How to improve FPS in inZOI (PC)
inZOI has arrived to challenge The Sims for its throne with a radically different approach: instead of stylized characters, Krafton bets on hyper-realistic Zois built on Unreal Engine 5, with global illumination via Lumen and entire cities simulated in real time. That aesthetic choice comes with an enormous technical cost, because the game not only has to render near-photorealistic faces and hair, but also sustain dozens of NPCs living their lives simultaneously in the same frame. The result is a life simulator that demands a lot from both CPU and GPU, something unusual for the genre. In this article we go over which settings to touch first to gain frames without sacrificing the visual identity that makes inZOI unique, and what hardware setup you need depending on your performance goal.
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 +67% free FPS.
Lumen Global Illumination
Lumen recalculates indirect lighting and reflections in real time, and it's the biggest GPU consumer in all of inZOI, especially indoors with lots of light sources. Dropping it from Ultra to Medium drastically reduces the cost without making the lighting flat.
Character Model Quality (Hair Rendering)
Zois' hair uses an individual-strand system with physics simulation, one of the most expensive elements to render. Dropping from Ultra to High reduces the number of simulated strands without turning the hair into a flat texture.
Shadow Quality
inZOI's dynamic shadows cover both the Zois and the city's furniture and vegetation. Reducing to Medium lowers the resolution of the shadow cascades, easing the GPU in dense urban areas.
Anti-Aliasing (TSR/DLAA)
inZOI uses Unreal Engine 5's TSR as its default antialiasing method. If you don't have an RTX 20-series or higher to use DLAA, standard TSR offers a good balance between sharpness and performance.
View Distance
Draw distance controls how much of the urban world is rendered at maximum detail. On Medium the engine applies LOD and distant-object culling more aggressively.
2. Medium impact settings
Here's where most of the FPS is. Minor visual impact, major performance impact.
Crowd / NPC Density
This setting decides how many Zois the engine simulates at once in a city area, and it's the one that hits the CPU hardest in the whole game. Dropping it to Medium reduces the number of active visible residents without emptying the city.
Texture Quality
Skin, cloth, and furniture textures are designed for very close close-ups, so they demand a lot of VRAM on Ultra. Dropping to High reduces video memory usage without it being noticeable in normal play.
Post-Processing (Motion Blur / Bloom)
inZOI applies a considerable layer of post-processing effects. Dropping them to Medium frees up some performance without altering the scene's base lighting.
Reflection Quality
Reflections on glass, polished floors, and water use ray tracing backed by Lumen. Reducing to Medium lowers the resolution and distance of these reflections.
Foliage / Vegetation Density
Parks and gardens in the city use vegetation with simulated wind physics. Dropping the density to Medium reduces the number of instances the engine has to simulate and render.
3. Upscaling (DLSS / FSR / XeSS)
The biggest gain in the game. Compatible with almost any modern GPU.
DLSS 3 (with Frame Generation on RTX 40)
+45% FPSOn RTX 40-series cards, DLSS 3 with Frame Generation practically doubles the frame rate by interpolating AI-generated images, compensating very well for Lumen's cost. On RTX 20/30-series, traditional DLSS scaling still works with a notable gain.
FSR 3
+35% FPSAMD's FSR 3 works on any modern GPU, including NVIDIA and Intel, and offers a considerable performance gain thanks to its spatial-temporal scaling. Its frame generation especially helps on mid-range AMD GPUs.
XeSS
+30% FPSIntel's XeSS is the recommended option for Arc GPUs, and also works reasonably well on NVIDIA and AMD cards as an alternative. Its reconstruction quality is solid in Quality mode.
4. Tips by GPU
NVIDIA
- •Enable DLSS 3 with Frame Generation on RTX 40 to absorb Lumen's cost without sacrificing internal resolution.
- •Always update to the latest Game Ready driver, since inZOI receives frequent patches that tweak Lumen and Reflex behavior.
- •Enable NVIDIA Reflex if available in the menu to reduce the latency added by Frame Generation.
AMD
- •Use FSR 3 with frame generation to offset Lumen's relatively higher cost on Radeon GPUs.
- •Enable Anti-Lag+ from Adrenalin to mitigate the extra latency introduced by frame generation.
- •Check that Smart Access Memory is active alongside Ryzen processors for a small extra bit of performance in the city.
Sistema
- •Install the game on an NVMe SSD drive: NPC simulation and city streaming generate constant disk reads.
- •Close background processes and browsers, since simulating dozens of Zois is sensitive to the availability of free CPU cores.
- •Make sure you have at least 16GB of RAM (ideally 32GB), because the engine keeps the whole simulated city's life state in memory.
5. Known game issues
Microstuttering when generating new NPCs
When the city instantiates new Zois as you enter a residential area, it's common to notice a momentary frame drop while the engine loads their models and AI routines.
High VRAM usage on Ultra with multiple Zois on screen
At parties or events with many characters with hair and clothing on Ultra, cards with 8GB of VRAM can suffer stutter from memory saturation.
Occasional Frame Generation incompatibility with third-party overlays
Some recording or FPS-monitoring overlays cause image flickering when DLSS 3 Frame Generation is active.
Estado: v1.2
6. Frequently asked questions
Why does inZOI demand so much CPU if it's a life simulation game?▾
Is it worth enabling Lumen at maximum?▾
What affects performance more, the city or the characters?▾
Can I play inZOI with an entry-level GPU like the RTX 3050?▾
Want to know exactly how many FPS YOUR PC will get?
Enter your GPU and CPU in our calculator and measure the real impact of each setting.
Calculate FPS for inZOI →Calculations based on consensus of technical sources and our own FPS model. More about our methodology →