Guides Best Phantom Blade Zero PC Settings for High FPS

Best Phantom Blade Zero PC Settings for High FPS

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Contents

1. Best PC graphics settings
2. Should you use DLSS, FSR, and XeSS?
3. Best settings for low-end PCs
4. How to fix performance issues

Phantom Blade Zero is a new action RPG from Chinese studio S-GAME, built on Unreal Engine 5. Unlike PlayStation players, PC users can take advantage of advanced graphics settings to get the best possible performance without sacrificing image quality. In this guide, we've put together the best settings to help you boost your FPS and enjoy the game to the fullest.

Best PC graphics settings

The PC version of Phantom Blade Zero features an extensive graphics menu with all the latest bells and whistles, including DLSS, Ray Tracing, Path Tracing, and more. Players with powerful rigs might assume they can simply crank everything up to Ultra and jump straight into the game.

However, there are several settings you can safely turn down. Doing so can give you a noticeable FPS boost without significantly affecting how the game looks.

Below are the optimal graphics settings that, according to Wccftech's tests, increased average FPS by almost 40% compared to the Ultra preset at 1440p:

Shadow Quality: Very High;
Reflection Quality: Ultra;
Post-Processing Quality: Ultra or your preferred setting;
Lighting Quality: High;
Effects Quality: High (consider lowering it if your FPS drops);
Material Quality: High;
Ambient Occlusion Quality: Ultra;
Depth of Field Quality: Ultra or your preferred setting;
Motion Blur: Off or Low;
Anti-Aliasing Quality: Medium (if you're using TSR);
View Distance: High;
Character Texture Quality: Ultra;
Character Model Quality: Ultra;
High-Quality Hair: Off;
Environment Texture Quality: Ultra, or Very High if you have 8 GB of VRAM;
Environment Model Quality: Ultra;
Environment Detail Quality: Medium;
Ray Tracing: Off.

Disabling features such as ray tracing and high-quality character hair can deliver a substantial FPS boost. Keep in mind, though, that turning off ray tracing can noticeably change the lighting and reflections.

Should you use DLSS, FSR, and XeSS?

The developers of Phantom Blade Zero have included support for all the modern image-enhancement technologies, including DLSS, FSR, and XeSS.

All three can improve performance by upscaling the image. Start with the Quality preset, and if your FPS is still too low, switch to Balanced. The image may look slightly less sharp.

It's best to leave dynamic resolution disabled if your frame rate is reasonably stable. When performance drops, this feature lowers the internal rendering resolution, which can make the image look less sharp.

Best settings for low-end PCs

If you're still using a GTX 1650 or RX 5500 XT, keep their limitations in mind: the GTX 1650 falls below the minimum requirements, while you'll need the 8 GB version of the RX 5500 XT. Even on a system that just meets the minimum requirements, the developers are targeting 1080p at 30 FPS with upscaling enabled, so it's best to start with Low or Medium settings. Pay particular attention to the following options:

Resolution: 1080p;
Ray Tracing and Path Tracing: Off;
High-Quality Hair: Off;
Environment Detail Quality: Medium or Low;
Environment Texture Quality: Low if you have 6 GB of VRAM;
Target FPS: 30 on a minimum-spec system; 60 if you have enough performance headroom.

These settings can help make your frame rate more stable without seriously compromising image quality, which is especially important in an action game.

How to fix performance issues

Even with perfectly tuned graphics settings, you may still encounter stuttering and other performance drops. To address them, we recommend taking the following steps:

Let shader compilation finish;
For NVIDIA GPUs, use driver 617.42, which the developers recommend, instead of the problematic 621.01 release. For AMD and Intel GPUs, make sure your drivers are up to date;
Disable ray tracing before adjusting other settings;
Check how much VRAM you have available;
Don't rely on frame generation to fix stuttering.

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S-GAME has done a pretty good job optimizing Phantom Blade Zero so that as many players as possible can enjoy it. Still, we recommend checking the minimum and recommended system requirements before buying the game. Otherwise, you might find yourself performing elaborate rituals just to get a playable frame rate.