Every “best settings” list for Once Human tells you to lower shadows first. A direct, game-specific benchmark run on an RTX 4090 test rig tells a different story: Vegetation Quality swings frame rate by 5-10%, Anti-Aliasing by up to 10%, and shadow (“Shade”) quality doesn’t even make the top of the impact list. If you’ve been gutting shadows to chase FPS and wondering why nothing changed, you’ve been pulling the wrong lever.
This guide sets the record straight on what actually moves the needle in Once Human, corrects a graphics-engine myth that’s followed the game since its 2023 reveal, and covers one official fix – buried in a year-old developer FAQ – that stops a specific Intel CPU family from crashing mid-raid. Verified against the current Steam build and the developer’s own technical notes; Starry Studio patches this game often, so treat exact menu wording as approximate and re-check after a major update.
Quick Start: The Settings That Matter First
Set these before touching anything else – they cover most of the measurable FPS swing in the game, in the order they’re worth your time.
| Setting | Start here | Measured FPS impact | When to change it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Motion Blur | Off | ~2-3% | Never worth turning back on – it costs visibility, not just frames |
| Vegetation Quality | Medium | 5-10% (largest single lever) | Raise to High only if you’re already hitting your FPS cap |
| Anti-Aliasing | Medium/Balanced | Up to 10% | Raise for clarity at long range; lower first if still GPU-bound |
| Shade (Shadow) Quality | Medium-High | Smaller than Vegetation or AA | Leave it – lowering it barely helps in this specific game |
| Texture Quality | High | Minor unless VRAM-limited | Drop to Medium only if you have 6GB VRAM or less |
| Upscaling (DLSS/FSR) | Quality | Large free FPS gain | Drop to Balanced only if still short of your target |
| Frame Rate Cap | Match your monitor’s refresh rate | Reduces stutter, saves power | Uncap only if benchmarking or on a high-refresh panel |
The one-line takeaway: Vegetation Quality and Anti-Aliasing do more to your frame rate than Shadow Quality in this specific game, which is the opposite of what most generic open-world advice assumes.
The Settings That Actually Cost You FPS (and the Ones That Don’t)
One widely repeated PC performance guide calls shadow quality “the single biggest GPU drain in most open-world games” and tells readers to lower it first. That’s a reasonable rule of thumb for open-world engines in general – but it’s not what the actual Once Human numbers show. The benchmarked test above measured Vegetation Quality and Anti-Aliasing as the two settings with the largest swing, with Shade Quality noticeably behind both. When a generic rule and a game-specific measurement disagree, the measurement wins – trust the benchmark over the genre-wide assumption here.
The mechanism is straightforward: Vegetation Quality controls the density and draw distance of the grass, brush, and foliage scattered across Once Human’s open world, and each blade or leaf is a small alpha-transparent object the GPU has to shade individually. Stack thousands of those across a wide draw distance and it adds up faster than adjusting a single shadow-map resolution setting does.
Anti-Aliasing costs a similar amount for a different reason. Once Human’s temporal AA mode smooths jagged edges by blending information across several rendered frames rather than just the current one, which means the GPU is effectively holding and combining extra frame data every single frame – more work than a shadow-map resolution change, which only affects how detailed one lighting pass looks. Dropping it a notch (Medium instead of High) recovers real frame rate without the harsh, shimmering edges you’d get from turning it off completely.
Part of the confusion traces back to how the game was originally pitched. Early 2023 previews described Once Human as an Unreal Engine 5 title, and that claim still circulates in some “settings” content today. It’s outdated – according to the game’s own sourced Wikipedia entry, the shipped game runs on NetEase’s own NeoX engine, not Unreal Engine 5. That matters practically: there’s no Lumen toggle, no Nanite setting, and no UE5-specific slider to hunt for. The graphics menu you actually get is the list above, plus render scale and the frame cap.
One setting outside the graphics menu matters just as much for smoothness: storage. Once Human’s own Steam listing calls for 100GB of space and explicitly recommends an SSD, and a separate performance guide backs that up, warning that running the game from a mechanical hard drive causes noticeable loading hitches. That’s because an open world like this streams textures and assets in as you move, which needs fast random access – something a spinning HDD is inherently worse at than an SSD, regardless of how good your GPU is.
DLSS, FSR, and Frame Generation – What Your GPU Actually Unlocks
Once Human’s upscaling support is split by graphics API, not just by GPU brand. On DirectX 11, the default and most stable mode, you only get AMD FSR 2 upscaling – no frame generation. Switching to the DirectX 12 beta unlocks DLSS upscaling and frame generation, but DLSS 3 frame generation itself is limited to GeForce RTX 40-series cards; older RTX and all AMD cards on DX12 still only get upscaling, not generated frames.
Before you switch to DX12 chasing frame generation, know what you’re trading for it. A long-running Steam discussion thread documents a recurring DX12 issue across RTX 2060 through RTX 4080 owners: frame rate progressively degrades over 30-60 minutes of play (players report drops like 90 FPS down to 40 FPS), RAM usage runs roughly double what DX11 uses, and VRAM can climb into the 11-12GB range with stuttering and texture glitches on longer sessions. Community reports suggest restarting the game temporarily fixes it, and reverting to DX11 avoids it entirely. If you notice progressive FPS decay on DX12, that’s the known cause – not your hardware failing.
Even with a supported card, frame generation isn’t automatically the right call. A separate settings guide makes a fair point worth repeating: if generated frames make aiming feel less direct, keep DLSS upscaling without frame generation rather than forcing it on for the higher number. Pair whichever mode you land on with the right NVIDIA Control Panel best settings for gaming – Low Latency Mode and the correct power-management profile handle the driver-level half of this that Once Human’s own menu doesn’t touch.
Best Settings by GPU Tier
Once Human’s own official Steam requirements page lists a Core i5-4460 / GTX 750Ti as the minimum and a Core i7-7700 / GTX 1060 as recommended – and confirms no ray tracing feature exists to worry about at any tier.
| GPU tier | API | Upscaling | Realistic target |
|---|---|---|---|
| Budget (GTX 1060 / RX 580 class or older) | DirectX 11 | FSR 2, Quality mode | 1080p, 60 FPS, Vegetation and AA at Medium or lower |
| Mid-range (RTX 2060-3070 / RX 6600-6700, no RTX 40) | DirectX 11 (DX12 optional, watch for degradation) | DLSS Quality | 1080p-1440p, 60-90 FPS, most settings High |
| High-end (RTX 40-series) | DirectX 12 | DLSS 3 Quality, Frame Gen optional | 1440p-4K, 90-120+ FPS |
If you’re a competitive or casual player chasing a specific frame-rate target rather than maximum visual fidelity, the fastest path is dropping Vegetation Quality and Anti-Aliasing one notch each before touching anything else – that’s where the actual FPS is, per the benchmark above, not in the shadow slider most guides point you to first. If you’re on a mid-range RTX 20/30-series or Radeon card and want to try DirectX 12 for its DLSS upscaling, keep an eye on frame time over a 30-60 minute session rather than just your initial FPS reading – that’s the window in which the documented DX12 degradation shows up, and dropping back to DX11 costs you nothing but frame generation you couldn’t use on that hardware anyway. Whatever cap you land on, match it to what your panel can actually display – see our guide to the best monitor settings for gaming if you’re not sure what refresh rate your display supports.
The Intel CPU Crash Fix Most Guides Skip
If your game crashes specifically during shader compilation – usually on first launch after an update, or when a new area’s assets load – and you’re on an Intel Core i7-13700K, i9-13900K, i7-14700K, or i9-14900K, the developer’s own technical FAQ already has the fix. These specific chips can fail shader compilation under their default boost behavior; Starry Studio’s recommended workaround is to update your motherboard’s BIOS, or use Intel Extreme Tuning Utility to lower the Performance Core Ratio from 55x to 54x. This isn’t an Once Human-specific bug so much as a known interaction between these CPU SKUs’ out-of-the-box boost clocks and shader-heavy game workloads more broadly – but Once Human is one of the titles it hits, and it’s easy to mistake for a corrupted install if you don’t know to look for it.
Everything above is specific to Once Human’s own graphics menu. The driver-level and Windows-level side of performance – GPU power management, Windows Game Mode, background app trimming – applies the same way across every PC title, not just this one; our full PC game settings optimization guide covers that layer in depth if you want to squeeze out more frames after you’ve dialed in the settings above.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should I turn off motion blur in Once Human?
Yes. It only costs roughly 2-3% of your frame rate, so the real reason to disable it isn’t performance – it’s that Once Human’s combat involves fast turns and gunfire, and motion blur smears exactly the visual information (enemy silhouettes, muzzle flashes) you need to track in a fight. Most “turn off motion blur” advice frames it as an FPS tip; here it’s really a visibility tip that happens to also save a couple of frames.
Does Once Human have ray tracing?
No. There’s no ray tracing toggle in the settings menu, and the game’s official Steam page doesn’t list ray tracing support anywhere. If you’ve seen a guide mention “keep ray tracing off for performance,” that’s generic boilerplate carried over from other games’ settings guides – don’t waste time looking for a slider that isn’t there.
Is Once Human built on Unreal Engine 5?
No, not anymore, if it ever was outside of early previews. The shipped game runs on NetEase’s NeoX engine. The Unreal Engine 5 label followed the game from 2023 pre-release coverage and has stuck around in some settings content despite not matching the released product – which is also why you won’t find a Lumen or Nanite option in the graphics menu.
Should I use DirectX 11 or DirectX 12?
Default to DirectX 11 unless you specifically own an RTX 40-series card and want DLSS 3 frame generation. DX12 is the only way to unlock frame generation, but it also carries the documented risk of progressive FPS degradation and higher memory use on longer sessions. If you’re not chasing frame generation specifically, DX11’s FSR 2 support covers upscaling without that trade-off.
Sources
- Wikipedia contributors. Once Human (video game). Wikimedia Foundation.
- Starry Studio / NetEase. Once Human – official Steam store page (system requirements). Valve/Steam.
- games.gg. Once Human PC Performance Guide: Settings & System Specs. games.gg.
- PCOptimizedSettings. Once Human PC Optimized Settings – Every Graphics Option Benchmarked. PCOptimizedSettings.
- PCOptimizedSettings. Once Human Gets AMD FSR 2 & DLSS 3 Frame Generation for GeForce RTX 40 Series GPUs. PCOptimizedSettings.
- jeu.video. Once Human best settings: stable FPS, cleaner aim and mistakes to avoid. jeu.video.
- Starry Studio. Official Once Human technical FAQ (July 13, 2024 update notes). oncehuman.game.
- Steam Community. “Problems with DirectX 12” discussion thread, Once Human. Valve/Steam.
I've been playing video games for over 20 years, spanning everything from early PC titles to modern open-world games. I started Switchblade Gaming to publish the kind of accurate, well-researched guides I always wanted to find — built on primary sources, tested in-game, and kept up to date after patches. I currently focus on Minecraft and Pokémon GO.