WARDOGS Best Settings for Max FPS and Enemy Visibility

WARDOGS is a large-scale tactical shooter where up to 100 players can take part in a single battle while vehicles, destruction, smoke, and numerous other effects are active across the map at the same time. Because of this, even a powerful PC can suffer frame-rate drops during especially intense fights. Simply setting every graphics option to the minimum is not always the best solution, however. Some settings barely improve performance but noticeably reduce visibility at long range. In this guide, we'll break down the best WARDOGS settings for higher FPS, less visual clutter, and easier enemy spotting.

This set of options provides a good balance between high frame rates and enemy visibility. Use it as a baseline, then adjust texture quality and upscaling according to your GPU performance and available VRAM.

Keep View Distance on High whenever possible. WARDOGS frequently has firefights across fields, hills, roads, and long city streets, so lowering this setting too aggressively can make distant enemies harder to spot.

Recommended settings:

If performance is still too low, reduce Global Illumination, Reflections, Shadows, Particle Spawn Rate, and Post-Processing first. These settings place a noticeable load on the system, while lowering them has relatively little impact on your ability to spot enemies. Motion Blur, Depth of Field, Lens Flare, and Bloom are best disabled entirely because they add visual clutter and can make targets harder to see.

If your RTX GPU has enough performance headroom, use DLAA for the sharpest image. If you need more frames, switch to DLSS Quality, then Balanced if necessary. AMD GPU owners should use the corresponding upscaling option available on their hardware.

It is best to leave Frame Generation disabled while tuning your settings. It increases the displayed frame rate but does not improve base performance or reduce CPU load. The extra latency can also affect how aiming feels.

WARDOGS features both close-range fights and long-distance shooting. An excessively wide field of view can actually work against you because higher values make distant enemies appear smaller. Around 95 is a good universal starting point. It still provides strong peripheral vision without shrinking faraway targets too much.

Recommended settings:

Mouse sensitivity is always a matter of preference, so there is no reason to force yourself to use 0.70 if you already have a comfortable value from other shooters. It is much more important to disable Mouse Acceleration, keep a consistent ADS Multiplier, and avoid changing sensitivity constantly once you are used to your settings.

For Aim Down Sight FOV, the Affected option works well because it ties the ADS view to your main FOV. This makes low-magnification optics feel more natural and keeps the transition closer to your usual field of view.

We recommend disabling Picture-in-Picture Scope. This option requires the game to render an additional scene through the optic, which can increase system load while aiming. On low-end and mid-range PCs, disabling it can help maintain a more stable frame rate.

In the current version of WARDOGS, the developers limit the minimum available Shadow Quality according to the result of the built-in performance benchmark. On sufficiently powerful systems, the game does not allow you to go below Low. Players have found an unofficial way to disable shadows entirely through the configuration file. It works on the current build, but the developers may change or block this method in future updates. Disabling shadows makes the lighting flatter but increases the contrast between character models and the environment, which can make enemies easier to see in dark interiors and shaded parts of the map. According to the creator of the method, improved character readability is the main reason to disable shadows.

Close the game, then open the following folder:

C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Wardogs\Saved\Config\WindowsClient

AppData is hidden by default, so enable Hidden items in File Explorer if necessary.

Open GameUserSettings.ini in Notepad and find the following line: sg.ShadowQuality=1

Change it to: sg.ShadowQuality=4

Save the file. To prevent WARDOGS from restoring the old value, open the properties of GameUserSettings.ini and enable Read-only. Keep in mind that once the file is locked, changes to other in-game settings may stop saving as well. If you need to adjust something in the menu, disable the Read-only attribute first, make your changes, then repeat the shadow tweak if necessary.

Disabling shadows is useful primarily for better enemy visibility rather than FPS. Without deep shadows, character models blend into dark parts of the environment less often. Reduced GPU load can be an additional benefit.

If WARDOGS still suffers occasional FPS drops after the basic optimization, do not immediately reduce every graphics option to its lowest value. Start by lowering the settings that put the most load on the system while having less impact on environmental readability and enemy visibility.

For low-end PCs, use the following settings:

Effects, Shadows, Particle Spawn Rate, and Global Illumination should be the first things you sacrifice, while View Distance should be one of the last settings you lower. WARDOGS often requires you to spot enemies at long range, so setting this too low can reduce visibility and make firefights across fields, roads, and other open areas more difficult.

If lowering the resolution or switching to more aggressive upscaling barely improves FPS, check your GPU and CPU usage. During large battles, WARDOGS may already be CPU-limited. If frame drops become worse because of smoke, explosions, and a large number of visual effects, lower Effects and Particle Spawn Rate as well.

According to the official minimum requirements, a GTX 1660 or Radeon RX 590 paired with a Core i5-8600 or Ryzen 5 3500 and 16 GB of RAM is intended for roughly 60 FPS at 1080p Low with upscaling.

For 1440p Medium at more than 70 FPS natively, the developers recommend an RTX 3070 or Radeon RX 6700 XT together with a Core i7-12700K or Ryzen 7 5700X. The same configuration is listed for 4K Medium at 60+ FPS with upscaling.

Also keep in mind that WARDOGS continues to receive technical updates during Early Access. If your problem is not limited to low FPS, see our separate guide on what to do if WARDOGS crashes, freezes, or will not launch. The developers have already reduced the number of shadow cache updates to address stuttering and fixed several causes of crashes related to Frame Generation. It is worth retesting your settings after major patches because the preset that worked best before may stop being optimal over time.