Ah… I’ve finally found a reason to smash my old controller into bits while being consumed by rage and despair. That’s what souls games are all about. And Elden Ring is a testament to the fact that they can still get tougher over the years. So, after a lot of painful hours and a few aching fingers, I’ve finally brought the best Elden Ring settings guide for PC.
How is Elden Ring’s Optimization on PC?
With my melodrama aside, Elden Ring is undoubtedly one of the most anticipated games of 2022. Fans have long waited for the dynamic duo Hidetaka Miyazaki and George R.R. Martin to deliver their masterpiece. And they did! Apart from one thing, the performance.
While the game’s spectacular visuals were a sight to behold, its lackluster performance was sadly spoiling the fun a little too often. I’ve experienced constant FPS drops, stuttering, a few graphical glitches, and just lower FPS across the board. Even showcasing (prior launch) that the game could easily run on lower-end systems, it sadly gave high-end hardware a tough time as its gameplay did to the players.
However, Namco has acknowledged the performance problems in Elden Ring and has promised fixes in the upcoming updates. Until that happens, we’ll help you enjoy the game with decent FPS through these best Elden PC Ring settings.
Our Elden Ring settings guide will be divided into 4 sections:
Each optimization can help you enjoy the game at locked 60 FPS while experiencing the pain of dying from the same boss 50 times.
Before we start using the best Elden Ring settings to improve performance, you’ll need to confirm if you’re PC is up to the task. To do that, check out the system requirements provided by Bandai Namco. This will help you gauge how well your PC can run Elden Ring, or if it can run it at all.
After reading these system requirements, you might feel confident in your PC’s ability to run Elden Ring. And yes, these got me too. But no be fooled as having a PC twice as powerful as the recommended specs barely held 60 FPS consistently. Reason? Another badly optimized port from FromSoftware.
However, going through these requirements will at least assure you that these Elden Ring PC settings will give your noticeable performance improvement. If your PC fails to meet the above requirement, I’d suggest either waiting for future patches or it’s time for an upgrade.
Let’s move on to the optimizations.
Alright, let’s optimize Elden Ring’s performance by using the best Elden Ring settings for in-game graphics options. Elden Ring has a slew of graphical options you can tweak to find the sweet spot between performance and visuals. However, if you’re looking for better performance and can compromise on visuals a bit, try out my optimized settings below:
Set the Screen Mode to FullScreen to maximize the performance of the game. Exclusive FullScreen mode helps your PC divert resources to Elden Ring better increasing performance.
Using your monitor’s native resolution is the best option here. If you want to use a lower resolution, it’ll give you a huge boost in performance but also heavily degrade texture quality.
Auto-Detect Best Rendering Settings is a great feature in Elden Ring. It helps the game automatically decide the best rendering according to your hardware specs. This would be naturally be set to on. However, taking the game’s bad optimization into consideration, this option ends up slowing down the game with high rendering quality. Hence, it’s best turned off.
We’ll fine-tune each graphical setting Elden Ring has to offer. So, we won’t be selecting any particular Quality Setting Preset. Instead, it’ll be automatically set to custom.
Make sure to save these basic graphics settings before you jump into the “Advanced Settings” section.
This is where we’ll squeeze out as much performance as we can from Elden Ring. Try to configure them according to the following settings. You can later increase or reduce any particular setting according to your preference.
Texture Quality is one of the most taxing settings in Elden Ring compared to others. Lowering or increasing it will provide the most noticeable performance changes. Medium is a sweet spot between high performance and decent visuals.
Lowering Antialiasing Quality isn’t really worth it in Elden Ring graphics settings. High provides decent visuals without jagged edges at a minimal performance cost.
Dropping SSAO from high to the medium provides a decent Performace improvement and doesn’t affect visuals that much. Medium is the best option to set SSAO on.
Motion Blur in Elden Ring is not necessary, even as just an aesthetic graphical feature. It’s because you’ll be dodging, rolling, and quickly spinning the camera around during enemy encounters. Having constant motion blur while fighting enemies can put unnecessary blurriness and even negatively affect your gameplay.
Yes, put Shadow Quality to the maximum to avoid weird shimmering in textures. As far as I know, it’s a graphical bug that’ll get fixed in upcoming updates. But until that happens, keep Shadow Quality to Maximum. After it’s fixed in future updates, you can safely drop it down to Medium or Low.
Lowering Lighting Quality doesn’t really improve performance. Keep it too High to enjoy the fluorescent glow of the world around you in Elden Ring.
Effects Quality also didn’t really improve performance when set to Medium or Low. Hence, keep it at High to avoid any unnecessary graphical downgrade.
Volumetric Quality enhances the overall look of the world of Elden Ring. However, lowering it too much didn’t really add to the performance. Keeping it at either Medium or High is the best option here.
At this point, I believe these settings are either broken or these settings work in mysterious ways. Lowering even Reflection Quality did not yield any performance improvement. Even though Reflection Quality is one of the most taxing settings in other games, in Elden Ring it has little to no effect on performance when lowered. To be on the safe side, keep Reflection Quality to Medium.
Lowering Water Surface Quality didn’t really impact performance by quite a lot. Even while testing this setting I spent most of my time around water bodies. If you’re looking to gain even the slightest performance, you could keep it at Low.
Shader Quality is a setting that finally gave me about 5-6 FPS going from High to Medium. The visuals weren’t really affected that much so it was a good change overall.
Global Illumination Quality is also one of those settings that don’t really provide any improvement in performance when lowered. So, best keep it at high to avoid reducing visual quality for nothing.
Lowering Grass Quality from Maximum to Medium gave me over 7 FPS in-game which was a surprising improvement. You may get slightly better performance at low too but you’ll have to deal with low-quality grass.
And that’s about it. These are all the best Elden Ring graphics settings you need to use to get the max performance.
Now keep in mind that simply lowering some of these settings to low won’t give you a significant impact on performance. However, if you wish to squeeze every ounce of performance, you may proceed to turn every setting low. However, the graphical downgrade isn’t really worth it.
Now that we’re done optimizing the best Elden Ring settings for in-game graphics options, let’s tweak Nvidia Control Panel settings. Nvidia Control Panel also contains several vital settings that can amp up Elden Ring’s performance significantly.
But before we do that, make sure your Nvidia graphics card drivers are updated to the latest version. Nvidia pushes out Game-Ready Drivers before every major game launch that are vital for a game’s performance. So, the latest Nvidia drivers will contain some great optimizations and fixes for Elden Ring, so better update.
Now that we’ve updated Nvidia GPU to the latest drivers, let’s optimize Control Panel settings for maximum performance. Not all settings need to be updated, simply modify the settings mentioned below and you’ll be set.
Nvidia provides a sharpening filter to make textures crisp in games. If you’re using a lower resolution than native in Elden Ring, this can be helpful for you. However, in most cases, best to leave it off.
Driver-level Anisotropic Filtering is not required in Elden Ring as the game’s engine does a good job at rendering sharp visuals. So, leave it off.
We’re already using Antialiasing in-game, so no need to turn it on in Nvidia Control Panel. Leave it off.
If you minimize the game a lot to focus on other applications, Background Max Frame Rate is a great setting for you. Set Max Background Frame Rate to 20. It will help your PC reduce the resources allocated to Elden Ring when minimized and help other applications perform better.
Nvidia’s Low Latency Mode drastically reduces input lag in games. It’s especially great in Elden Ring as you’ll to doge and attack at utmost precision.
Elden Ring’s Max Frame Rate is already capped at 60 (at the time of writing). No need to add separate frame rate limits from Nvidia Control Panel.
Set Power Management Mode to Prefer Max Performance to unlead your GPU maximum potential. This will help your GPU achieve higher clocks and utilize it fully. It’s especially needed in a resource-hungry game like Elden Ring.
If your monitor supports adaptive refresh rate technology, then select G-Sync in Monitor Technology. This will help smoother the gameplay and make in-game motion quite smooth.
Multi-Frame Sampled AA (MFAA) is Nvidia’s proprietary Antialiasing technology. Since we’ve already configured Antialiasing in Elden Ring’s in-game settings, no need to turn MFAA on.
You should turn on Texture Filtering – Anisotropic Sample Optimization. It greatly optimized in-game textures and reduces the load from GPU.
Texture Filtering – Quality helps optimize performance in-game for a negligible reduction in visual quality. The difference between high quality and high performance is almost indistinguishable.
Texture Filtering – Trilinear Optimization is a setting similar to Anisotropic Sample Optimization. It’ll help you optimize Elden Ring’s textures and gain noticeable improvement in performance.
Seeing how Elden Ring has bad optimization, keeping Threaded Optimization switched on is best. It helps utilize multi-threaded CPUs to the maximum aiding game’s performance.
Since we aren’t using V-Sync, keep Triple Buffering off as it works best with V-Sync.
V-Sync increases input lag and can negatively affect your gameplay. Best turn it off unless you’re experiencing excessive screen tearing.
Once you’re done optimizing these best Elden Ring settings for Nvidia Control Panel, hit Apply to save all changes.
Now, we’ve successfully configured Nvidia Control Panel settings for Elden Ring. These settings will provide you with the best combination of visuals and performance. Let’s move on to the next section of optimization.
You can check out our complete dedicated Best Nvidia Control Panel Settings guide for further information.
Confused about which weapon might be best for you? We’ve compiled a helpful Elden Ring Weapons Tier List. It contains all the weapons for you to analyze and then use on your adventure.
If you’re rocking an AMD GPU then let’s get your Radeon settings optimized with the best Elden Ring settings. These settings are sure to give you a noticeable boost in performance and also make your gaming experience stable.
However, before we go waltzing around in the AMD Radeon settings, first we need to make sure you’re running the latest AMD GPU drivers. AMD also releases crucial GPU driver updates for the latest games release that contain critical performance enhancements. To get the best results from these settings, you’ll need to update your driver.
Now you’ll all be set and your GPU drivers are updated to the latest version. Now let’s get to optimizing AMD Radeon settings for Elden Ring.
First, apply these to the global settings tab.
Similar to Nvidia Reflex or Low-Latency Mode, AMD Radeon Anti-Lag Keep it enabled to reduce input lag. It’ll help you immensely in gameplay.
AMD Radeon Chill is a setting that will reduce your GPU clocks in order to cool the temperatures. It’s a setting you should disable. In case you’re using a laptop and seeing high temperatures, you can enable it then.
As good as Radeon Boost sounds, it isn’t something you want to turn on. Radeon Boost will lower your selected resolution and then dynamically upscale it. Sure, it’ll give you a boost in performance but will make textures blurry. In case you’re thinking of playing Elden Ring at a lower resolution than your native one, then you can use this setting.
You won’t need to apply any additional sharpening from AMD Radeon settings as the game already does a good job at displaying crisp textures. However, if you’re witnessing blurry textures due to playing at lower resolution to low settings, you could turn it on.
Switch Radeon Enhanced Sync to disabled to avoid using V-sync that will introduce input lag to your game. However, if you’re seeing a lot of screen tearing in-game, you could enable it.
Wait for Vertical Refresh should be switched to Always Off as turning it on will develop input lag and latency issues in Elden Ring.
The following settings are for the advanced settings tab in Radeon Settings.
Since Elden Ring already caps your FPS to 60, we don’t need to add any driver-level FPS cap to the game. So, best leave Frame Rate Target Control disabled.
Since we’ve already configured Antiailiasing in-game, we don’t need to enable it in AMD Radeon Settings. Best leave Antialiasing at “Use Application Settings.”
Although we’ve mostly disabled any driver-level antialiasing, you can set Antialiasing Method to Multisample. It’s known to improve visuals significantly with minimal impact on performance. Other options have the almost indistinguishable quality from Multisample but reduce a lot of FPS.
Morphological Antialiasing is known to cause issues like stuttering and FPS drops in games. Best leave it at disabled. It’s a known alternative to SSAA and it’s taxing in games.
Elden Ring already takes care of Anisotropic Filtering. Hence, we don’t need to enable it in the Radeon settings. Plus Anisotropic Filtering in Radeon settings mostly works well in DX9 games, in other games, it’s a hit or miss.
Set Texture Filtering Quality to Performance mode to favor performance over visuals. If you’ve got a decent build with a good GPU, you could switch it to Standard for a good mix between visuals and performance.
Surface Format Optimization helps smoothen textures in-game while also improving performance. Keep it enabled for the best visuals and performance. However, if it makes Elden Ring textures muddy or look worse, disable it then.
We’ll need to override Tessellation Mode from the Radeon settings to unlock Tesselation Level settings.
Disabling driver-level Tesselation will have a major impact on Elden Ring’s performance. It’ll completely disable any sort of Tesselation from the game making performance noticeably better.
OpenGL Triple Buffering should be disabled to avoid any issues with performance. Since it’s also a part of V-Sync, there’s no use enabling it for Elden Ring.
Share Cache allows for games to load fast when launched multiple times. It helps reduce CPU usage since shaders don’t have to be regenerated every time a game is launched and simply access the stored shader cache. Over time, the shader cache builds up quite a lot that starts negatively affecting games. Reset Share Cache is a great feature from AMD that lets you clear out all residual shaders data and improves performance in games.
Now that’s all, all the settings are instantly applied and you’ll see a significant boost in Elden Ring’s performance.
Finally, in this section of the best Settings for Elden Ring guide, we’ll tweak different windows components to get maximum performance. There are several options and settings in windows that can boost your in-game performance, let’s begin tweaking them.
Windows Update is a well-known utility in windows that keeps your Windows updated. It’s known to show annoying pop-ups while you’re working to remind you for updates. Some people even outright disable Windows Updates to stop these messages.
However, to gain the best performance in games and regular PC use, updating your Windows is crucial. The latest Windows updates contain crucial performance tweaks, bug fixes, and security patches. Installing these are vital for the proper functioning of your PC.
So, to update your windows, all you have to do is:
Once your Windows is up-to-date, you can start tweaking it for Elden Ring.
Running Elden Ring or any game with administrator privileges is important. it ensures that no other system policy or application affects your game’s performance. Most crashes or game stability issues get fixed once you run it as admin.
Similarly, you should also enable Override high DPI scaling behavior while you’re setting up the game to run as admin. It’ll also solve any aspect ratio or scaling issues that might prevent you from experiencing the game properly. It’ll also fix any issues while minimizing and restoring the game.
Doing this will always run Elden Ring with full administrative privileges whenever you launch the game.
In the latest Windows 10 and 11 builds, Microsoft has added a rather silent feature that can significantly boost your PC’s performance. It’s called Hardware-Accelerated GPU Scheduling and it’s hidden away in different settings.
What Hardware-Accelerated GPU Scheduling does is improves the coordination between CPU and GPU. It helps take the load off the CPU and lets GPU push frames out faster resulting in better performance across the board.
Here’s how you can find this setting and switch it on:
Freeing up resources before running Elden Ring is sure to boost performance significantly. There are several programs running in your background that you don’t know about. They are only hogging your system resources leaving no breathing room for games causing performance issues.
However, let me help you put a stop to these pesky little programs. Here’s how you can stop unnecessary applications and processes from ruining your experience in Elden Ring.
Caution: Before you go any further, a word of advice. Only disable the programs you know aren’t vital to the game or windows. Don’t disable a program that might cause Windows to go in a blue screen or worse. Just double-check the program you’re doing to disable and you’ll be right as rain.
And that’s it! After you’ve done sorting each application out and disabling the ones you don’t need, simply reboot your PC. Once rebooted, you’ll instantly feel like a weight has been lifted off your PC.
Game Mode is one of the best Elden Ring settings for windows. It’s an amazing feature that’s baked into the windows and helps increase the performance of the game. It actively finds apps and programs and either closes or reduces resources towards them while the game is running. It helps the game perform better in most cases.
Here’s how to enable Windows Game Mode:
After this, you’ll see a substantial improvement in Elden Ring’s performance.
In the end, we’ll use the oldest trick in the book to gain more performance. We’ll set Elden Ring’s executable file’s priority to high. It’ll help your PC allocate more resources to Elden Ring potentially increasing its stability and performance. To do this, simply:
And there you go, now Elden Ring’s system priority is successfully raised from regular to high.
And there you have it, folks. After tons of hours invested into a souls game, I never thought I’d play, I actually have got kinda hooked. The agony of dying over and over again may break my spirit, but winning a fight after that struggle is what matters. Just like I finally managed to create this best settings guide for Elden Ring even though I struggle with souls games.
I really hope this guide provided some value to your experience with this legendary game. Hopefully, developers will start pushing out updates for the game that’ll include performance fixes. Until then, hope our Elden Ring settings guide was able to provide you with a decent gaming experience. Until next time readers, peace!
Sadly, yes. If you’re having low FPS or stutters in-game, it’ll negatively affect your gameplay and even put you at a disadvantage in fights. It’s best to go through each phase of this best settings guide and see if your performance has improved. Otherwise, the game is twice as hard.
Yes. As i’ve mentioned in the beginning, Namco has acknowledged several performance issues plaguing Elden Ring. They’re already working on future performance fixes as we speak. So stay calm and until those fixes drop, have some fun with the game using our best settings.
There could be a wide range of issues causing the freezing. Try doing a fresh install of GPU drivers. Also, see if there are any pending window updates you could install. Do an overall driver check of your system in case a driver is missing or corrupted.
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