How to improve FPS in Zenless Zone Zero (PC)
Zenless Zone Zero is HoYoverse's latest bet, the creators of Genshin Impact, and it transplants their gacha formula into an urban hack-and-slash set in the city of New Eridu. The Unreal Engine 4 engine drives a very stylized visual style, with fast combat, flashy combos, and particle effects that flood the screen during chain finishers. Since it's designed to also run on mobile and consoles, the game is tremendously flexible on PC: almost any mid-range rig can hold high framerates. Even so, there's real room for optimization in the most effects-heavy combat scenes and in the stutters caused by shader compilation after each update. This guide covers which settings to tweak to get the most out of your hardware 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.
Effects Quality
Particle effects are the main bottleneck in ZZZ during combos and Chain Attacks. Dropping to Medium drastically reduces the number of overlapping particles on screen without combat losing clarity, since dodge and parry indicators remain perfectly visible.
Shadow Quality
The dynamic shadows of characters and New Eridu's urban environment have a disproportionate cost relative to their visual impact. On Medium, correct contact shadows are kept for characters while detail shading on distant buildings is trimmed.
Bloom
Bloom accentuates New Eridu's neon and lights, but it also saturates the screen during finishers that already have very bright effects. Disabling it frees up some performance and, according to many players, improves the readability of enemy attacks in the most chaotic fights.
Render Resolution
Slightly reducing the render resolution below 100% native, combined with DLSS or FSR in Quality mode, recovers a noticeable margin of frames. Thanks to the game's cel-shaded art style, the sharpness loss is much less obvious than in photorealistic titles.
Anti-Aliasing
TAA at its highest level smooths edges at a rendering cost that isn't always justified in a game with such a distinct color palette. On Medium, edge aliasing on characters remains minimal thanks to the art design itself.
2. Medium impact settings
Here's where most of the FPS is. Minor visual impact, major performance impact.
Character Quality
The detail of Proxy and enemy models is a hallmark of the game, so dropping from Ultra to High is barely noticeable in combat but frees up some GPU headroom. Dropping it further than High does start to show in cutscenes and the social hub.
Environment Quality
New Eridu's districts have quite a bit of geometry and urban texture density, especially in commercial areas. Dropping this to Medium reduces background detail and the draw distance of decorative elements without affecting combat zones, which tend to be more enclosed.
Texture Quality
Textures in ZZZ aren't especially VRAM-heavy compared to other engines, so keeping them on High is usually safe even on GPUs with 6GB. Only on cards with very limited VRAM is it worth dropping to Medium to avoid microstutters when loading new zones.
Motion Blur
Motion blur adds an unnecessary rendering cost in a fast-action game where the clarity of enemy patterns is key. Disabling it not only frees up performance but improves the readability of combos and dodges.
Global Illumination Quality
Unreal Engine's global illumination dynamically lights New Eridu's streets and interiors, at a notable cost on mid-range GPUs. On Medium some subtlety in light bounces is lost, but the nighttime urban atmosphere still works well.
3. Upscaling (DLSS / FSR / XeSS)
The biggest gain in the game. Compatible with almost any modern GPU.
NVIDIA DLSS
+32% FPSZZZ natively integrates DLSS 2 and it works especially well thanks to the game's cel-shaded style, which hides typical upscaling artifacts very well. In Quality mode it's practically indistinguishable from native rendering even in scenes with lots of particle effects.
AMD FSR
+26% FPSFSR 2 is available for any GPU, including NVIDIA and Intel, and offers a solid performance gain. It's somewhat more prone to showing ghosting on the bright effects of Chain Attacks than DLSS, but in Quality mode it's still a very recommendable option.
4. Tips by GPU
NVIDIA
- •Enable DLSS in Quality mode before touching anything else: it's the game's cleanest visual gain.
- •Use Reflex if your GPU supports it to reduce input latency in ZZZ's fast combat.
- •RTX-series GPUs with 8GB or more of VRAM can keep Texture Quality on High with no issue.
AMD
- •FSR 2 in Quality mode is the best performance-to-quality ratio on mid-range Radeon cards.
- •Update to the latest Adrenalin drivers, since HoYoverse frequently ships patches that affect performance.
- •If you notice ghosting on combat effects with FSR, try dropping to Balanced mode instead of raising the internal resolution.
Sistema
- •Install the game on an SSD: loading between districts and fights is frequent and benefits a lot from low access times.
- •Wait a few minutes after each update before entering combat to let background shader recompilation finish.
- •Close third-party overlays (Discord, browsers) since the game runs in borderless windowed mode by default and competes for CPU resources.
5. Known game issues
Stuttering after content updates
As with other HoYoverse titles, every major patch forces shader recompilation the first time certain effects or scenes load, causing occasional microcuts during the first sessions after the update.
FPS drops in Chain Attacks with several characters on screen
When several Chain Attacks are chained together with different characters' overlapping effects, some configurations with Effects Quality on Ultra suffer occasional framerate drops that don't match the rest of the fight.
High VRAM usage in borderless windowed mode
The default borderless windowed mode can generate slightly higher VRAM usage than exclusive fullscreen on systems with little video memory, especially when switching between the game and other applications.
6. Frequently asked questions
Do I need a powerful GPU to play Zenless Zone Zero?▾
Is it worth enabling DLSS or FSR in this game?▾
Why do I notice stutters right after an update?▾
Which setting should I lower first if my PC is struggling?▾
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Calculate FPS for Zenless Zone Zero →Calculations based on consensus of technical sources and our own FPS model. More about our methodology →