How to improve FPS in Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection (PC)
Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection arrived on PC in October 2022 as Naughty Dog's first port in collaboration with Iron Galaxy, and its launch was rocky: massive crashes forced a delay of the planned simultaneous console release and several stability patches followed in the weeks after. Once polished, the game relies on a proprietary engine well-optimized for asset streaming, with ray-traced reflections that look especially striking in the water and snow sequences featuring Nathan Drake and Chloe Frazer. This guide covers the settings with the biggest performance impact, how to get the most out of DLSS/FSR without losing sharpness, and the fixes for the technical issues that still affect some configurations.
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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 +46% free FPS.
Ray Tracing Quality (Reflections)
Ray tracing only affects reflections on water, glass, and snow surfaces. Lowering it from Ultra/High to Medium noticeably reduces GPU load without the reflections looking flat, since the game still falls back on screen-space reflections everywhere else.
Vegetation Density
Jungle and forest environments (especially in the Uncharted 4 arc) load a large amount of simulated vegetation with wind physics. Reducing density from Ultra to Medium frees up CPU and GPU without it being noticeable at a normal pace of play.
Shadow Quality
Dynamic shadows in sunny exteriors are demanding, especially in sequences with heavy foliage. Lowering from Ultra to High slightly softens shadow edges but keeps good overall definition.
LOD Quality
Controls the distance at which higher-detail models and textures load. On Ultra, asset streaming demands more VRAM bandwidth, which can cause micro-stutter in heavily scripted cinematic sequences if the card is short on memory.
Depth of Field
The cinematic background blur has a non-negligible rendering cost during exploration and climbing sections. Disabling it gives a sharper image at all times and frees up some performance.
2. Medium impact settings
Here's where most of the FPS is. Minor visual impact, major performance impact.
Texture Resolution
Lowering from Ultra to High noticeably reduces VRAM consumption, which is key on 6-8GB GPUs to avoid the memory-saturation hangs the game suffered especially at launch. The visual impact is only noticeable in close-ups of very detailed textures.
Volumetric Lighting Quality
Shafts of light through foliage and fog in caves and temples are costly to calculate. Lowering to Medium keeps the atmospheric mood without the full Ultra rendering cost.
Ambient Occlusion
Softens contact shadows between objects. Reducing from Ultra to Medium saves frames without losing too much depth in temple and ruin interiors.
Screen Space Reflections
Complements ray tracing on surfaces not covered by RT. Lowering it reduces GPU load in scenes with many reflective surfaces, like Madagascar's wet interiors.
Particle Effects Quality
The explosions, smoke, and dust from heavily scripted action sequences generate spikes of simultaneous particles. Lowering from Ultra to High avoids sudden FPS drops in those moments without affecting the rest of the game.
3. Upscaling (DLSS / FSR / XeSS)
The biggest gain in the game. Compatible with almost any modern GPU.
NVIDIA DLSS
+35% FPSNative support since the PC launch. In Quality mode it offers the best sharpness/performance ratio, especially useful at 1440p and 4K. In Balanced or Performance the game remains very playable on mid-range RTX GPUs, though dense foliage may show some ghosting in fast movement.
AMD FSR
+28% FPSAvailable alternative for non-NVIDIA GPUs. It works reasonably well in Quality, though it shows more edge aliasing on vegetation and hair than DLSS at the same internal resolution. Recommended on Quality or Balanced to keep exterior scenes sharp.
Native Dynamic Resolution Scaling
+15% FPSA proprietary engine feature that adjusts the internal resolution in real time to maintain an FPS target. Useful as a safety net if DLSS/FSR isn't available or you prefer to avoid the extra smoothing of an AI upscaler.
4. Tips by GPU
NVIDIA
- •Update to the Game Ready drivers released after the stability patches of late 2022; versions prior to the first hotfix reported the most crashes.
- •Enable DLSS in Quality mode before touching any other setting: on RTX GPUs it's the most efficient performance boost without sacrificing sharpness.
- •On cards with 6-8GB of VRAM (like the RTX 3050 or 3060), lower Texture Quality to High to avoid the hangs associated with memory saturation during asset streaming.
AMD
- •Use FSR 2 in Quality mode as a first performance measure; the FPS gain compensates for the slight loss of sharpness in vegetation.
- •Update to the latest Adrenalin drivers; RX 6000 users reported notable stability improvements after the game's late-2022 patches.
- •If you suffer micro-stutter in action sequences, reduce LOD Quality to ease pressure on VRAM, since mid-range AMD GPUs usually carry less dedicated memory than their NVIDIA equivalents.
Sistema
- •Verify the game is updated to the latest version: the patches following the October 2022 launch fixed most of the crashes reported at startup and during chapter transitions.
- •Install the game on an SSD (preferably NVMe); the asset streaming system during heavily scripted cinematic sequences is very sensitive to disk read speed, and on HDD it can cause aggressive pop-in or stutter.
- •Close third-party overlays (Discord, GeForce Experience, MSI Afterburner) if you experience random crashes; several community reports link these hangs to conflicts with overlaid capture software.
5. Known game issues
Massive crashes at the PC launch (October 2022)
The original port suffered such a high crash rate that Naughty Dog and Iron Galaxy delayed the planned simultaneous release and published several stability patches over the following weeks. If you're using a very old copy or Steam hasn't updated the game, this is the most likely cause of frequent hangs at startup or when changing chapters.
Estado: Stability patches, October-November 2022
Hangs from VRAM saturation on 6-8GB GPUs
With Texture Quality on Ultra, the game can exceed the VRAM available on mid-range cards during sequences with heavier asset streaming, causing severe framerate drops or unexpected crashes. Lowering texture quality to High fixes most cases.
Micro-stuttering in heavily scripted cinematic transitions
In scripted action sequences (collapses, chases), aggressive asset streaming can cause occasional stutter, especially on HDD installations or with LOD Quality maxed out. It's mitigated by using an SSD and lowering LOD/Textures.
6. Frequently asked questions
Does Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection still crash on PC in 2026?▾
What's the difference between DLSS and FSR in this game?▾
Is it worth enabling ray tracing on reflections?▾
How much VRAM do I need to play without issues?▾
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Calculate FPS for Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection →Calculations based on consensus of technical sources and our own FPS model. More about our methodology →