How to Optimize Arc Raiders for Performance (2026) Optimization Guides

Quick Answers

Common questions answered at a glance

How much can I improve FPS?

Players typically see a 40–100% increase in FPS when combining appropriate in-game settings with adjustments to Windows and drivers. The largest performance gain will come from turning off RTXGI (ray tracing) since it is responsible for 50–80% of the performance decrease in benchmark tests of PC Optimized Settings.

Is Arc Raiders optimized well?

Will these changes break anything?

Why Arc Raiders May Not Be Running at Its Best

Although Arc Raiders is lighter than many other UE5 titles, this does not mean that it is resistant to common issues such as Windows service utilization, old drivers, and excessive default settings that consume FPS.There is also one key driver-related issue that you should be aware of prior to making any other adjustments.

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Driver 581.80 for NVIDIA has a known 50% FPS regression in Arc Raiders. This issue has been widely reported by the Arc Raiders community on Reddit, and Hone’s benchmarking team has verified it. If you are currently running this driver version, we recommend rolling back to either version 581.57 or 581.75 immediately. We suggest that you perform a clean uninstall using DDU (Display Driver Uninstaller) while in Safe Mode.

Step 1: Graphics Settings Ranked by FPS Improvement

This list ranks graphics settings from highest to lowest FPS improvement, based on benchmark data collected from PC Optimized Settings, GameLair, and community testing.RTXGI (Ray Tracing) — Off. 50–80% more FPS. The biggest performance adjustment in the game, RTXGI utilizes ray tracing to simulate global illumination in the game world. Although it is a stunning feature, the performance hit is extreme. Digital Foundry recommends that you at least reduce the RTXGI setting from Ultra to High to get a 24% improvement in FPS with no loss of visual quality. To achieve the highest possible FPS, disable it altogether.Post-Processing — Low. 15–17% more FPS. Controls bloom, color grading, depth of field, and motion blur. Despite the name, low post-processing still produces a visually appealing image and significantly reduces resource utilization.Shadows — Low. 9–20% more FPS. Because Arc Raiders uses a traditional shadow map (as confirmed by Digital Foundry) rather than Virtual Shadow Maps like other UE5 titles, shadows do not require as many resources to render; however, even at low settings, there is still a significant FPS improvement.Effects — Low. 5–10% more FPS. Reduces the number of particles generated by explosion, fire, smoke, and environment-based effects. Fewer visual elements competing for processing time means better performance during combat sequences.Foliage — Low. Only 2–4% more FPS, but this is a must-have for competitive players. Setting foliage to low removes bush and grass that enemies may take cover behind. This is both a performance advantage and a visibility advantage.Textures — Medium. Minimal FPS impact (Textures are primarily a VRAM concern). Medium is a visually acceptable setting and helps keep VRAM usage in check. Unless you have less than 4GB of video card memory, you should never have to adjust texture settings lower than medium.Anti-Aliasing — TAA or DLSS/FSR. Never choose None — the anti-aliasing in Arc Raiders is quite obvious due to the lighting style used in the game. TAA is the least demanding of the three options available for anti-aliasing. If you prefer to upscale, refer to Step 2.View Distance — Medium. Only a slight FPS improvement, but still allows you to see distant details necessary for situational awareness. Setting view distance to Low can make objects suddenly appear out of thin air when they get close to you, which can be disorienting.Motion Blur — Off. Always. Will hinder your ability to track targets and does not provide any additional competitive value.

Step 2: DLSS, FSR, and Upscaling

Arc Raiders supports DLSS, FSR, and XeSS. Based on Digital Foundry’s review, it appears that Embark went out of their way to implement a solid experience.DLSS Balanced is the best option for most players. Provides the best ratio of visual quality to FPS gain. The Quality setting in DLSS is almost indistinguishable from the native resolution at 1440p and higher.CNN vs. Transformer Rendering Model. The CNN rendering model is approximately 10–12% faster than the Transformer rendering model. According to PC Optimized Settings’ benchmarks, if your DLSS version offers a choice between the two rendering models (CNN or Transformer), choose CNN for slightly improved performance with minimal visual difference.Frame Generation — Off for Competitive Play. DLSS 3 Frame Generation makes your FPS counter look amazing, but introduces input lag. Fine for casual exploring, but turn it off for responsive gameplay in PvP.FSR performs well at 1440p and higher resolutions on AMD cards. Choose the Quality setting for FSR. FSR can produce somewhat soft images at 1080p — consider pairing with in-game sharpening if desired.

Step 3: Display and Framerate Settings

Display Mode — Fullscreen. Allows the game to exclusively manage your display to minimize input lag.VSync — Off. Introduces significant input lag. Turn off VSync both in-game and in your video card’s control panel.NVIDIA Reflex — On + Boost. Arc Raiders is natively compatible with NVIDIA Reflex. Turn on NVIDIA Reflex for decreased system latency. Every millisecond matters in extraction shooters.Frame Rate Limit — Set cap 3–5 FPS below your monitor’s refresh rate for consistent frame pacing or leave uncapped if your hardware consistently generates high FPS.

Step 4: Windows Settings That Reduce FPS

These apply to all games, but are particularly detrimental to UE5 titles like Arc Raiders where processor utilization is greater than average.Disable Memory Integrity (VBS). Memory Integrity is enabled by default on Windows 11. Reduces FPS by 5–10%. Independent testing shows up to 33% reduction in FPS depending on configuration. Settings → Privacy & Security → Windows Security → Device Security → Core Isolation → Off. Restart required.Disable Xbox Game Bar. Background overlay eats 200–400MB RAM and introduces 18–23ms of input latency. Settings → Gaming → Game Bar → Off.Turn on Game Mode. Turns priority to your game and halts background maintenance. Settings → Gaming → Game Mode → On.Ultimate Performance Power Plan. In Command Prompt as Administrator enter: powercfg -duplicatescheme e9a42b02-d5df-448d-aa00-03f14749eb61. Desktop computers only — laptops should select the High Performance plan.Remove Non-Essential Startup Programs. Task Manager → Startup Tab → Select and disable non-essential startup applications. Releases 1–4GB RAM.Enable HAGS. Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling frees 5–10% CPU power. Settings → System → Display → Graphics → Change Default Graphics Settings → On. Requires restart.

Step 5: NVIDIA and AMD Control Panel Settings

NVIDIA: Right-click the desktop → NVIDIA Control Panel → Manage 3D Settings → Program Settings → Add Arc Raiders.Power Management Mode — Prefer Maximum Performance. Prevents clock drops during gameplay.Low Latency Mode — On. “On” when using in-game Reflex. “Ultra” when not using Reflex.Shader Cache Size — 10 GB. UE5 games compile shaders on demand. The larger the shader cache size, the fewer times shaders need to be compiled during the game, resulting in fewer stutters.Texture Filtering Quality — High Performance. Visual loss of detail is negligible compared to the performance gain.Important: Verify your driver version. As previously mentioned, NVIDIA driver version 581.80 has a confirmed 50% FPS loss in Arc Raiders. Use versions 581.57 or 581.75 instead. On the AMD side, driver version 25.10.2 will crash — use version 25.9.1 or 25.9.2 instead.AMD: Anti-Lag → On, Surface Format Optimization → On, Tessellation → Off, Texture Filtering Quality → Performance, Wait for V-Sync → Off.

Step 6: Config File Adjustments

Config files for Arc Raiders can be found at: %LOCALAPPDATA%\ArcRaiders\Saved\Config\Windows\Engine.iniYou can add the following under [SystemSettings]:r.Tonemapper.Sharpen=0.8 — Adds in-game sharpening to help soften the appearance of upscaling. Values for r.Tonemapper.Sharpen that range from 0.5–1.0 are suitable.r.RHICmdUseThread=0 — Removes the RHI command thread. Some users have reported that disabling the RHI command thread results in smoother frametimes.Once edited, mark the file as Read-Only so that the game cannot overwrite your modifications.Launch options: Right-click Arc Raiders on Steam → Properties → Launch Options. Try -dx11 if experiencing DX12 crashes, and -norhithread to remove the RHI thread.

Step 7: Network and Ping

Connection quality directly affects the accuracy of hits in Arc Raiders — an extraction shooter.Use Ethernet. WiFi introduces jitter and packet loss. Spend $10 to replace your WiFi connection with Ethernet.Change DNS to Cloudflare (1.1.1.1) or Google (8.8.8.8). Faster server discovery during matchmaking.Stop any bandwidth-intensive applications. Streaming, cloud syncing, downloading — stop all of them prior to playing.

Step 8: Hardware-Specific Recommendations

Budget Build: All of the following settings should be set to Low. Turn RTXGI off, use DLSS/FSR in Performance mode, and use Textures on Low. Aim for 60 FPS.Mid-build (RTX 3060/RX 6600): Most settings should be set to Medium. Turn RTXGI off, use DLSS Balanced, and set Shadows to Low. Target 100–144 FPS at 1080p.High-end (RTX 4070+/RX 7800 XT+): Most settings should be set to High. Consider turning RTXGI on if you can maintain 60+ FPS, use DLSS Quality, and aim for 144+ FPS at 1440p.Laptop: Always plug-in. Use the High Performance power plan. Prop up the rear of your laptop to allow for airflow. Throttling begins at 90–95°C.Enable XMP/DOCP in BIOS. Your RAM is probably running at 2133MHz instead of its rated speed. By enabling the profile, you’ll enjoy 15–20% increased performance. Using two sticks of RAM in dual-channel is significantly faster than one.

Common Problems with Arc Raiders and Their Solutions

Stuttering in New Areas. While Arc Raiders avoids using Nanite and Lumen, UE5 still compiles shaders on demand. Set NVIDIA Shader Cache to 10GB and play a few matches to populate the cache.Massive FPS Drop After Driver Update. Almost certainly NVIDIA 581.80 (50% regression) or AMD 25.10.2 (crashes). Roll back using DDU in Safe Mode.Crashing on Launch. Verify game files through Steam. Attempt -dx11 launch option. Check your driver version (see Step 5).High CPU Utilization. UE5 is designed to be CPU-hungry. Stop background applications, disable Game Bar, and verify your power plan. If specific CPU cores reach 100%, attempt -norhithread in launch options.

The Short Version

Take 5 minutes? Then do these:1. RTXGI Off, Shadows Low, Post-Processing Low, Effects Low, Foliage Low2. DLSS Balanced (NVIDIA) or FSR Quality (AMD), Frame Generation Off3. Fullscreen, VSync Off, NVIDIA Reflex On + Boost4. Make sure you’re not using NVIDIA driver 581.80 and AMD 25.10.25. Disable Memory Integrity and Xbox Game Bar in Windows6. Enable XMP/DOCP in BIOSThe remainder of this guide is the remaining 20%.See you planetside.