How to improve FPS in War Thunder (PC)
War Thunder is Gaijin Entertainment's free-to-play vehicular combat simulator, with thousands of operational planes, tanks, helicopters, and ships spread across battles of up to 32 players. It runs on the Dagor Engine, a proprietary engine Gaijin has been polishing since 2012, capable of scaling from old integrated graphics up to high-end rigs with ray tracing. The real demand isn't in static graphics, but in vehicle physics simulation, streaming of huge maps (some over 100 km² in Air Simulator mode), and massive ground battles where dozens of tanks, smoke, explosions, and destructible-physics impacts saturate the CPU. This guide covers the settings that actually move the needle for FPS and frametime stability, in Arcade as well as Realistic and Simulator modes.
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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 +41% free FPS.
Shadow Quality
Dynamic shadows from vehicles and foliage are among the most expensive settings in the Dagor Engine, especially on ground maps with heavy vegetation. Dropping to Low is barely noticeable in combat but frees up GPU consistently.
Foliage/Grass Quality
Grass and shrub density on maps like Kursk, Normandy, or El Alamein hurts performance a lot due to pixel fill and overdraw. Reducing it also improves tactical visibility of camouflaged enemy vehicles, something many PvP players do on purpose.
Terrain Shadow Resolution
Terrain's own shadows on large maps with elevation changes don't add as much visible detail as they cost in rendering. Medium is the sweet spot between sharpness and performance.
Water Reflections
On naval and coastal maps, high-quality water reflections are expensive to render and barely influence ground or air combat gameplay.
Post-Processing Effects (SSAO/Bloom)
Screen-space ambient occlusion and bloom add GPU load without improving battlefield readability; many players disable them too for a "cleaner" image while aiming.
2. Medium impact settings
Here's where most of the FPS is. Minor visual impact, major performance impact.
Texture Quality
With limited VRAM (4-6 GB), dropping from High/Ultra to Medium avoids micro-stutters from texture streaming without sacrificing too much detail on vehicle models.
Object Draw Distance
Reduces how many secondary objects (distant buildings, decoration, distant vegetation) are rendered on large Air Simulator and Ground Battle maps, with a direct CPU impact from the higher number of draw calls.
Anti-Aliasing
A debated setting: Air Simulator pilots prefer to keep it high to spot distant aircraft, while tank players lower it without issue.
Effects Quality (smoke, explosions, particles)
Switching from MSAA (very costly in the Dagor Engine) to FXAA notably reduces GPU load at the cost of slightly less crisp edges.
Tessellation / Terrain Detail
Artillery and burning-vehicle smoke is one of the biggest causes of FPS drops in advanced ground battles, when multiple fires and explosions happen simultaneously on screen.
3. Upscaling (DLSS / FSR / XeSS)
The biggest gain in the game. Compatible with almost any modern GPU.
NVIDIA DLSS (Super Resolution)
+35% FPSWar Thunder has included DLSS since 2021, available in most game modes. It's the most effective upscaling option for RTX 20 series and up, with a notable FPS jump at 1440p and 4K with no perceptible quality loss in Quality mode.
AMD FSR (Super Resolution)
+25% FPSFSR 2 is integrated and works on any modern GPU, not just AMD. The result is somewhat less sharp than DLSS in fast motion (especially in air combat), but it's still a real performance gain for AMD and Intel cards.
Intel XeSS
+20% FPSMore recent and less polished support than DLSS/FSR; works correctly on Intel Arc GPUs and reasonably on other cards, but it isn't the priority option if your GPU supports DLSS.
Dynamic Resolution (native)
+15% FPSFor those who prefer not to use AI upscaling, War Thunder offers a classic dynamic resolution scaling that lowers internal resolution during high-load moments, useful on very old hardware without DLSS/FSR/XeSS support.
4. Tips by GPU
NVIDIA
- •Enable DLSS in Quality mode before touching shadow or foliage settings: on RTX it usually gives more FPS than any graphics detail reduction.
- •Use NVIDIA's Low Latency Filter (Reflex isn't natively implemented, but the control panel's Low Latency Mode helps) to reduce input lag in close air combat.
- •On GPUs with 8 GB of VRAM or more, leave textures on High: War Thunder isn't especially VRAM-demanding compared to other current games.
AMD
- •Enable FSR 2 instead of raising native render resolution; the FPS savings are greater than any combination of individual graphics settings.
- •Radeon Anti-Lag notably reduces latency in close-range tank combat, where quick reaction matters more than in aviation.
- •Update to the latest Adrenalin drivers: Gaijin publishes frequent patches and some have introduced performance regressions on AMD cards that get fixed with updated drivers.
Intel
- •On Arc, enable XeSS instead of FSR for better image quality at low and medium resolutions.
- •Arc drivers keep improving Dagor Engine performance with every update; check that you have the latest version before adjusting graphics.
- •With recent-generation Intel CPUs (12th+), E-core scheduling can affect frametime in large battles; pin affinity to the P-cores if you notice micro-stutters.
Sistema
- •War Thunder is CPU-sensitive in RB Ground Battles with many players: a processor with good per-core performance (not necessarily many cores) makes more of a difference than the GPU in those matches.
- •Install the game on an SSD (preferably NVMe): streaming of large Air Simulator maps can cause texture pop-in and micro-stutters on HDD.
- •Close the Steam overlay and other overlays (Discord, GeForce Experience) if you notice punctual frametime drops; the Dagor Engine is sensitive to third-party rendering hooks.
5. Known game issues
FPS drops from smoke and destructible physics in advanced Ground Battles
In high-tier matches with many tanks, the accumulation of artillery smoke, destroyed vehicles, and deformable terrain physics generates noticeable frametime drops that affect the CPU more than the GPU, regardless of the graphics hardware used.
Micro-stutters when loading new sectors on large Air Simulator maps
Air Simulator maps, some over 100x100 km, load geometry and textures progressively; on mechanical drives or with little free RAM this causes noticeable hitches when flying over unvisited areas.
Performance regressions after major updates
Gaijin publishes large seasonal Major Updates that occasionally introduce temporary performance regressions on certain hardware combinations, particularly AMD GPUs, until hotfixes arrive in the following weeks.
Estado: Partially fixed in hotfixes following each Major Update; it's advisable to wait 1-2 patches after a big release before evaluating final performance.
6. Frequently asked questions
Why does War Thunder give me low FPS in Ground Battles if my GPU is powerful?▾
Is it worth enabling DLSS or FSR in War Thunder if I already have good FPS?▾
Why do some players lower grass and shadows even with a powerful PC?▾
Can War Thunder run well on an old or very low-end PC?▾
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Calculate FPS for War Thunder →Calculations based on consensus of technical sources and our own FPS model. More about our methodology →