How to improve FPS in Euro Truck Simulator 2 (PC)
Euro Truck Simulator 2 runs on SCS Software's proprietary engine, evolved over more than a decade to move a gigantic European map with dozens of regional DLCs. Unlike a modern shooter, its bottleneck usually isn't raw GPU power, but geometry management at long distances, AI-simulated traffic, and constant terrain streaming while driving at highway speed. The ProMods mod, which expands the base map with thousands of extra kilometers and objects, completely changes the game's performance profile. This guide covers the settings that really move the needle in ETS2, both in vanilla play and with mods, and what to expect in the community multiplayer TruckersMM.
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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 +46% free FPS.
Dynamic Shadows
ETS2's shadows use several cascades that are constantly recalculated while moving at highway speed. Dropping from High/Ultra to Medium noticeably reduces GPU load without it being much noticeable on the move, since most of the time you're looking at the road, not the terrain under the truck.
AI Traffic Distance
Controls how many AI vehicles are simulated and rendered at once, especially in large cities or heavy-traffic intersections. Reducing it from High to Medium keeps believable road traffic but avoids FPS dips at saturated intersections in Berlin, Paris, or Rome.
Truck Reflections
Environment reflections on the truck body and rearview mirrors are recalculated in real time. Dropping them to Low frees up GPU without affecting driving, since the reflection detail is rarely appreciated while driving.
Antialiasing
Source's MSAA is costly in SCS's engine due to how it handles vegetation and the repeated power-line poles along the route. Switching to FXAA smooths edges at a fraction of the cost, with minimal sharpness loss at normal driving speed.
Vegetation
Grass and shrubs along the road are decorative and rendered in large quantities across the whole route. Reducing their density and distance consistently frees up GPU, with the only visible effect being somewhat barer roadsides.
2. Medium impact settings
Here's where most of the FPS is. Minor visual impact, major performance impact.
World Draw Distance
Controls how far buildings, billboards, and scenery objects load. The cost is most noticeable on highways where you see kilometers of horizon; dropping it to Medium shortens that detail horizon but keeps terrain and the road sharp up close.
Texture Quality
ETS2 isn't VRAM-demanding compared to modern games, so dropping textures from Ultra to High frees up some memory and bandwidth with no visible loss except in close-up cabin interiors.
HDR/Bloom Post-Processing
Bloom and HDR tone mapping mainly affect sunrise/sunset, moments where the engine calculates more lighting passes. Reducing it improves performance during those times of day, which are frequent given the accelerated default day/night cycle.
Traffic Shadow Resolution
Each AI vehicle casts its own dynamic shadow. At heavy-traffic intersections this multiplies quickly; lowering the resolution of these shadows reduces the cost without eliminating the depth effect.
Traffic Density
This slider, distinct from the traffic render distance one, controls how many vehicles exist in the overall simulation. Dropping it from High to a middle point reduces CPU load in AI route calculation without leaving the roads empty.
3. Upscaling (DLSS / FSR / XeSS)
The biggest gain in the game. Compatible with almost any modern GPU.
No native upscaling
+0% FPSEuro Truck Simulator 2 does NOT support DLSS, FSR, or XeSS natively. SCS Software's engine is an older, proprietary architecture designed to scale on modest hardware without relying on image reconstruction, so you won't find these options in the graphics menu.
Render resolution scaling (in-game)
+20% FPSETS2 does include its own "resolution scale" slider in graphics settings, which renders at a lower internal resolution and scales it to your screen. It's the real alternative to a modern upscaler: dropping it to 80-90% gives a notable FPS saving with mild sharpness loss, useful on 1440p/4K screens with modest GPUs.
FSR/NIS forced via driver
+12% FPSAMD or NVIDIA GPU users can force FSR 1 or NVIDIA Image Scaling at the driver level (Radeon Software / NVIDIA panel) over the game, since there's no native integration. It works as a generic spatial upscaler and gives some extra margin, though with more artifacts than a well-made native integration.
4. Tips by GPU
NVIDIA
- •Enable NVIDIA Image Scaling from the control panel as a substitute for DLSS, which the game doesn't support natively.
- •Force adaptive V-Sync from the NVIDIA panel instead of the game's own V-Sync to avoid tearing without the input lag of classic V-Sync.
- •With RTX 3060 or higher GPUs there's almost nothing to tweak: the bottleneck is usually the CPU with dense traffic or ProMods, not the GPU.
AMD
- •You can force Radeon Image Sharpening together with a lower internal resolution to gain FPS with minimal sharpness loss.
- •Radeon Chill can unnecessarily limit FPS in menus or game pauses; disable it if you notice odd drops when opening the map.
- •Mid-range AMD GPUs (RX 6600 and higher) are more than enough for vanilla ETS2; the extra margin is better invested in resolution than in effects.
Sistema
- •Install the game, and especially ProMods, on an SSD: the constant terrain streaming at highway speed is much more noticeable on HDD with microstutters.
- •If you play on TruckersMM, close unnecessary overlays (Discord, browser) because multiplayer mode adds network and traffic synchronization load that competes for CPU with the base game.
- •A processor with good per-core performance (not necessarily many cores) benefits ETS2 more than a top-tier GPU, since traffic AI and map streaming heavily depend on a single main thread.
5. Known game issues
Microstutters crossing map sector boundaries with ProMods
When traveling at highway speed with ProMods installed, it's common to notice small stutters when the game loads a new map sector, since the mod adds far more objects per sector than the vanilla map. An SSD and lowering object draw distance mitigate the problem considerably, though not entirely.
FPS drops in large cities with dense traffic
In capitals like Berlin, Rome, or Paris (added via map DLCs), the combination of traffic AI, traffic lights, pedestrians, and dynamic shadows from each vehicle can cause notable framerate drops even on high-end hardware, being mainly a CPU bottleneck.
Visual traffic desync in TruckersMM
In the community multiplayer TruckersMM (unofficial, not made by SCS), the AI traffic seen by different players can slightly desync relative to the server, causing visual "pops" of vehicles appearing or disappearing near busy intersections; it's a known issue of the multiplayer mod itself, not of base ETS2.
6. Frequently asked questions
Why does my FPS drop only in cities and not on the highway?▾
Does ProMods lower performance a lot compared to the vanilla map?▾
Do I need a powerful GPU to play ETS2 well?▾
Why doesn't it have DLSS or FSR if it's a relatively recent title in terms of support?▾
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Calculate FPS for Euro Truck Simulator 2 →Calculations based on consensus of technical sources and our own FPS model. More about our methodology →