How to improve FPS in Mortal Shell 2 (PC)
Mortal Shell 2 is the sequel to Cold Symmetry's atmospheric soulslike, bringing back the distinctive mechanic of 'possessing shells' to inhabit different bodies with their own stats and combat styles, within a decaying gothic setting marked by rot, weathered stone, and a very restrained light palette. The first entry was technically light for what it visually offered, leaning more on art direction (fog, point lighting, high-contrast organic textures) than graphical brute force, and it's reasonable to expect this sequel to keep that philosophy with a moderate jump in fidelity, without reaching the scale of a big-budget AAA title. The slow, tactical combat, built around parrying and blocking, means frametime stability matters more than peak FPS.
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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 +37% free FPS.
Shadow Quality
Dynamic shadows cast by the decaying gothic structures and enemies in melee combat are among the most GPU-costly settings in this type of engine, especially indoors with multiple point light sources.
Volumetric Fog
Volumetric fog is central to the saga's decaying atmosphere, but calculating light scattering through it in every scene has a notable GPU cost, especially in swamp or covered-ruin zones.
Ambient/Point Lighting Quality
The very high-contrast point lighting (torches, cracks of light, sanctuaries) is the saga's visual signature, and recalculating it in real time over organic surfaces and weathered stone adds rendering cost.
Particle Effects Quality
Spores, suspended dust, and rot effects build up in the game's densest zones, generating particle spikes that compete with lighting for GPU resources.
Motion Blur
In slow, tactical combat built around parrying and reading enemy animations, motion blur makes it harder to identify the exact moment of impact while barely helping performance.
2. Medium impact settings
Here's where most of the FPS is. Minor visual impact, major performance impact.
Texture Quality
The high-contrast organic textures (weathered stone, rotting flesh, rusted armor) are a key part of the game's visual identity, and their cost falls mostly on VRAM rather than raw compute power.
Anti-Aliasing
Edge smoothing helps clean up the visual noise of fog and detailed organic surfaces, but at its highest level adds a sampling cost that competes with the rest of the atmospheric effects.
Post-Processing
Groups vignetting, color correction, and grain that reinforce the decaying tone of the setting, but whose cost at the maximum level doesn't always translate into a perceptible difference during combat.
View Distance
Being a soulslike with compartmentalized levels rather than a massive open world, draw distance is rarely appreciated above Medium in the saga's dense, vertical gothic scenarios.
3. Upscaling (DLSS / FSR / XeSS)
The biggest gain in the game. Compatible with almost any modern GPU.
AMD FSR
+18% FPSGiven that the first entry came from a small-to-mid-size studio with limited resources, it's more likely the sequel will include FSR for its compatibility with any GPU, rather than betting on proprietary technologies. It's worth checking the graphics menu at launch to confirm actual support.
4. Tips by GPU
NVIDIA
- •Keep Game Ready drivers reasonably updated, though for a studio this size it wouldn't be unusual for game-specific optimizations to take a while to arrive after launch.
- •If the game includes DLSS or FSR, enable it in Quality mode at 1440p/4K to absorb the cost of volumetric fog and point lighting without lowering detail too much.
- •Don't force maximum-performance profiles from the control panel: since it's not a game with extreme load spikes, the extra power draw doesn't always translate into additional FPS.
AMD
- •Enable Radeon Anti-Lag to reduce input lag in the exchanges of blows and parries, where precise timing is critical in the saga's tactical combat.
- •FSR in Quality mode is a reasonable alternative if the game integrates it, especially on mid-range GPUs where fog and point lighting weigh more than expected.
- •Check that Smart Access Memory (Resizable BAR) is enabled in the BIOS, since it usually brings a measurable improvement in games with dense dynamic lighting.
Sistema
- •Install the game on an SSD to reduce loading times between sanctuaries and minimize possible texture-streaming hitches when entering new zones.
- •Close third-party overlays (Discord, capture software) if you notice occasional micro-stutters, especially in the first few hours of play after launch or major patches.
- •It's reasonable to expect some frametime instability in the first few weeks after launch, common for small-to-mid-size studios while they polish performance through patches.
5. Known game issues
Possible stutter in the first few hours of play
As often happens with launches from small-to-mid-size studios, it's reasonable to expect occasional loading or shader-compilation hitches during the game's first zones, behavior that usually stabilizes after the first post-launch patches.
VRAM usage spikes at high settings
The combination of high-resolution organic textures with dense volumetric fog and point lighting at the maximum level could generate noticeable VRAM spikes on cards with 6GB or less, especially in the most visually dense zones.
Occasional framerate drops in fights with multiple possessable enemies
The shell-possession mechanic involves managing different models, animations, and simultaneous effects when several possessable bodies are on screen, which in very busy scenes could translate into occasional FPS drops depending on your hardware.
6. Frequently asked questions
Do I need a powerful GPU to play Mortal Shell 2?▾
What setting gives the most FPS with the least visual loss in Mortal Shell 2?▾
Does Mortal Shell 2 have DLSS, FSR, or XeSS?▾
Why does the game slow down in sanctuaries and rot zones?▾
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Calculate FPS for Mortal Shell 2 →Calculations based on consensus of technical sources and our own FPS model. More about our methodology →