With the recent official release of The First Descendant, players have taken up arms to join the fight against enemy forces. There are a lot of things that are happening in a campaign run or boss fights when playing The First Descendant. Despite such complex mechanics being present in a lot of games, this game just doesn’t perform as well as it should. Even with a cutting-edge rig, people are facing FPS drops. Reports of low FPS in this game have been seen even when the user had a 3080ti and i7 10th Gen. This is similar to the performance issues that people experienced when playing Cyberpunk 2077 before the optimization updates rolled out.
Well similarly, there is not much that can be done before Nexon Games developer teams release official updates to fix the poor optimization. However, there are a few things that you can do to minimize the FPS drops and stuttering when playing The First Descendant.
Best Settings to Minimize FPS Drops & Stuttering
The following are the settings that you can apply to The First Descendant to maximize the performance that you can yield while playing. Note that this may reduce the quality of the graphics because it prioritizes performance over quality. Try to follow these steps in the order that they are listed.
- Go to C:\User\name\AppData\Local\M1\Saved\Config\Windows\Engine.ini and open the file.
- Add the following to the bottom of the file:
- [SystemSettings]
- r.MotionBlurQuality=0
- Click File, then Save and close it.
In-game Settings Guide:
- Start the game and go to Options.
- Go to the Display tab and select the resolution that you want to use.
- Go to the Graphic tab and choose the Present that you wish to.
- Turn DLSS/FSR off.
After we make changes to the .ini file, and then make changes to the in-game settings, that would reset the changes made to the .ini file. You do not want to do this. This means that you should never change the in-game settings after you have modified the .ini file. If you want to make any changes after this, do it from the .ini file after closing the game. Save the file and then launch the game. Repeat till you get desired results.
Now, these are the settings that we suggest for maximizing performance:
Go to C:\User\name\AppData\Local\M1\Saved\Config\Windows\GameUserSettings.ini
You will see these lines on the top of the .ini file:
- [ScalabilityGroups]
- sg.ResolutionQuality=100
- sg.ViewDistanceQuality=1
- sg.AntiAliasingQuality=1
- sg.ShadowQuality=1
- sg.GlobalIlluminationQuality=1
- sg.ReflectionQuality=1
- sg.PostProcessQuality=1
- sg.TextureQuality=4
- sg.EffectsQuality=4
- sg.FoliageQuality=1
- sg.ShadingQuality=4
- sg.MeshQuality=4
- sg.PhysicsQuality=1
If you opted for the Normal preset in the game settings, all of the settings above would be set to 2. You can set it from 0 to 4 (0 being the lowest, 4 being the highest). You have to modify these values according to the FPS you are getting when you play the game. For example, if you are not satisfied with the FPS you are getting, you can change the TextureQuality to 2, ShadowQuality to 0, and so on. Repeat the process till you get good performance.
Scroll down to see these lines:
- ViewDistance=1
- AntiAliasing=1
- PostProcessing=1
- Shadows=1
- GlobalIllumination=1
- Reflections=1
- Textures=4
- Effects=4
- Foliage=1
- Shading=4
- Mesh=4
- Physics=1
The Normal preset would set these to 2 by default as we mentioned earlier. Follow the steps you did for the settings before to adjust the settings to get the desired FPS. Now scroll down to find the following lines:
- bUseVSync=True
- bUseDynamicResolution=False
Change these to:
- bUseVSync=False
- bUseDynamicResolution=True
If you have a lower-end PC, it is best to turn on Dynamic Resolution to not lose frames during action scenes. If you want to cap the framerate, change this value:
FrameRateLimit= X.XXXXXX
Close Background Apps
Tasks running in the background when you are playing the game could be the reason for you getting low FPS. Open the task manager and look for any apps that are consuming resources while playing the game. Close these tasks but pay attention to not shut down any essential tasks.
That was it for this guide on how to minimize FPS drops and stuttering in The First Descendant. Please stay tuned to our page for more content that we will release in The First Descendant. Thank you for reading this article.