Before you touch a single graphics slider in The First Descendant, know this: no individual setting moves your frame rate more than your upscaling mode. Swapping DLSS Quality for DLSS Performance, or turning on Frame Generation, changes your FPS more than most GPU upgrades one tier up the ladder — and it costs you almost nothing you’d notice mid-fight. Everything else in the graphics menu is a smaller lever by comparison.
This guide is verified against Hotfix 1.4.3d (September 2026). The First Descendant patches its graphics options and DLSS support regularly — Season 3 “Breakthrough” added full DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation on top of the existing DLSS Super Resolution, Ray Reconstruction, DLAA, and Reflex stack, so a settings guide from 2024 is already out of date on the single most impactful option in the menu. Values below may shift with future patches; if a specific number stops matching what you see in-game, trust your own benchmark over this article.
Quick Start: The Settings That Actually Matter
If you only change five things, change these:
- Upscaling mode — DLSS (Nvidia) or FSR/XeSS (everyone else) set to Quality or Balanced, never off
- Ray Tracing — off, unless you’re specifically chasing screenshots
- Frame Generation — off until your base (non-generated) frame rate is already above 60 FPS
- Shadows and Global Illumination — Medium, not Ultra — this is where the real FPS cost hides
- Texture Quality — High if your GPU has 8GB+ VRAM, Medium if it doesn’t
Which Upscaling Mode Should You Use in The First Descendant?
Upscaling is the single biggest FPS lever in this game because Unreal Engine 5’s dynamic lighting and particle-heavy boss fights are expensive to render at native resolution — upscaling renders at a lower internal resolution and reconstructs detail, recovering roughly 20-25% performance on its own even before Frame Generation enters the picture, according to hands-on RTX 4090 testing from PC Optimized Settings.
The mode you pick depends on your GPU vendor, not personal preference:
- Nvidia RTX cards — use DLSS, set to Quality at 1440p/4K or Balanced if you’re chasing higher frame rates. Nvidia’s own benchmarks show DLSS 4 running the game an average of 4.9x faster than native rendering at 4K, 3.7x at 1440p, and 3.9x at 1080p — a bigger swing than jumping an entire GPU tier.
- AMD or Intel Arc cards, or older Nvidia GPUs without DLSS support — use FSR or XeSS at Quality. Community testing consistently finds FSR slightly softer than DLSS on fine detail (foliage edges, distant enemy silhouettes), so if your card supports DLSS, use it over FSR even at the cost of a small compatibility hassle.
Don’t set upscaling to “Off.” There’s no scenario in The First Descendant where native rendering is worth the FPS you give up — even at Quality mode, the reconstructed image is close enough that you won’t spot the difference mid-fight, only in a paused screenshot comparison.
Should You Turn On Ray Tracing?
No — leave Ray Tracing off, even on an RTX 4090 or RTX 5090. In The First Descendant, ray tracing currently only affects ambient occlusion (the soft contact shadows where objects meet surfaces), not reflections or global illumination in any way that changes how you read a fight. For that narrow a visual gain, it costs roughly 30% of your frame rate — RTX 4090 benchmarks show a drop from a 92.5 FPS baseline at 1440p Ultra down into the low 70s with ray tracing enabled. That’s a bad trade in a game where boss mechanics and incoming projectiles need to read clearly at a glance.
DLSS 4 Multi Frame Generation: When It’s Actually Worth Turning On
Frame Generation works by inserting AI-generated frames between the ones your GPU actually renders, which is why the FPS counter can roughly double — or with DLSS 4 Multi Frame Generation on RTX 50-series cards, climb even higher, since MFG inserts multiple interpolated frames per real one instead of just one. The catch is that Frame Generation doesn’t reduce input latency the way a genuinely higher frame rate does — it smooths what’s on screen without making your inputs land faster, and if your starting frame rate is low, that mismatch is very noticeable in a shooter.
The rule that holds up in practice: only enable Frame Generation once your base frame rate (upscaling on, Frame Generation off) is already comfortably above 60 FPS. Below that threshold, community testing and TheGamer’s hands-on review both flag the same problems — noticeable input delay, HUD element warping, and stutter during zone transitions, because the interpolation engine has less real data to work from at low frame rates. Above 60 base FPS, those artifacts mostly disappear and Frame Generation is a clean way to hit a high refresh-rate target for a smoother-looking image.
The Individual Graphics Settings, Ranked by FPS Cost
Not every slider in the menu costs the same. Global Illumination, Shadows, and Reflections carry the biggest performance tax relative to how much they change what you actually see during a fight — Texture Quality and Object Detail are comparatively cheap and worth keeping high if your VRAM allows it.
| Setting | FPS Cost (Ultra vs Low) | Recommended | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Global Illumination | ~14% (highest) | Medium | Biggest single cost for a lighting effect you rarely notice mid-combat |
| Shadows | ~11% | Medium, Low if CPU-bound | Ultra shadow resolution is wasted on fast-moving targets |
| Reflections (SSR) | ~10% | Low | Screen-space reflections are inconsistent in busy scenes regardless of setting |
| Texture Quality | Low, until VRAM caps out | High (8GB+ VRAM) | Cheapest visual upgrade in the menu — drop only if VRAM hits 95-100% usage |
| Object / Visibility Detail | Minimal | High | Improves readability of enemies and pickups at range for almost no FPS cost |
| Effects Quality | Moderate, spikes in boss fights | Medium | High settings add particle density that obscures hitboxes during dense fights |
The takeaway: spend your performance budget by turning down Global Illumination, Shadows, and Reflections first — they cost the most and change the least — while keeping Texture and Object Detail high, since they’re cheap and directly improve how clearly you can see enemies and loot.
Best Settings by Player Type
“It depends” isn’t useful advice, so here’s what actually changes based on who you are and what hardware you’re running:
| Player Type | Priority | Settings Approach |
|---|---|---|
| Competitive / Hardcore | Frame rate and clarity over fidelity | DLSS/FSR Balanced, everything else Low except Object Detail Medium, Frame Generation off, uncapped frame rate with Reflex on |
| Visual quality enthusiast | Fidelity, still wants a stable frame rate | DLSS Quality, Shadows/GI Medium-High, Frame Generation on only if base FPS exceeds 60, ray tracing still off |
| Low VRAM / older GPU (6GB or less) | Avoiding stutter over peak fidelity | DLSS/FSR Performance, Textures Medium, Global Illumination and Shadows Low, close background apps to free VRAM headroom |
| New player on recommended-spec hardware | Getting a working 1080p/60 baseline first | Start from the Low preset, raise Texture and Object Detail first — they’re nearly free — before touching anything else |
Settings for Boss Fights and Dense Combat
Boss encounters in The First Descendant are where settings choices matter most, because that’s when particle effects, elemental damage numbers, and enemy tell animations are all competing for your attention at once. Effects Quality set to Epic adds visual density — extra smoke, muzzle flash bloom, and impact particles — that looks impressive in a trailer but actively works against you when you need to spot a boss’s charge-up animation through the clutter.
Dropping Effects Quality to Medium keeps the important visual feedback (hit confirmation, status effect icons, weak-point glow) readable while cutting the particle noise that piles up when four Descendants are all firing elemental skills at once. This isn’t a purely cosmetic choice — it’s the same logic as disabling Motion Blur and heavy Depth of Field: any setting that blurs or clutters the frame during a fast fight is working against your reaction time, not for your screenshots.
Display, Frame Cap, and Driver-Level Settings
In-game settings only get you halfway — the display and driver layer underneath The First Descendant matters just as much. Set your Maximum Frame Rate to match your monitor’s refresh rate (or leave it uncapped only if you have adaptive sync), use Fullscreen exclusive mode rather than Borderless for lower input latency, and turn on Nvidia Reflex Low Latency in the in-game menu if you’re on an Nvidia card.
If you haven’t touched your GPU driver settings yet, that’s a separate and equally important layer — our NVIDIA Control Panel best settings for gaming guide covers the driver-level options (Low Latency Mode, power management mode, texture filtering) that stack with everything above. And if you’re deciding between a G-Sync, FreeSync, or VRR display for a game with frame rates this variable between upscaling modes, our breakdown of G-Sync vs FreeSync vs VRR explains which adaptive sync tech actually matters for your monitor and GPU pairing.
VRAM and Shader Cache: Avoiding Stutter
Most of the stutter reports around The First Descendant trace back to two causes that have nothing to do with your FPS counter. First, the game recompiles shaders in the background whenever you change a graphics setting — give it about 15 minutes of actual play after any change before judging performance, since the first few minutes will stutter regardless of your hardware. Second, watch your VRAM usage during real gameplay rather than in the menu: if it’s sitting at 95-100% utilization, that’s what’s causing the stutter, not your GPU’s raw power. Dropping Texture Quality one tier fixes VRAM-related stutter more reliably than lowering any other setting. If you’re on Nvidia, setting your driver’s shader cache size to 100GB (or Unlimited) also reduces recompilation stutter across sessions.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best DLSS setting for The First Descendant?
DLSS Quality at 1440p or 4K gives you most of the available FPS gain with the smallest visible quality loss. Switch to Balanced only if you’re still below your target frame rate after Quality — the jump from Quality to Balanced is smaller than the jump from Off to Quality, so it’s a fine-tuning step, not your first move.
Should I turn on ray tracing in The First Descendant?
No, for almost everyone. It only changes ambient occlusion in this game, not reflections or lighting in a way that affects gameplay, and it costs around 30% of your frame rate for that narrow visual difference — a worse trade than in games where ray tracing changes global lighting.
Does Frame Generation cause input lag in The First Descendant?
It doesn’t add meaningful lag if your base frame rate before Frame Generation is already above 60 FPS — the interpolated frames have enough real data to work from. Below that threshold, the lag and occasional HUD warping become noticeable enough that it’s not worth the higher counter number.
What are the best settings for a low-end PC in The First Descendant?
Start from the Low preset, set upscaling to Performance mode, keep Texture Quality at Medium rather than Low if your VRAM allows it, and prioritize Object Detail over Shadows or Global Illumination — visibility matters more than lighting fidelity when you’re already frame-rate constrained.
These settings are specific to The First Descendant’s engine and menu layout — for the broader, game-agnostic tuning that improves FPS in every title you play, see our complete guide to optimizing your PC for better FPS.
Sources
- NVIDIA. DLSS 4 Multiplies Performance In Death Relives & The First Descendant. GeForce News
- Patchbot. The First Descendant — Patch Notes Tracker
- PC Optimized Settings. The First Descendant PC Optimization: Every Setting Tested
- Tier1Settings. Best The First Descendant Settings for FPS and Performance
- TheGamer. The First Descendant: Best Settings Guide
- Destructoid. The Best PC Settings for FPS in The First Descendant
- PCGamesN. The First Descendant System Requirements
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.