Crimson Desert looks great and runs well across a wide range of PC hardware (check out our benchmarks), but it is not without its rough edges. Certain settings combinations can introduce visual issues, so in this guide we will focus on optimizing the experience. Visual noise, in particular, stood out during our time with the review build. It is not always obvious, but in the wrong scenes it can become distracting. The tweaks and optimizations we will cover in this article can help reduce those artifacts.
You might also be chasing better performance. Crimson Desert is a slower-paced single-player game with a vast open world and striking scenery, but it benefits from higher frame rates due to how movement and interactions are handled.
In this article, will be exploring every setting in the game and examine how each one impacts both visuals and performance, with the goal of identifying a set of optimized settings worth using – if you want to skip to that part, go to the TechSpot Optimized Settings.
A few quick notes on our test setup before diving in. All visual comparisons were captured at 4K using the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 with DLAA enabled, except for AMD-specific features, which were tested on the Radeon RX 9070 XT.
For the video comparisons below, we recommend watching at 4K for the highest bitrate. Performance testing was conducted primarily on an RTX 5060 Ti 16GB at native 1440p, paired with an AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D and 32GB of DDR5-6000 memory.
Managing Visual Noise
First, let's look at some of the visual issues that appear in Crimson Desert and how to mitigate them. We don't want this section to come across as overly critical of the game's visuals because, overall, it is a great-looking title. However, some of these rough edges expose optimization trade-offs made to improve performance. It's also worth noting that the following observations are based on the pre-release March 13 build.
Noise is the primary visual artifact in Crimson Desert. Most of the time, this is not a problem, especially in well-lit outdoor scenes. However, across many indoor environments, we observed artifacts related to a low sample count in the game's lighting system.
In this example, we are running the Cinematic preset with DLSS 4.0 Quality mode enabled at 4K. There is visible blockiness, boiling, and other issues with global illumination toward the end of this sewer area. In another example, also using the Cinematic preset but with DLSS 4.0 Performance mode, entering a building introduces significant low-sample noise as lighting transitions from outdoors to indoors. This resolves slowly over time, but even when exiting the building, additional noise artifacts remain.
In another case, entering an underground area at night with a lantern enabled, using the Cinematic preset with DLAA, there is clear blockiness in image quality and noticeable noise in the shadows. Similar issues appear on curtains in this bank area. On these stairs, lighting disocclusion appears grainy and noisy, which looks quite poor. The common factor across all these examples is indoor scenes with global illumination.
There are a few ways to mitigate this and make the problem less noticeable. Increasing the Lighting setting to Max might seem like the obvious solution, but it can actually make noise worse in some cases.
If you are experiencing shadow flicker, as shown in this environment, reducing the Lighting setting to Cinematic or Ultra is more effective. Below Ultra, noise begins to increase again, so we recommend sticking with Cinematic or Ultra.
We also found that using DLSS 4.0 instead of DLSS 4.5 is essential for reducing noise. The game allows you to choose between preset M and preset L for DLSS 4.5, but for reasons that are not entirely clear, DLSS 4.0 produces a cleaner image. This suggests there may be issues with the DLSS 4.5 implementation that could be addressed in future patches. For now, this recommendation is based on our experience with the current build.
Disabling ray tracing can reduce some noise artifacts, but it introduces other visual issues, so it is not a complete solution. In some scenes, shadow noise appears similar regardless of whether ray tracing is enabled. With ray tracing disabled, shadows change in appearance and can introduce other artifacts such as disocclusion noise and reflection issues.
Another consideration when using upscaling is that the lighting sample count is tied to the internal render resolution rather than the output resolution. This means lighting quality can decrease when upscaling, making noise more apparent.
In the example below, shadow detail becomes blurrier when using DLSS Performance or even Quality mode compared to DLAA, with increased noise around certain objects even when the camera is stationary. This is not a typical DLSS artifact seen in other games and appears to be related to how the game renders at different resolutions.
Running Crimson Desert at native resolution or using higher-quality upscaling modes is more beneficial than usual.
For a better representation of image quality comparisons, check out the HUB video below:
What this means is that running Crimson Desert at native resolution or using higher-quality upscaling modes is more beneficial than usual. In many games, DLSS Balanced at 4K can deliver near-native image quality, with minor compromises in stability and detail.
In Crimson Desert, however, lower render resolutions also impact lighting quality. For this reason, we recommend using the highest possible render resolution your hardware can handle.
To recap, the best way to reduce noise artifacts is to set Lighting Quality to Cinematic or Ultra, use DLSS 4.0 instead of DLSS 4.5 (FSR 4 performs well on AMD GPUs), keep ray tracing enabled, and run at the highest possible render resolution, ideally native.
The good news is that DLSS 4.0 DLAA is not overly demanding in this game, as native performance is reasonably strong on modern GPUs. Upscaling is not always necessary, even when using Cinematic settings.
This configuration does not completely eliminate noise issues in indoor scenes. Some lighting artifacts will remain until Pearl Abyss addresses them through patches, if that is possible. It is also important to emphasize that these issues are mostly limited to certain indoor environments.
Noise is rarely a problem outdoors, and there are indoor areas where it is minimal. Crimson Desert is an ambitious game with a large, varied world, and not every scene is visually perfect.
Ray Reconstruction
The other option for reducing noise is to use Nvidia's Ray Reconstruction or AMD's Ray Regeneration feature. However, enabling these settings is extremely demanding, at least in the build we tested.
When either of these AI-based denoisers is enabled, the game forces Lighting quality to Max, which is already significantly slower than Cinematic. On top of that, it appears to push certain graphics settings beyond their normal maximum values, delivering higher image quality at a substantial performance cost.
We say this because, in some scenes, additional shadows appear that were not present before, along with noticeable geometry changes triggered by enabling this single setting. In practice, Ray Reconstruction and Ray Regeneration behave like a hidden "extreme" mode, on top of the denoising benefits they provide.
For a better representation of image quality comparisons, check out the HUB video below:
Ray Reconstruction significantly improves image quality and reduces lighting noise in most scenes. Shadows appear more accurate and less aliased, while pixelation and grain are reduced across the image. Most importantly, overall noise is dramatically lowered. Combined with improved shadows and global illumination, this is arguably the best way to experience the game visually.
AMD's Ray Regeneration is not as effective as Ray Reconstruction and generally exhibits more noise, especially when paired with the level of upscaling required to make it usable. However, noise is still typically reduced compared to running without Ray Regeneration, though not in every case.
You also benefit from the "above maximum" quality settings enabled alongside the AI denoiser. Based on this title, AMD still has work to do to match Nvidia's implementation, as the combined denoising and upscaling solution from Nvidia delivers clearly superior image quality in Crimson Desert.
That said, Ray Reconstruction is not without issues. Boiling artifacts can appear when the feature is enabled, particularly at lower render and output resolutions. These artifacts are less distracting than the noise they replace, making it a net improvement, but there is currently no completely "noiseless" image in these indoor scenarios.
Another issue is that Ray Reconstruction can effectively remove rain from the game. In the example below, comparing Ray Reconstruction enabled to the Cinematic preset, both using DLSS Performance, rain is clearly visible without Ray Reconstruction. Once enabled, the rain is treated as noise and gradually disappears.
For a better representation of image quality comparisons, check out the HUB video below:
You can even see the effect fading out immediately after toggling the setting. This behavior persists even at the highest quality settings, including 4K with DLAA. It is a noticeable problem, as the game can sound like it is raining without any visible rainfall, which breaks immersion and represents a significant trade-off for using the best denoiser. We were unable to capture equivalent footage with Ray Regeneration to confirm whether AMD's solution suffers from the same issue.
Ray Reconstruction Performance
In terms of performance, enabling either Ray Reconstruction or Ray Regeneration is extremely demanding. On the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB, performance dropped to roughly one-third of the Cinematic preset after enabling Ray Reconstruction, with about half of that loss coming from the forced switch to Max Lighting. We observed a similar impact on the RX 9060 XT 16GB, with both techniques showing comparable performance costs in our benchmark pass.
What this means is that if you want to use AI denoising to address Crimson Desert's noise issues, you will need to rely on aggressive upscaling to offset the performance hit. We found that Ray Reconstruction combined with DLSS Performance mode delivers similar performance to the Cinematic preset with Ray Reconstruction disabled and DLAA enabled.
In terms of overall image quality and noise reduction, we prefer the Ray Reconstruction plus DLSS configuration, although it does involve trade-offs in other areas. It is also not ideal if your baseline configuration was, for example, DLSS Quality without Ray Reconstruction, as this approach will reduce performance relative to that setup.
However, if you are playing at native resolution and find the noise levels distracting, it is worth experimenting with Ray Reconstruction alongside DLSS Performance, particularly if you are using at least a 1440p display.
Other Visual Issues
There are a couple of additional issues in Crimson Desert worth discussing. One relates to texture quality and overall image blur. Earlier, we mentioned that the game's render resolution affects the sample count of lighting effects. It also appears to impact texture clarity, with sub-native render resolutions looking noticeably blurrier, even when using technologies like DLSS 4.
In most titles, blur levels remain fairly consistent between native rendering (such as DLAA) and upscaling modes like Quality or Performance, particularly in static scenes. In Crimson Desert, however, the current build becomes significantly blurrier when upscaling is used.
For a better representation of image quality comparisons, check out the HUB video below:
This blur is unusual. It does not appear to be caused by lower-quality textures being loaded, but instead resembles a rendering issue. It may be a bug, and we would expect it to be addressed in post-launch patches. If it is not, the simplest workaround is to use native rendering, particularly DLSS 4.0 DLAA, which delivers the best image quality in our testing.
Another issue worth mentioning is pop-in. There is a noticeable amount of pop-in while playing Crimson Desert, especially when moving quickly on horseback or flying. Draw distances can be impressive in certain scenes, with detailed environments and vegetation extending far into the distance. However, the issue stems from how the game handles higher-quality assets closer to the player.
The draw distance for these higher-detail elements is relatively short, and transitions can be abrupt. High-quality objects often appear suddenly, and lighting effects such as shadows can visibly improve as you move forward, creating a clear boundary between lower- and higher-quality rendering.
For a better representation of image quality comparisons, check out the HUB video below:
This behavior appears to be a side effect of optimization decisions aimed at maintaining performance and reducing VRAM usage. Unfortunately, there is no setting available to extend this higher-quality draw distance to reduce pop-in.
While much of this guide so far has focused on the shortcomings of Crimson Desert's PC graphics, it is important to emphasize that the game still looks great overall and runs well across a range of hardware. The goal here is to highlight areas where visual quality can be improved and to help PC players get the best possible experience.
This is not a situation like Borderlands 4, where performance issues significantly impact playability and require extensive tweaking. Most of the issues discussed here are relatively minor and, in many cases, could be addressed through patches.
What this also highlights is how challenging optimization can be. Delivering cutting-edge visuals while maintaining strong performance is a difficult balance. Crimson Desert's visuals can feel rough around the edges, and some of the compromises are noticeable, but they do not appear frequently enough to be a major concern.
This is an ambitious game in both scale and design, and the fact that it delivers this level of visual quality in an open-world environment without major performance problems is impressive.
A Look at Every Setting
Now let's talk about the game's settings. We will start with options that have little performance impact. For reference, we used three benchmark runs: an outdoor daytime scene, an outdoor nighttime scene, and an indoor scene. Most settings scale similarly across these scenarios, although nighttime scenes tend to run slightly worse than daytime.
Texture Quality
Texture Quality has virtually no performance impact, and most settings deliver similar visual results. Dropping to Low reduces overall texture fidelity and removes some detail textures, saving around 0.5GB of VRAM in most scenes we tested. We recommend keeping this set to Cinematic.
Effect Quality
Effect Quality is supposed to influence elements such as flames and smoke, so we specifically looked for differences in those areas. We did not observe any meaningful visual change between Cinematic and Low, nor did we measure a performance impact. It is possible there are edge cases we did not encounter, but based on our testing, this setting is best left on Cinematic.
Simulation Quality
We observed no performance difference when adjusting Simulation Quality, and we were unable to identify any clear visual changes. The game includes various physics systems such as object collisions, cloth simulation, and rope physics, but this setting did not appear to significantly affect them. It makes sense to keep this on Cinematic.
Post-Process Effect Quality
Post-Process Effect Quality also has minimal impact. Setting it to Low disables lens flares, but beyond that, visual differences are limited. Reducing this setting from Cinematic to Low improved performance by around 1%, which falls within the margin of error and is not worth adjusting. We recommend leaving it on Cinematic.
Water Quality
Water Quality is another setting with surprisingly little performance impact. Even when swimming in large bodies of water, the difference between Cinematic and Low was negligible. Visually, this setting does not significantly affect surface detail or reflections, as those are controlled by other options.
However, reducing Water Quality to Medium removes some surface interactions, and at Low, ripple effects and water interactivity are largely absent. Given the minimal performance cost, we recommend keeping this on Cinematic to preserve the highest-quality water simulation, which can look excellent in this game.
Ray Tracing
It is also worth revisiting the ray tracing setting. This option produces a clear visual difference. Disabling it results in lower-quality reflections, less accurate shadows, and noticeably different global illumination that often looks less realistic.
What is surprising is that disabling ray tracing does not improve performance. In some cases, turning it off actually reduced performance by one or two frames per second. Ray tracing remains enabled in most presets and is only disabled in the Low preset, likely for compatibility with older GPUs that struggle with ray tracing workloads.
For a better representation of image quality comparisons, check out the HUB video below:
Based on our testing, the game engine appears to be built with ray tracing as a core component. The fallback rasterized mode is not particularly well optimized for performance gains.
As a result, the best experience on most hardware is achieved by leaving ray tracing enabled, even when trying to maximize performance. It is a rare case where ray tracing both looks better and performs as well as, or better than, the alternative.
Shadow Quality
Now let's look at settings with a mild performance impact. Shadow Quality controls the resolution of both near and distant shadows. There is a clear transition line between these shadow types in motion, and this boundary does not change across settings. Higher modes do not extend higher-quality shadows further into the distance.
Lowering this setting reduces the resolution of both shadow types. At Medium and Low, shadows become noticeably blurrier and more prone to flickering. There is also relatively little visual difference between the highest settings.
In terms of performance, we observed a 2% improvement when dropping from Cinematic to Ultra, with no further gains at lower settings. While lower modes may provide benefits on very limited hardware, Ultra is the optimal choice for most users.
Reflection Quality
Reflection Quality affects both the number of reflective surfaces and the quality of those reflections. In this river example, the riverbank appears more reflective with improved material detail when using Cinematic or Ultra, with Cinematic offering better draw distance.
High and Medium reduce these additional reflections, while Low further decreases reflection resolution. However, when using Medium or higher, reflection resolution remains largely similar, as seen in the puddle example.
This setting has minimal performance impact, so we recommend keeping it on Cinematic. Dropping to Low improves performance by around 2%, but the visual trade-off is not worthwhile.
Foliage Density
Foliage Density controls how much vegetation, such as grass and shrubs, is rendered on screen. Higher settings increase density and extend draw distance.
The difference between Cinematic and Ultra is difficult to spot in most cases. High introduces a small reduction, particularly for distant grass. Medium reduces density further, while Low significantly cuts back foliage and is only recommended for lower-end systems.
Performance gains only become noticeable at Medium, where we saw a 3% improvement, and increase to around 4% at Low. We recommend using Cinematic, or Medium if additional performance is needed.
Volumetric Fog Quality
Volumetric Fog Quality has a subtle impact on visuals. Reducing this setting does not significantly improve performance, and even the highest settings are relatively conservative in quality.
Higher settings slightly improve fog draw distance and overall quality. At Medium and Low, there is a more noticeable drop-off, particularly indoors where fog artifacts become more visible. This occurs despite minimal performance differences in our testing.
Performance improves by around 2% when using High, with no further gains at lower settings. While Cinematic offers marginally better quality, High is the more balanced choice given the small visual difference.
There is also an "Advanced Weather Effect" option, but we were unable to evaluate it effectively, so it is not included here.
Model Quality
One of the more demanding settings in the game is Model Quality, which affects geometry throughout the game. While it does not have a massive performance impact, it is more significant than many other options.
Interestingly, lowering this setting does not always result in obviously worse visuals. It clearly alters geometry, with some surfaces becoming simpler or changing shape, but the difference between Cinematic, High, and even Medium is not always easy to judge subjectively. In many cases, the lower settings still look acceptable.
For a better representation of image quality comparisons, check out the HUB video below:
The most noticeable difference is that Cinematic adds more detail to elements like tree branches and leaves, making the world appear denser. There is also a larger gap between Medium and Low, where Low simplifies object geometry and flattens terrain more noticeably.
Performance reflects this scaling. Dropping to Ultra improves performance by around 4%, while Low delivers up to a 9% boost. There is little difference between Ultra, High, and Medium. While Cinematic offers the best visuals, Ultra is the more practical choice for most users, as the visual difference is minor during gameplay and provides a useful performance gain.
Lighting Quality
Lighting Quality is the most performance-intensive setting in the game, aside from Ray Reconstruction/Regeneration. It has a substantial impact on overall visual quality, affecting multiple aspects of rendering.
Global illumination is one of the most affected areas. Higher settings provide more accurate lighting, with better indirect light and bounce lighting across surfaces. Differences between Cinematic, Ultra, and High are relatively small, but Medium and especially Low significantly reduce global illumination. Indoor and nighttime scenes can look much darker and less natural at these lower settings.
For a better representation of image quality comparisons, check out the HUB video below:
Lowering this setting also reduces the resolution of global illumination, which can make High appear slightly rougher than Cinematic or Ultra. There are also known issues with the Max setting, which introduces artifacts despite improving certain aspects of lighting.
Lighting Quality also impacts reflection resolution, even though there is a separate Reflection setting. Max, for example, produces noticeably higher-quality reflections than Cinematic, but at a significant performance cost. Water surfaces can appear somewhat muddy on Cinematic, while Max improves clarity. However, there is little difference between Cinematic and High in this area. Medium appears to disable ray-traced reflections, replacing them with a simpler alternative similar to running with ray tracing disabled.
From a performance perspective, moving from Cinematic to Ultra improves performance by around 9-10% in both daytime and nighttime scenarios.
Ultra, High, and Medium then perform similarly, making Ultra the best overall choice. Low improves performance by roughly 14% compared to Cinematic but comes with a clear visual downgrade and is best reserved for lower-end hardware.
There's also the enigma of the Max setting. While this mode increases lighting quality, it also introduces artifacts and reduces performance by more than 30% compared to Cinematic. It only makes sense to use Max when paired with Ray Reconstruction, which enables it by default.
Additional Settings
There are a few smaller settings worth mentioning. Motion blur and particle effects can be adjusted, but they are located in the Accessibility menu rather than the main graphics settings. Neither has a meaningful impact on performance.
The game also includes a preset below Low called Minimum, which is the only way to access the lowest possible settings. This mode significantly reduces visual quality, particularly environment density and model detail, and introduces more flickering than even Low. It is clearly intended for very limited hardware.
On an RTX 5060 Ti, this preset delivered around 15% higher performance compared to Low.
TechSpot Optimized Settings
Here are our recommended settings for Crimson Desert. Most options are already well optimized and do not significantly impact image quality or performance unless reduced to Medium or Low. As a result, most players can safely use the Cinematic preset for the majority of settings. There are a few areas where reducing settings can improve performance with only a minor visual cost.
| Setting | TechSpot Optimized |
| Model Quality | Ultra |
| Texture Quality | Cinematic |
| Shadow Quality | Ultra |
| Raytracing | On |
| Lighting Quality | Ultra |
| Reflection Quality | Cinematic |
| Advanced Weather Effect | On |
| Water Quality | Cinematic |
| Foliage Density | Cinematic |
| Volumetric Fog Quality | High |
| Effect Quality | Cinematic |
| Simulation Quality | Cinematic |
| Post-processing Effect Quality | Cinematic |
| Blur Intensity | 0 |
| Best Upscaling Mode (Low Noise) | DLSS 4.0 / FSR 4 Native |
| Ray Reconstruction | On for High End GPUs |
| Best Upscaling Mode (RR) | DLSS Performance |
| Ray Regeneration | On for High End GPUs |
| Best Upscaling Mode (RR) | FSR Performance |
We recommend pairing these settings with native rendering. Upscaling may become more viable in future updates if Pearl Abyss addresses some of the current issues. Even without aggressive upscaling, the game runs well across a wide range of hardware, so heavy optimization is not strictly necessary.
For high-end systems, enabling Ray Reconstruction alongside upscaling delivers the best image quality. The ultimate experience would pair this with native rendering such as DLAA, but this is extremely demanding. Even on an RTX 5090, this configuration achieves around 30 FPS at 4K. On the positive side, this highlights the game's scalability. While Cinematic and Ultra settings run well on modest hardware, there is plenty of headroom for higher-end GPUs.
Our optimized configuration is preferable to the High or Medium presets, which offer similar performance but lower visual quality.
In terms of performance, our optimized settings deliver slightly better results than the Ultra preset, coming in around 18% faster than the Cinematic preset. This is a solid improvement and makes the optimized configuration preferable to the High or Medium presets, which offer similar performance but lower visual quality.
That said, the gains are not dramatic because Crimson Desert is already well optimized. Players using the Cinematic or Ultra presets will still have a good experience. However, understanding which settings have minimal impact allows for better fine-tuning. For example, if you need to drop to Low settings for acceptable performance, you can still increase options like Texture Quality and Shadow Quality to regain visual fidelity at a negligible hit to performance.
Wrap Up
There is not much more to add about Crimson Desert on PC. It is a game that can look great and run well, but it is also somewhat rough around the edges. Careful tuning of settings helps deliver the best experience. There are a few visual issues that Pearl Abyss will want to address with post-launch patches, particularly the blur when using upscaling.
When these issues are not present, Crimson Desert is a visually impressive game with expansive and detailed environments. The scope is also considerable based on our time with it so far. Our testing has focused on early-game areas, but there is clearly much more to explore across the map.
We are enjoying the experience so far. Exploration feels rewarding, and many of the gameplay systems are engaging. It is still too early to comment on the story, as it unfolds slowly in the opening hours, so we recommend checking full reviews for that aspect.
Hopefully, you found these optimized settings and tips useful for getting the best experience in Crimson Desert.