How to improve FPS in Eternal Strands (PC)
Eternal Strands is the debut title from Yellow Brick Games, a studio founded by BioWare veterans, and it mixes giant-creature climbing in the vein of Shadow of the Colossus with a magical combat system that destroys the environment in real time. Built on Unreal Engine 5, it leans heavily on Nanite and Lumen for its fantasy landscapes, but its true signature is physics: you can freeze a lake, set a wooden structure on fire, or knock down an ice pillar and watch the consequences ripple through the level.
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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 +51% free FPS.
Physics/Destruction Quality
This setting controls how many fragments the engine generates when destroying structures and how much resolution the rigidity simulations have. On Medium the spectacle is preserved without overloading the CPU.
Global Illumination (Lumen)
Lumen recalculates indirect lighting every time fire or ice alters the environment, which happens constantly in Eternal Strands.
Shadow Quality
Dynamic shadows from giant creatures and moving debris are expensive to render on Epic.
Anti-Aliasing (TSR/DLAA)
Unreal Engine 5 relies on its temporal antialiasing to clean up noise from Lumen and Nanite, and TSR is lighter than DLAA on hardware without dedicated upscaling.
View Distance
Fantasy environments have a lot of vertical depth due to creature climbing, but Nanite's streaming means reducing draw distance doesn't remove nearby detail.
2. Medium impact settings
Here's where most of the FPS is. Minor visual impact, major performance impact.
Nanite/Mesh Quality
Nanite manages the virtualized geometry of rocky environments and giant creatures, allowing massive geometric detail without the traditional cost of polygons.
Texture Quality
High-resolution textures for stone, ice, and creature fur materials consume more VRAM than raw compute power.
Post-Processing
Effects like the magical fire's bloom, depth of field, and chromatic aberration are calculated as extra passes over the final image.
Foliage/Vegetation Density
Fire-reactive vegetation adds simulation cost on top of the usual rendering load.
Motion Blur
Motion blur barely weighs on framerate, but disabling it improves visual clarity during fast creature climbing.
3. Upscaling (DLSS / FSR / XeSS)
The biggest gain in the game. Compatible with almost any modern GPU.
NVIDIA DLSS 3
+35% FPSDLSS 3 with Frame Generation is the strongest option on RTX 40-series GPUs, especially useful during the CPU load spikes generated by destruction physics.
AMD FSR 3
+28% FPSFSR 3 works on any modern GPU, not just AMD cards, and its Frame Generation delivers a notable improvement in Eternal Strands.
Intel XeSS
+25% FPSXeSS is a solid alternative on Intel Arc GPUs and is also compatible with NVIDIA and AMD hardware.
4. Tips by GPU
NVIDIA
- •Enable DLSS in Balanced or Performance quality at 1440p/4K to offset the cost of Lumen without sacrificing too much sharpness.
- •Use Frame Generation only if you're already starting from a real 50-60 FPS baseline.
- •Update to the latest Game Ready drivers, since Unreal Engine 5 gets specific Nanite and Lumen optimizations with each major version.
AMD
- •Enable FSR 3 with Frame Generation to compensate for AMD GPUs typically performing somewhat worse under Lumen workloads.
- •Check that Smart Access Memory (Resizable BAR) is enabled in the BIOS.
- •On RDNA 2 cards or older, consider dropping Lumen to Medium instead of Epic.
Sistema
- •Install the game on an NVMe SSD: streaming of textures and Nanite geometry depends on read speed to avoid visual pop-in.
- •Close background processes before playing, since the destruction physics simulation uses several CPU cores.
- •If you have 16GB of RAM, close other heavy applications, since UE5 with Nanite and open-world streaming can push close to the limit in long sessions.
5. Known game issues
Framerate drops during massive destruction
When large structures collapse or wide areas of vegetation catch fire, physics simulation saturates CPU cores and causes noticeable micro-stutters.
Shader compilation stuttering
As in most Unreal Engine 5 titles, the first hours of play can show hitches when loading new zones while the engine compiles shaders on the fly.
Climbing physics inconsistencies
While climbing giant creatures with active muscle and cloth physics, some players report small hitches when the creature simultaneously reacts to structural damage.
6. Frequently asked questions
Why does Eternal Strands demand so much CPU if it's a fantasy game and not a competitive shooter?▾
Is it worth lowering Physics/Destruction Quality if I like seeing everything destroyed?▾
DLSS, FSR, or XeSS — which is best for this game?▾
Which setting should I touch first if my framerate drops during fights against giant creatures?▾
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Calculate FPS for Eternal Strands →Calculations based on consensus of technical sources and our own FPS model. More about our methodology →