How to improve FPS in Sea of Thieves (PC)
Sea of Thieves uses a proprietary Rare engine whose biggest resource consumer isn't geometry or textures (the cel-shaded style keeps assets relatively light), but real-time water simulation: the ocean is calculated with real wave physics, not animated textures or cheap normal maps. This means performance drops noticeably during storms, Kraken/megalodon events, and Tall Tales with adverse weather, moments when the water mesh deforms with much higher resolution and frequency. On top of that, naval combat with several ships, cannon fire, and simultaneous explosions generates CPU spikes from physics and network sync.
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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 +43% free FPS.
Water Draw Distance
Draw distance in Sea of Thieves doesn't just affect fog and distant islands: it also determines how many segments of the ocean mesh get simulated with full physics around the ship. Lowering it from Far to Medium reduces load significantly.
Shadow Quality
The dynamic shadows from sails, masts, and vegetation on islands generate a fair amount of load on mid-range GPUs. Lowering to Medium softens edges but is barely noticeable during regular gameplay.
Screen Space Reflections (SSR)
Full-screen reflections on the water are responsible for a large part of the ocean's cinematic sheen, but also for a significant portion of the rendering cost, especially during storms where the surface reflects rays and lightning.
Anti-Aliasing
High-quality TAA smooths the edges of sails and rigging better, but at Medium the visual impact is minimal at 1080p/1440p while recovering a useful FPS margin on limited GPUs.
Vegetation & Island Density
Reduces the density of grass, palm trees, and small objects on islands, which are rendered with simple wind physics. In naval combat near shore this setting avoids micro-stutter.
2. Medium impact settings
Here's where most of the FPS is. Minor visual impact, major performance impact.
Render Resolution
Sea of Thieves doesn't expose a direct slider to lower the fidelity of the ocean mesh: overall render resolution is the most effective indirect lever, since it proportionally reduces the cost of calculating and shading every point of the water surface.
Cloud Quality & Volumetric Weather
Rare's volumetric cloud system, much praised visually, is also responsible for framerate drops during storms and the day-night cycle when there are many moving cloud layers.
Foam & Spray Density
The foam generated by the ship's bow and the splashes from cutting through waves use a particle system directly tied to the water physics simulation. In naval combat with several ships moving fast, this multiplies.
Particle Effects
Combat with 3-4 ships firing cannonballs, barrel fuses, and simultaneous gunpowder explosions generates one of the biggest punctual load spikes in the game. Lowering particle quality reduces that spike without affecting normal sailing.
Global Illumination
Indirect lighting affects how sunlight and moonlight bounce off the water surface and the sails, an effect central to the game's visual identity but costly. Lowering it to Medium reduces shading cost without losing the read of the time of day.
3. Upscaling (DLSS / FSR / XeSS)
The biggest gain in the game. Compatible with almost any modern GPU.
NVIDIA DLSS
+20% FPSSea of Thieves has had native NVIDIA DLSS (Super Resolution) support since 2023, with good image quality given the game's cel-shaded style, which hides typical reconstruction artifacts well. It's the recommended option on RTX GPUs.
AMD FSR 2
+18% FPSFSR 2 is available natively and works well on any GPU, including NVIDIA and Intel. It's the recommended alternative if you don't have an RTX, with somewhat more sharpness loss than DLSS especially in the detail of moving water.
Intel XeSS
+15% FPSIntel XeSS is also natively supported. On non-Intel GPUs it uses the DP4a mode (less optimal than the XMX mode on Arc), so DLSS or FSR are usually preferable unless you're playing on an Arc GPU.
4. Tips by GPU
NVIDIA
- •Enable DLSS in Quality or Balanced mode before touching graphics settings: it's the performance improvement with the lowest visual cost available in this game.
- •In the NVIDIA Control Panel, force the power mode to Maximum Performance to avoid clock drops during long storms.
- •Enable Reflex if your GPU supports it: it reduces input latency in naval combat with many ships, where frametime is more irregular due to physics and particle spikes.
AMD
- •Use FSR 2 in Quality mode as your first optimization option; the game's cel-shaded style disguises FSR's reconstruction artifacts well.
- •In AMD Adrenalin, enable Radeon Anti-Lag during naval combat to offset the frametime spikes generated by simultaneous cannon fire and explosions.
- •Check that Radeon Chill isn't aggressively limiting FPS during calm sailing, since it can be mistaken for low-action scenes despite the active water simulation running in the background.
Sistema
- •Sea of Thieves depends more on the CPU than its aesthetic suggests: water physics, ship simulation, and network sync in sessions with many visible players/ships load CPU cores constantly.
- •Install the game on SSD: loading times between fast travel and respawns benefit noticeably, and island textures load with no visible popping while sailing fast.
- •Close third-party overlays during Kraken events or storms: these moments already generate CPU/GPU spikes and an active overlay can cause additional micro-stutter right at the worst moment.
5. Known game issues
Severe FPS drops during storms and Kraken events
It's the most-reported performance issue in the game: when the ocean mesh switches to calculating large waves with full physics, many mid-range GPU systems suffer drops of 15-25 FPS compared to calm sailing. It's not a one-off bug but a direct consequence of the real-time water simulation's design.
Micro-stutter in naval combat with 3+ ships
When several ships firing cannonballs converge with impact/sinking physics active at once, frametime becomes irregular from the simultaneous load of physics, particles, and network sync, more noticeable on 4-6 core CPUs.
High VRAM usage at high resolutions with reflections enabled
With Screen Space Reflections on High and 1440p/4K resolution, VRAM usage can approach the limits of 6-8GB cards, causing stuttering from texture swapping in long sessions.
Estado: Partially mitigated in the 2024 engine optimization updates, though the consumption pattern persists on limited hardware.
6. Frequently asked questions
Why do my FPS drop only when there's a storm or the Kraken appears?▾
Is it worth disabling water reflections (SSR) to gain FPS?▾
Are DLSS or FSR worth it in a cel-shaded game like this one?▾
Why does the game freeze for an instant during big naval combats?▾
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Calculate FPS for Sea of Thieves →Calculations based on consensus of technical sources and our own FPS model. More about our methodology →