How to improve FPS in The Last of Us Part II Remastered (PC)
The Last of Us Part II Remastered arrived on PC in January 2024 having done its homework: Naughty Dog learned from the serious shader compilation and stuttering problems that plagued Part I's 2023 launch, and implemented a much more robust shader precompilation step from day one. The result is a notably more stable port, though it keeps the same technical demands: characters with strand-based hair rendering, extremely detailed facial animation, and lush, dense vegetation in Seattle's outdoor areas. It's a linear, tightly directed game, which allows for aggressive LOD optimizations without sacrificing the narrative experience. In this article we go through the settings with the biggest performance impact, from the simplest to the most demanding, so you can enjoy Ellie and Abby at the FPS your rig can deliver.
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 +15% free FPS.
Depth of Field
Depth of field blur adds a constant post-processing cost with little payoff in a game that's already very cinematically directed. Disabling it also improves overall image sharpness in combat.
Motion Blur
Naughty Dog's engine motion blur is subtle but adds a small render cost every frame. Its visual impact is minimal compared to the clarity gained by disabling it, especially in melee combat.
Chromatic Aberration
A purely aesthetic effect that distorts the edges of the image and adds practically nothing to gameplay. Its cost is low but disabling it is free in terms of perceived quality.
Film Grain
Film grain adds texture to the image to reinforce the game's somber tone, but on screens with video compression or streaming it can generate unnecessary visual noise with no significant real performance cost.
Shadow Quality
Dynamic shadows in Seattle's outdoor areas, with their dense foliage, are among the most costly tasks for the GPU. Dropping from Ultra to Medium noticeably reduces distant shadow resolution without affecting interior and close-combat scenes much.
2. Medium impact settings
Here's where most of the FPS is. Minor visual impact, major performance impact.
Foliage Density
This is probably the game's most sensitive setting: the lush vegetation in Seattle's outdoor zones saturates the GPU simulating grass and branches moving in the wind. Dropping it to Medium significantly trims outdoor load spikes without turning the scenery into an artificial wasteland.
Character/Model Quality
This slider controls the level of detail in strand-based hair rendering and character facial geometry, two of the game's technical hallmarks. Dropping from Ultra to High keeps faces very convincing in cutscenes while freeing up a decent performance margin in gameplay.
Texture Quality
Texture quality is directly tied to VRAM usage from asset streaming. On GPUs with 8GB or less, dropping from Ultra to High avoids the texture-reload hitching that appears when quickly turning the camera in dense zones.
Ambient Occlusion
Ambient occlusion reinforces contrast in the dark corners of abandoned interiors, but its cost grows exponentially with the outdoor vegetation's geometric density. Medium preserves much of the visual contrast at a much lower performance cost.
Anti-Aliasing (TAA/DLAA)
DLAA offers the best possible image sharpness on RTX GPUs, but at a higher performance cost than standard TAA. On performance-tuned rigs, TAA remains a solid option without the annoying aliasing noise in foliage.
3. Upscaling (DLSS / FSR / XeSS)
The biggest gain in the game. Compatible with almost any modern GPU.
NVIDIA DLSS 3
+45% FPSDLSS 3 includes Frame Generation on RTX 40 GPUs, effectively doubling perceived framerate in exploration scenes. On RTX 20/30, DLSS scaling alone already offers a substantial gain with excellent image quality thanks to temporal reconstruction.
AMD FSR 2
+35% FPSFSR 2 works on any modern GPU, including NVIDIA and Intel, and offers a notable performance gain. Image quality is somewhat below DLSS in handling fine foliage, where slight reconstruction artifacts can appear in motion.
Intel XeSS
+30% FPSXeSS delivers solid results both on Intel Arc GPUs, where it leverages dedicated hardware acceleration, and on GPUs from other brands via its general compatibility path. It's a valid alternative when FSR 2 shows more visual noise in dense vegetation.
4. Tips by GPU
NVIDIA
- •Enable DLSS Frame Generation on RTX 40 to smooth out exploration through Seattle's outdoor areas without sacrificing image sharpness.
- •Use Reflex if your GPU supports it to reduce latency in the most chaotic melee fights.
- •Keep Game Ready drivers updated; NVIDIA released specific optimization profiles after the game's launch patch.
AMD
- •Enable Anti-Lag in the Adrenalin panel to offset the latency added by FSR 2 in fast action scenes.
- •Check that the GPU's memory mode is set to its default profile; aggressive texture streaming benefits from stable bandwidth.
- •On cards with 8GB of VRAM, prioritize lowering Texture Quality before Foliage Density to avoid memory bottlenecks.
Sistema
- •Install the game on an SSD (preferably NVMe) to minimize streaming hitches when moving quickly through dense outdoor areas.
- •Let the first-launch shader precompilation step finish without interruption; it's the key reason this port avoids the stuttering that plagued Part I.
- •Close background applications using VRAM (browsers, overlays) if your GPU has 8GB or less, given the memory appetite of texture streaming.
5. Known game issues
VRAM usage spikes on 8GB configurations
On GPUs with 8GB of VRAM and high Texture Quality settings, some users report occasional framerate drops when entering new zones due to video memory saturation. Dropping Texture Quality to High or Medium usually resolves it.
Shader compilation on first launch
Although far better managed than in Part I, the first time the game launches after installing or updating drivers there's a shader precompilation process that can take several minutes. This is normal and prevents stuttering during subsequent gameplay.
CPU bottlenecks in scenes with lots of animated foliage
On older processors (below 6 cores), vegetation physics simulation in dense outdoor areas can cause framerate drops even with a powerful GPU and plenty of VRAM headroom.
Estado: January 2024 patch
6. Frequently asked questions
Does The Last of Us Part II Remastered have the same launch problems as Part I?▾
How much VRAM do I need to play comfortably?▾
Which setting has the biggest performance impact in Seattle's outdoor areas?▾
Is it worth enabling DLAA instead of DLSS?▾
Want to know exactly how many FPS YOUR PC will get?
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Calculate FPS for The Last of Us Part II Remastered →Calculations based on consensus of technical sources and our own FPS model. More about our methodology →