How to improve FPS in Wuthering Waves (PC)
Wuthering Waves is Kuro Games' open-world ARPG competing directly with Genshin Impact and Zenless Zone Zero, but with much more frantic combat built around dodges, counters, and team combos. Having been designed from the ground up to run on mid-range mobile phones, its PC version turns out very forgiving performance-wise: almost any rig with at least a dedicated GPU can run the game at a stable 60 FPS. Even so, character skill effects, dynamic weather, and open-world lighting can make the GPU sweat if you push everything to Ultra. On top of that, being a live-service game with frequent patches, there's a shader-recompilation stuttering pattern worth knowing about before sitting down to play after each update. This guide covers the settings that actually matter for squeezing out more FPS without sacrificing combat readability.
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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 +51% free FPS.
Render Scale / Resolution
Wuthering Waves' engine lets you decouple render resolution from display resolution via a percentage slider. Dropping from 100 to 85 noticeably reduces pixel load without it being too noticeable on a normal-sized screen, especially if you then enable an upscaler.
Shadow Quality
Dynamic shadows for the open world and characters are among the most expensive tasks for the GPU in this hybrid UE4/5 engine. Dropping to Medium softens the edges but keeps the overall scene volume, and the visual impact is barely noticeable during fast combat.
Weather Effects
Rain, fog particles, and dynamic weather effects in zones like Jinzhou or Huanglong add constant particle simulation even when you're not looking directly at them. Reducing them frees up considerable GPU headroom outdoors without affecting combat.
Motion Blur
The engine's motion blur adds a small post-processing cost and, given the pace of dodges and counters in combat, tends to blur the readability of incoming hits. Disabling it improves both performance and visual clarity in combat.
Bloom
Exaggerated bloom on Wuthering Waves' elemental skill effects can saturate the screen in fights with several active characters. Lowering it slightly reduces post-processing load and improves the readability of danger indicators in combat.
2. Medium impact settings
Here's where most of the FPS is. Minor visual impact, major performance impact.
Character Quality
This setting controls mesh detail, outfit textures, and hair/cloth effects for playable characters and NPCs. Since the game keeps the camera very close to characters constantly, dropping from Ultra to Medium is noticeable, but it frees up plenty of performance in fights with several allies on screen.
Effects Quality
Ultimate abilities and team combos generate layers of particles and VFX shaders that pile up fast in group fights. On Ultra, some character combos like elemental-damage DPS units can generate noticeable framerate drops that stand out much more than the rest of the game.
Environment Quality
Controls the density of vegetation, terrain texture detail, and object draw distance in the open world. Dropping from Ultra to Medium reduces asset streaming work when crossing the map on horseback or gliding, without the landscape losing its visual identity.
Anti-Aliasing
The engine's TAA-based AA helps smooth jagged edges on character meshes and vegetation, but on Ultra it adds a notable render cost. Dropping to High keeps a clean image without the excessive ghosting that shows up in more aggressive settings on this hybrid UE4/5 engine.
3. Upscaling (DLSS / FSR / XeSS)
The biggest gain in the game. Compatible with almost any modern GPU.
AMD FSR
+22% FPSWuthering Waves integrates native FSR in the graphics menu, functional on any GPU regardless of brand. In Balanced mode it offers a good FPS jump with moderate sharpness loss, especially noticeable in hair and cloth textures at mid distance.
4. Tips by GPU
NVIDIA
- •Enable Reflex Low Latency from the NVIDIA panel if you notice input lag in perfect-dodge timing.
- •Use the NVIDIA Control Panel's sharpening filter to offset the softening FSR introduces in Balanced or Performance mode.
- •Keep Game Ready drivers updated: Kuro Games ships patches quite frequently, and shader compilation stutter improves noticeably with recent drivers.
AMD
- •FSR runs natively with no compatibility cost on Radeon GPUs, making it the most straightforward upscaling option for this card.
- •Enable Radeon Anti-Lag in the driver to reduce input latency during dodge-counter combos.
- •Check that Radeon Chill or power-saving profiles aren't artificially limiting framerate in menus and zone loading.
Sistema
- •Install the game on an SSD (preferably NVMe): open-world zones stream textures constantly, and a slow disk causes visible pop-in.
- •Close third-party overlays (Discord, GeForce Experience, capture tools) that might interfere with the anti-cheat or the game's window compositor.
- •After each update, go to a quiet zone and let the game recompile shaders for a few minutes before jumping into combat to avoid stutter spikes.
5. Known game issues
Stuttering from shader recompilation after patches
Every major Wuthering Waves update forces the engine to recompile shaders in the background, causing microcuts especially noticeable in the first sessions after the patch. The issue eases after playing a few minutes in low-load zones before entering demanding combat.
FPS drops in team fights with multiple ultimates
When several team characters trigger ultimate abilities almost simultaneously, the buildup of particle effects on Ultra can cause noticeable framerate drops even on high-end GPUs. Dropping Effects Quality to Medium directly mitigates the problem.
High VRAM usage at high resolutions with Ultra textures
At 1440p or 4K with Character and Environment Quality on Ultra, the game can approach the VRAM limit on cards with 6GB or less, causing stutter from texture swapping. Dropping these two options one notch resolves the issue in most cases.
6. Frequently asked questions
Does Wuthering Waves support DLSS?▾
Which setting should I lower first if my PC is struggling?▾
Why does the game have FPS dips right after an update?▾
Do I need a powerful GPU to play Wuthering Waves well?▾
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Calculate FPS for Wuthering Waves →Calculations based on consensus of technical sources and our own FPS model. More about our methodology →