How to improve FPS in Metaphor: ReFantazio (PC)
Metaphor: ReFantazio is Studio Zero's new RPG, the team behind Persona 5, and it carries that same obsession with staging into a hand-painted fantasy world. The game runs on Unreal Engine 4 and prioritizes art direction and interface readability over raw graphical power, so it's not a title that demands a top-tier GPU. The optimization challenge here isn't about cutting-edge effects, but about keeping a stable 60 FPS during transitions between the city hub (with NPCs and dynamic shadows) and dungeons, where texture streaming can generate microstutters. With the right settings, practically any rig from the last five years can enjoy it smoothly.
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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 +17% free FPS.
Motion Blur
Motion blur in Metaphor adds a smoothing layer that blurs both combat and exploration without adding clarity. Disabling it improves the sharpness of skill animations and frees up some performance at minimal visual cost.
Depth of Field
Depth of field is used a lot in dialogue scenes and the city hub to direct attention, but on large screens or high-resolution monitors it tends to blur background art details. Disabling it barely affects framerate but improves overall sharpness.
Screen Space Reflections
Screen space reflections show up mostly on polished interior floors and water surfaces in the hub, but UE4 calculates them at a relatively high cost for what they add in this game. Dropping to Medium keeps puddles and shiny floors recognizable without penalizing performance as much.
Ambient Occlusion
Ambient occlusion reinforces contrast in the corners of the hub and dungeons, but its highest setting introduces a cost that doesn't match the visual improvement, especially since the game's painterly style already uses a lot of hand-painted shading in its textures.
Anti-Aliasing (TAA)
TAA is fundamental for smoothing the edges of the stylized interface and the small menu text, so it's not worth lowering too much. Keeping it on High instead of Ultra saves a small performance margin without introducing much more visible aliasing.
2. Medium impact settings
Here's where most of the FPS is. Minor visual impact, major performance impact.
Shadow Quality
The dynamic shadows of NPCs in the city hub are the game's biggest performance drain, since UE4 recalculates soft shadows for dozens of simultaneous characters in crowded streets. Dropping to Medium reduces the resolution of distant shadows while keeping contact shadows in combat.
Texture Quality
Hand-painted textures are a core part of the game's visual identity, so lowering them too much noticeably hurts artistic fidelity. On GPUs with little VRAM, dropping one notch from Ultra to High avoids streaming microstutters when entering dungeons without sacrificing too much detail.
Effects/Particle Quality
Skill animations in combat generate flashy but contained particle bursts on screen, not chaos like in an ARPG. Dropping this option to Medium smooths out load spikes during fights with several enemies without taking away spectacle from the most important synthesis fusions.
View Distance
Draw distance mainly affects the panoramic views of the hub and dungeon exteriors, where the engine has to load geometry and foliage at greater distance. Medium balances environment readability well with streaming cost, especially relevant on mechanical hard drives.
Post Processing
Post-processing controls the film grain, color correction, and filters that give the game its distinctive painterly look. Lowering it too much dulls the art direction, so it's recommended to only touch it as a last resort on very limited hardware.
3. Upscaling (DLSS / FSR / XeSS)
The biggest gain in the game. Compatible with almost any modern GPU.
4. Tips by GPU
NVIDIA
- •Enable the performance mode in the NVIDIA Control Panel for this executable, since the game doesn't include DLSS and doesn't benefit from specific RT settings.
- •Force adaptive V-Sync from the panel if you notice tearing in the hub during moments with lots of NPCs on screen.
- •Keep Game Ready drivers updated, since NVIDIA has released targeted optimizations for Unreal Engine 4 games with heavy interface shader load.
AMD
- •Enable Radeon Chill in the Adrenalin software to cap consumption in menu screens, which tend to run well above the target framerate.
- •Check that Radeon Anti-Lag is enabled to reduce input latency in combat, though the impact is smaller since it's not a pure action game.
- •If you use an APU or integrated GPU, drop Shadow Quality to Low from the start, since it's the setting that penalizes the most on solutions without dedicated VRAM.
Sistema
- •Install the game on an SSD to minimize load times and avoid texture-streaming microstutters when entering dungeons.
- •Close third-party overlays (Discord, GeForce Experience, capture tools) since the game's interface is already rendering-intensive and extra overlays can cause occasional drops.
- •Ensure at least 16GB of RAM; with 8GB the system can resort to the page file during transitions between the hub and dungeons, causing noticeable stutters.
5. Known game issues
Stutters entering and leaving dungeons
Some players report a brief frame freeze when crossing loading doors between the hub and dungeons, especially on mechanical hard drives, due to texture and geometry streaming.
Estado: Day-one patch (partial improvement, persists on HDD)
Framerate drops in the hub with many NPCs
In the busiest areas of the city, the buildup of per-NPC dynamic shadows can cause occasional drops below 60 FPS even on mid-range GPUs if Shadow Quality is set to Ultra.
Limited graphics options menu
The game doesn't offer granular control over shadow resolution or fog distance separately; many settings are grouped into presets, which limits fine-tuning compared to other recent PC titles.
6. Frequently asked questions
Does Metaphor: ReFantazio need a powerful GPU?▾
Does it have DLSS, FSR, or XeSS?▾
Which graphics setting affects performance the most?▾
Is it better to prioritize CPU or GPU for this game?▾
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Calculate FPS for Metaphor: ReFantazio →Calculations based on consensus of technical sources and our own FPS model. More about our methodology →