ARC Raiders looks incredible — but let’s be honest… it can be tough on your PC. Today, we’re breaking down the best settings to get smooth gameplay, high FPS, and crisp visuals, without turning your rig into a jet engine. Whether you’re running a mid-range card or a beastly RTX, these tweaks will help you raid smoother and aim faster.

Why Optimization Matters

ARC Raiders is built on Unreal Engine 5 — which means you get jaw-dropping detail, but also some serious performance dips in big fights. Optimization isn’t just about pretty visuals — it’s about input response, visibility, and stability. A consistent frame rate means cleaner aim and faster reaction. That’s what we want.

Display & System Settings

First up — Display and System Settings.

Set Window Mode to Fullscreen. Borderless adds input delay — so stick with Fullscreen.

Keep resolution at your monitor’s native. 1080p or 1440p is the sweet spot for clarity and speed.

Turn V-Sync Off — it adds input lag and limits responsiveness.

If you’re on NVIDIA, enable Reflex Low Latency. On AMD, use Anti-Lag. Both make aiming feel snappier.

Limit your frame rate to your refresh rate, or leave it uncapped if your PC can handle it.

And this one’s key — use DLSS, FSR, or XeSS in Quality Mode. You’ll gain FPS with almost no loss in sharpness.

Think of these as your baseline optimizations — the foundation before fine-tuning graphics.

Graphics Settings — Performance Focus

Now let’s move into Graphics Settings — where most of your performance gains happen.

Here’s what I recommend for maximum smoothness:

Overall Quality: Low — start here, then scale up later.

Motion Blur: Off — you’ll get a cleaner image during movement.

Shadows: Low — one of the biggest FPS drains in the game.

Post-Processing: Low — reduces bloom and clutter.

Texture Quality: Low or Medium depending on your VRAM.

Effects: Low — fewer particle effects, smoother gameplay.

Reflections: Low — small visual tradeoff, big FPS gain.

Foliage: Low — makes enemies easier to see outdoors.

Global Illumination / Lumen: Set to Low or Static. This alone can add 15–20 FPS.

With these tweaks, you can gain 35 to 50 frames on mid-range hardware — without ruining the visuals.

That’s a massive upgrade.

Quality Setup for High-End PCs

If you’re on a high-end GPU, you can push things further.

Bump Textures to Medium or High.

Shadows to Medium.

Turn Post-Processing to High for richer lighting, but keep Ray Tracing Off or Low. It looks gorgeous… but still tanks performance in firefights.

Prioritize fluidity over flash — you’ll enjoy the game more.

Advanced System Tweaks

A few pro-tips to finish optimizing your setup:

Update your GPU drivers. Game Ready or Adrenalin drivers often boost ARC Raiders’ stability.

Install on an SSD. It eliminates micro-stutters from texture loading.

Close background apps — Chrome, Discord overlays, recorders — they eat CPU cycles.

If your frame-time graph looks uneven, cap FPS just below your refresh rate — for example, 58 FPS on a 60 Hz monitor. That smooths frame pacing beautifully.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Don’t crank everything to Ultra — it looks nice until your FPS nosedives.

Don’t enable V-Sync if you’re already using G-Sync or FreeSync.

Don’t ignore CPU load — background apps cause most stutters.

And please — don’t lower resolution too far. Use DLSS or FSR instead; it keeps enemies sharp and visible.

Small mistakes can cost you dozens of frames.

Audio setting – Night mode

There is one important audio setting to pay attention to, that’s Night Mode. This setting applies audio compression to narrow the dynamic range, effectively reducing the game’s overall soundstage.

While this helps minimize background noise, ambient effects, and other distractions—allowing for greater focus—it also comes with a trade-off: a less immersive sound experience. I recommend experimenting with this setting to see whether it suits your playstyle before deciding to keep it on or off.

A great testing ground is Dam Battlegrounds, where predictable robot patterns make it easy to assess how the game’s audio behaves under different conditions.

Final Recommendations

Here’s your quick recap:

Fullscreen mode,
V-Sync Off,
DLSS on Quality,
Shadows Low,
Textures Medium,
Motion Blur Off.

Start there.

Test in a heavy combat zone.

If your FPS stays high — gradually increase visuals until you find your sweet spot.

It’s not about max graphics — it’s about maximum consistency.

And that’s it — the best PC settings for ARC Raiders.

Try these out, share your results below, and let me know what FPS gains you got.

If this helped, hit Like, subscribe for more Arc Raiders guides, and I’ll see you in the next raid.