How to improve FPS in God of War Ragnarök (PC)
God of War Ragnarök arrived on PC in 2024 confirming something already suspected since the 2018 port: Santa Monica Studio knows how to adapt its proprietary engine to PC architecture better than almost any other PlayStation studio. This is, simply put, one of Sony's best ports to date, without the endless shader-compilation hangs or the launch bugs that plagued other exclusives. The engine, evolved since 2018, adds ray tracing in reflections and shadows, much denser geometry in settings like Asgard, and the full modern trio of upscalers: DLSS 3 with Frame Generation, FSR 3.1, and XeSS. The result is a game that scales with unusual elegance from a GTX 1060 all the way up to an RTX 4090, as long as you know which settings to touch first.
This is what you'd gain with a NVIDIA RTX 3050
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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 +48% free FPS.
Shadows
Lowering from Ultra to High reduces shadow map resolution and dynamic shadow distance in scenes with many NPCs without it being much noticeable in normal combat; only in close-ups with grazing light is the step down perceptible.
Ray-Traced Reflections
The reflections RT mostly affects wet surfaces, ice, and polished metal in Midgard and Vanaheim. Disabling it returns to screen-space reflections, which remain accurate from most of the game's camera angles.
Vegetation Density
Reduces the amount of instanced grass and foliage in Vanaheim's outdoor zones and Midgard's forests, one of the biggest CPU performance consumers due to the number of drawn objects.
Volumetric Fog Quality
Volumetric fog on Ultra uses more samples per view column, noticeable in areas like Alfheim or the dwarf caves. Lowering it to Medium keeps the atmosphere without the cost of the extra samples.
Motion Blur
Provides a small performance gain, but it's recommended mainly because it improves perceived sharpness in combat and reduces visual fatigue in the dynamic QTE cameras.
2. Medium impact settings
Here's where most of the FPS is. Minor visual impact, major performance impact.
Texture Resolution
Lowering from Ultra to High frees up VRAM without noticeably degrading sharpness except on 12GB+ cards where there's no need to touch it. Critical on 8GB GPUs like the RTX 3070 to avoid stutter from VRAM saturation in Asgard.
Ambient Occlusion
AO on Ultra uses a larger sampling radius, noticeable mainly indoors with lots of geometric detail like Brok and Sindri's workshop. Medium keeps contact shadows in corners without the extra cost.
Particle and Effects Quality
The massive battles against einherjar and boss fights generate an enormous number of particles (Kratos's Rage, Atreus's ice, elemental effects). Lowering from Ultra to High reduces the number of simultaneous particles without visually emptying out combat.
Hair Quality
Hair simulation for Kratos, Freya, and Thor on Ultra adds a per-strand shading cost that's barely noticeable except in real-time cutscenes, which already benefit less from high settings due to their camera pacing.
LOD Distance
Reduces the distance at which max-detail models load, especially noticeable in Vanaheim's open spaces. The impact is greater during exploration than in close combat.
3. Upscaling (DLSS / FSR / XeSS)
The biggest gain in the game. Compatible with almost any modern GPU.
NVIDIA DLSS 3 (with Frame Generation)
+55% FPSFull DLSS 3 support including Frame Generation on RTX 40-series GPUs. The implementation is one of the cleanest of 2024: in Quality mode motion clarity stays high even during QTEs with fast camera movement. Frame Generation adds notable smoothness at 4K with RT enabled, though it increases input lag slightly, almost imperceptible in a game with a combat pace more measured than a shooter.
AMD FSR 3.1
+40% FPSFSR 3.1 with the game's native Frame Generation, decoupled from driver-level Fluid Motion Frames. It works on any modern GPU, not just Radeon. Image quality in Quality mode is solid, though it shows somewhat more ghosting than DLSS on hair and volumetric fog during sharp camera movements.
Intel XeSS
+35% FPSFull XeSS implementation, with better performance on Arc GPUs thanks to the XMX path, though it also runs in DP4a mode on NVIDIA and AMD GPUs. Image stability is somewhat inferior to DLSS in dense vegetation, but it's a perfectly playable alternative in Balanced or Performance.
NVIDIA DLAA
+0% FPSNative DLSS-based antialiasing with no resolution rescaling, aimed at those with GPU headroom to spare who prefer maximum sharpness over an FPS gain. Recommended on RTX 4080/4090 at 1440p if you prioritize image quality over framerate.
4. Tips by GPU
NVIDIA
- •Enable Reflex from the graphics menu: it notably reduces input lag in parry-based combat, with no measurable performance cost.
- •On RTX 30 series, avoid combining reflections RT with a high internal resolution; the optimal balance is RT off + DLSS Quality except on the 3080/3090.
- •Always update to the latest Game Ready driver before playing: Santa Monica has released several optimization patches coordinated with NVIDIA drivers since launch.
AMD
- •On RX 6000/7000, disable shadow RT first, before reflections: it has a higher relative cost on RDNA architecture than on Ada Lovelace.
- •FSR 3.1 Frame Generation works better with V-Sync or an FPS cap enabled to avoid perceptible tearing during camera pans.
- •Smart Access Memory (Resizable BAR) gives a measurable improvement in this specific game, more than the generational average: verify it's enabled in the BIOS.
Sistema
- •Install the game on an SSD (preferably NVMe): texture streaming loads while walking through Asgard are noticeably slower on HDD, with visible pop-in.
- •Let shader precompilation finish on first launch without skipping it: it avoids the compilation stutter that did affect other PlayStation ports.
- •16GB of RAM is more than enough; with 8GB there can be swapping in Vanaheim's densest zones, so 16GB is recommended as a real minimum, not just the official requirement.
5. Known game issues
1% low drops in massive battles against einherjar
Even on systems with GPU headroom to spare, simultaneous enemy waves in Valhalla generate load spikes on a single CPU core that cause punctual framerate drops. It's a CPU bottleneck, not a GPU one, so lowering graphics settings barely helps; lowering particle density helps more.
Traversal stutter when fast traveling between realms
Some users report a small shader-loading or streaming pause when using the Bifröst portals for the first time each session. It's almost entirely mitigated after the first trip to each realm in the session.
Estado: May 2024 patch
Occasional DLSS Frame Generation incompatibility with VRR on some monitors
In combination with G-Sync/FreeSync on some specific panels, enabling Frame Generation together with VRR can cause noticeable flickering or brightness fluctuation in dark scenes like the Svartalfheim caves. Temporarily disabling VRR or setting an FPS cap resolves the issue.
6. Frequently asked questions
Is it true this is one of the best PlayStation ports on PC?▾
Do I need a ray-tracing-capable GPU to play it well?▾
What causes FPS drops in big battles if my GPU isn't at 100%?▾
Is DLSS Frame Generation worth it in this game?▾
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Calculate FPS for God of War Ragnarök →Calculations based on consensus of technical sources and our own FPS model. More about our methodology →