
Destiny 2 runs on the Tiger Engine, Bungie's proprietary engine with more than a decade of evolution that still relies heavily on the CPU for physics, enemy AI, and networking rather than offloading that work to the GPU. It's a very well-optimized and lightweight game for its age, so almost any current rig runs it comfortably: the real challenge isn't "getting it playable," but squeezing out high, stable FPS (144+) for Crucible and Trials of Osiris, where input lag and frametime consistency matter more than average FPS. In raids and activities with many players and simultaneous effects (Gambit, raids, seasonal events), the CPU can become the bottleneck even with a powerful GPU to spare.
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Calculations based on our FPS model combined with the % gain of each setting (measured in public benchmarks).
1. Quick wins (no visual loss)
Start here. Each one adds a little, but together they give +24% free FPS.
Shadow Quality
The single setting with the biggest impact in Destiny 2: there's a documented difference of up to 16 FPS between the lowest and highest level. Dropping it to Low frees up GPU without hurting silhouette readability much in PvP.
Ambient Occlusion (SSAO)
Ambient occlusion adds subtle contact shading barely noticeable during fast combat, but has a constant rendering cost every frame.
Foliage and Vegetation
Grass and vegetation density on outdoor maps (EDZ, Europa, open-air Crucible maps) hurts performance without offering any competitive advantage; in fact, less foliage improves visibility of crouching enemies.
Depth of Field
The cinematic blur in cutscenes and aiming adds nothing in combat and adds a small post-processing cost every frame.
Motion Blur
Motion blur softens fast camera turns at the cost of visual clarity, something especially undesirable when turning quickly in PvP or dodging in raids.
2. Medium impact settings
Here's where most of the FPS is. Minor visual impact, major performance impact.
Render Resolution
Dropping the render scale below 100% of native resolution directly reduces the pixels the GPU has to process, with an almost linear performance impact. It's the strongest lever when the GPU is the bottleneck.
Light Shafts
Volumetric light shafts outdoors (Nessus, Europa, the Vault of Glass) carry a notable cost in brightly lit scenes without offering any functional advantage.
Screen Space Reflections
Screen-space reflections on wet and metallic surfaces (very present on Europa maps and in the Tower) consume rendering bandwidth in scenes with water or reflective floors.
Anti-Aliasing
Destiny 2 doesn't support modern temporal upscaling (see upscaling section), so edge smoothing falls to more traditional solutions. Medium keeps a good balance between edge aliasing and performance cost.
Detail Distance
Lowering it too much makes objects and enemies "pop in" at close range, which is counterproductive in PvP; High is the point where pop-in is barely noticeable without paying the cost of Ultra.
3. Upscaling (DLSS / FSR / XeSS)
The biggest gain in the game. Compatible with almost any modern GPU.
No Native DLSS / FSR / XeSS
+0% FPSAs of July 2026, Destiny 2 doesn't include native DLSS, FSR, or XeSS support: the Tiger Engine lacks a temporal anti-aliasing system, the essential base for any modern upscaler. Bungie has acknowledged community requests but with no confirmed date.
Render Resolution Scaling (native engine)
+12% FPSThe game's own "Render Resolution" option lets you drop internal resolution below native and do simple upscaling, with no temporal reconstruction. It's the only scaling option available and works on any GPU regardless of brand.
FSR via Driver (AMD brute-force/Overlay)
+6% FPSWith no native integration, some players force FSR 1 via AMD's driver layer or third-party tools; the result is noticeably worse than an FSR/DLSS integrated in the game, with more artifacts, so its use is uncommon.
4. Tips by GPU
NVIDIA
- •Enable NVIDIA Reflex (On + Boost) from the game's options: it reduces the render queue and input lag, especially valuable in Crucible and Trials.
- •In the NVIDIA Control Panel, set "Power management mode" to Prefer maximum performance to avoid clock drops in scenes that are light on the GPU.
- •Raise the shader cache size to 10GB in the NVIDIA panel to reduce micro-hitching after major game updates.
AMD
- •Enable Radeon Anti-Lag to offset the lack of Reflex on AMD GPUs, especially in PvP fights at high refresh rate.
- •Use Radeon Chill with a high upper limit (not low) only if you want thermal savings outside of Crucible; in competitive PvP it's better to disable it.
- •Update to the newest Adrenalin drivers: Destiny 2 gets frequent seasonal patches, and outdated drivers are a common cause of stutter after every update.
Sistema
- •Since the engine relies heavily on CPU in activities with many players (raids, Gambit, 6v6), prioritize a CPU with good per-core performance over more cores: few threads are actually well utilized.
- •Clear the game's shader cache after major seasonal patches; the micro-hitching reported after updates usually goes away once the engine recompiles shaders from scratch in one session.
- •Run the game in exclusive fullscreen instead of borderless whenever possible: Bungie has acknowledged micro-freezes tied to forced borderless windowed mode.
5. Known game issues
Micro-hitching after seasonal patches
Bungie has repeatedly confirmed micro-freezes appearing after major patch releases, tied to shader recompilation and, in some cases, to the forced borderless window mode. It usually improves after several hours of play as the system finishes compiling shaders, or by manually clearing the cache.
CPU bottleneck in mass activities
In raids with many simultaneous effects, Gambit with invasions, and full Crucible lobbies, the GPU can sit at 40-80% usage while the CPU holds things back — a structural Tiger Engine issue that graphics settings alone can't fix.
No modern temporal upscaling
The engine lacks the temporal anti-aliasing base needed for DLSS, FSR 2/3, or XeSS, so at high resolutions (1440p/4K) the only scaling lever is the game's native render resolution, less efficient than an upscaler with temporal reconstruction.
6. Frequently asked questions
Why doesn't my GPU reach 100% usage in Destiny 2 if my FPS is low?▾
Is it worth lowering render resolution to play Crucible above 240 FPS?▾
When will DLSS or FSR come to Destiny 2?▾
Which setting should I touch first if my PC is barely keeping up?▾
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Calculate FPS for Destiny 2 →Calculations based on consensus of technical sources and our own FPS model. More about our methodology →