Helldivers 2 officially targets a GTX 1080 as its recommended GPU, but players running hardware well below that threshold — GTX 1060s, GTX 1660s, RX 580s — report stable, enjoyable sessions once the right settings are in place. The game’s real performance demand comes from its particle-heavy combat system and complex battlefield rendering, not raw GPU power, which means the correct configuration unlocks meaningful FPS gains without touching hardware. This guide gives you the complete low-end settings template, explains which settings move the FPS needle most on budget GPUs, and sets honest expectations for solo versus four-player co-op. For the full settings breakdown across all hardware tiers, see our Helldivers 2 best settings guide. For the principles behind GPU and CPU optimisation across PC games, see the game settings optimisation hub.
What Counts as Low-End for Helldivers 2?
For this guide, low-end means the GTX 1060 6 GB to GTX 1660 range on NVIDIA, and the RX 580 8 GB to RX 5600 XT on AMD. These GPUs sit below Helldivers 2’s official recommended specification but above the hardware floor where the game becomes unplayable. In solo play or two-player co-op at lower difficulties, a GTX 1660 or RX 5600 XT reaches 40–55 FPS consistently at 1080p with the template below — genuinely playable and not a compromised experience.
The honest framing: Helldivers 2 is playable on mid-low hardware in most scenarios, but four-player chaos missions at higher difficulties are meaningfully more demanding. When four Helldivers trigger simultaneous bug breach events with orbital strikes, the particle and CPU load can push frame rates down to 30–38 FPS on the GTX 1060–GTX 1660 tier. The chaos mission settings pre-set later in this guide addresses that specific scenario. For standard missions at moderate difficulty, the full low-end template holds 40–50 FPS without issue.
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Full Low-End Settings Template
Apply these settings in Helldivers 2’s Graphics settings menu. This template targets 40–55 FPS in standard missions on the GTX 1060–GTX 1660 tier at 1080p.
| Setting | Low-End Value | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Particle Effects | Low | Single biggest FPS change — change this first |
| Volumetric Fog | Low or Off | Off gives ~5 extra FPS; Low preserves atmosphere |
| Shadows | Medium or Low | Medium is the best balance; Low if still GPU-limited |
| Texture Quality | Medium (4 GB VRAM) / High (6 GB+) | See VRAM section below |
| Ambient Occlusion | Off | Low visual impact outdoors; worth disabling |
| Screen Space Reflections | Off | Rarely visible in active combat; free performance |
| Depth of Field | Off | No gameplay benefit; small GPU saving |
| Motion Blur | Off | Always disable in fast-action shooters |
| Upscaling (FSR) | Balanced or Performance | See FSR section below |
| FPS Cap | 60 | Prevents GPU thermal spikes above capacity |
Particle Effects: The Most Important Single Change
Particle effects are the highest-value setting to reduce for low-end Helldivers 2 performance, and by a significant margin. Helldivers 2 combat is inherently explosion-heavy — orbital strikes, bug breach detonations, Automaton artillery, and four simultaneous Helldivers throwing grenades can generate hundreds of simultaneous particle objects on screen. At High, each particle burst carries physics, lifetime, and collision logic evaluated every frame. On GPUs below the GTX 1080 tier, this is a sustained and heavy workload.
Reducing Particle Effects to Low typically recovers 15–25 FPS in combat-heavy moments on GTX 1060 and RX 580-class hardware. The visual difference is real — explosions look simpler and less dramatic — but gameplay readability often improves at Low because enemy positions and strategem effects are easier to track without screen-filling particle density. Reduce this setting before touching anything else.
Volumetric Fog and Shadows
Volumetric Fog generates the atmospheric haze visible in Helldivers 2’s environmental missions — toxic zones, night operations, foggy wetland maps. At High, volumetric fog is a sustained GPU ray-marching workload that adds little to combat readability but meaningfully loads low-end GPUs. Setting Volumetric Fog to Low reduces the density of fog layering while preserving the general atmospheric character of affected mission types. Turning it fully Off recovers an additional 3–5 FPS over Low and is the right call for anyone prioritising frame rate stability over visual immersion. The gameplay effect is negligible — mission environments remain visually distinct on all map types.
Shadows at Medium is the recommended starting point for the low-end tier. Helldivers 2 uses dynamic lighting extensively in its night missions and industrial map tiles, where shadow quality is genuinely visible during active play. At Low, contact shadows disappear and shadow edges become visibly coarser in enclosed spaces and base defence scenarios. Starting at Medium preserves shadow quality where it matters and still recovers meaningful performance over High. Drop Shadows to Low only after enabling FSR and reducing Particle Effects and Fog, if you are still GPU-limited.
FSR Upscaling: Balanced or Performance Mode
Helldivers 2 supports AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR), compatible with all DirectX 12 GPUs in the low-end range. FSR renders the game at a lower internal resolution and reconstructs the full output using a spatial upscaling algorithm. It is one of the most effective tools available to low-end hardware in Helldivers 2 specifically because the game’s fast-moving combat design — soldiers sprinting, explosions everywhere, chaotic enemy swarms — makes upscaling artefacts significantly less visible than in slower-paced titles.
FSR Balanced renders at approximately 67% of native resolution. At 1080p output, this means approximately 720p internal rendered to 1080p. The gain on a GTX 1060 or GTX 1660 is typically 12–18 FPS in GPU-limited scenarios. Image quality remains good during mid-combat moments where the game is most demanding, with some softening on fine terrain detail at distance. Start here.
FSR Performance mode drops to approximately 50% of native resolution — effectively 540p reconstructed to 1080p. This adds a further 8–12 FPS over Balanced and is the recommended configuration for GTX 1650-class hardware that cannot sustain 40 FPS with Balanced. Image quality is noticeably softer but still preferable to running native low resolution without upscaling. Performance mode is also the correct setting for chaos missions when particle and CPU load peaks. Avoid FSR Ultra Performance at 1080p — reconstruction artefacts become severe enough to impair navigation and target acquisition.
Texture Quality and 4 GB VRAM Cards
On GPUs with 4 GB VRAM — GTX 1650, GTX 1060 3 GB, RX 5500 XT 4 GB — keep Texture Quality at Medium. Helldivers 2’s High texture assets exceed the 4 GB VRAM budget during active missions, causing VRAM paging that produces micro-stutters more disruptive than the texture quality improvement justifies. These stutters appear as 0.5–1 second hitches during texture streaming transitions and are notably worse during bug breach events when new enemy types load simultaneously.
On 6 GB+ VRAM cards — GTX 1060 6 GB, GTX 1660, RX 580 8 GB, RX 5600 XT — High textures are viable. Monitor VRAM usage with MSI Afterburner or the in-game performance overlay. If VRAM consistently hits 5.5 GB or higher during missions, reduce to Medium to eliminate paging stutters. The GTX 1060 3 GB is not recommended for Helldivers 2 at all — its 3 GB VRAM is insufficient even at minimum texture settings in larger mission environments.
CPU Demand: High Enemy Counts and Background Applications
Helldivers 2 is notably CPU-intensive during high-difficulty missions. Bug breach events spawn large numbers of simultaneous enemies, each running active pathfinding AI, collision detection, and swarm behaviour logic on the CPU. Four players in a difficulty 7–9 mission during a major bug breach can push a six-core processor to 85–95% sustained utilisation, causing frame time spikes that GPU settings and FSR cannot address because they originate on the CPU side.
The most effective preparation is closing all non-essential background applications before launching Helldivers 2. Web browsers, Discord video calls, streaming software, and background updaters consume CPU cores the game needs during peak enemy events. On older six-core or four-core processors, closing background applications can be the difference between 35 FPS and 25 FPS during the largest breach events. Discord voice is acceptable; Discord video or screensharing during a session is not. Set Helldivers 2 to High process priority via Task Manager after launch to ensure it receives scheduling priority during CPU-heavy combat peaks.
GameGuard Stuttering on Low-End Hardware
Helldivers 2 uses nProtect GameGuard anti-cheat, and on low-spec systems this layer causes additional stuttering that does not appear on higher-end hardware. GameGuard performs periodic system scans that generate 0.5–2 second hitches, particularly during the first 10 minutes of a session while the initial scan completes. This is a known community issue and not a settings configuration problem.
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Workarounds reported by the Helldivers community include: running the game as administrator to reduce GameGuard permission overhead; setting Helldivers 2 to High process priority in Task Manager during launch; and ensuring Windows Security real-time protection is not conflicting with GameGuard during the scan window. None of these fully eliminate the anti-cheat overhead on low-spec systems, but the hitches do reduce substantially after the first 10–15 minutes as the initial scan completes. Expect a rougher first mission than subsequent ones in the same session.
Solo vs Multiplayer FPS at Low-End
Solo Helldivers 2 is significantly smoother than four-player co-op at the low-end hardware tier, and the gap is larger here than in most co-op games. In solo, particle density, explosion count, and CPU AI enemy load scale down to a single active player’s activity. A GTX 1660 that reaches 35 FPS in a chaotic four-player bug breach mission can sustain 50–55 FPS in the same mission type played solo with identical settings, because the particle system load and simultaneous enemy AI threads are dramatically reduced.
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If you are testing settings or trying to establish a performance baseline, always test in solo first. The low-end template above is calibrated for solo and two-player co-op. For three or four-player sessions at moderate difficulty, apply the chaos mission pre-set below proactively before the mission starts.
Chaos Missions: Pre-emptive Settings for High Difficulty
For four-player sessions at difficulty 6 and above — where simultaneous bug breach events and Automaton drops generate peak particle and CPU loads — apply these additional changes before the mission rather than reacting during a drop:
- Particle Effects: Low (if not already set)
- Volumetric Fog: Off
- Shadows: Low
- FSR: Performance
- FPS Cap: 45
Capping at 45 FPS rather than 60 during chaos missions produces more consistent frame delivery on CPUs that cannot sustain 60 during peak breach events. A frame rate that swings between 55 and 25 FPS is a worse play experience than a stable 42–45 that holds through the heaviest events. Set the cap before the mission loads, not after the first drop notification appears.
Minimum Hardware for 60 FPS Co-op
| Play Mode | Minimum GPU | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Solo, lower difficulty | GTX 1060 6 GB / RX 580 8 GB | Low-End template + FSR Balanced; ~40–55 FPS |
| Two-player co-op | GTX 1660 / RX 5600 XT | FSR Performance recommended at difficulty 5+ |
| Four-player co-op, 60 FPS target | GTX 1070 8 GB / RX 5600 XT | Minimum to sustain 60 in most four-player missions |
| Four-player co-op, 45 FPS stable | GTX 1660 / RX 5600 XT | With chaos mission pre-set; FSR Performance + 45 cap |
Frequently Asked Questions
Can a GTX 1060 run Helldivers 2?
Yes, with caveats. A GTX 1060 6 GB running the full low-end template — Particle Effects Low, Volumetric Fog Off, Shadows Low, FSR Balanced — reaches 35–48 FPS in solo and two-player missions. Four-player co-op at high difficulty drops lower during peak breach events: expect 28–38 FPS in the most chaotic moments, which is the game’s design ceiling for this hardware rather than a configuration failure. The GTX 1060 3 GB has insufficient VRAM for stable Helldivers 2 performance and is not recommended. The 6 GB version is the minimum viable configuration for a consistent experience.
Why is Helldivers 2 so laggy on multiplayer?
Multiplayer lag on low-end hardware has three distinct causes that compound each other. First, particle load multiplies with each additional player — four Helldivers generating simultaneous orbital strikes and bug breach explosions is a fundamentally heavier particle workload than solo play. Second, CPU AI load scales with enemy count, and co-op missions spawn more enemies simultaneously. Third, GameGuard anti-cheat adds periodic system scan overhead that hits low-spec CPUs harder. The chaos mission pre-set addresses the particle and GPU load. Closing background applications addresses CPU headroom. GameGuard’s hitches diminish after the first 10–15 minutes of a session as the initial scan completes.
What are the best low-end settings for Helldivers 2?
The single most impactful change is Particle Effects to Low. Combined with FSR Balanced or Performance mode, these two changes deliver the largest FPS recovery per visual quality tradeoff available on low-end hardware. Volumetric Fog Off is the next easiest gain. After those, Shadows to Medium or Low and Texture Quality to Medium on 4 GB VRAM cards complete the core template. Ambient Occlusion and Screen Space Reflections Off add small free performance gains. The full template is in the table above — apply it before testing individual settings.