As the newest looter-shooter game in the market, The First Descendant has to meet those high expectations– especially in a genre duopolized by Warframe and Destiny 2. One area where The First Descendant excels is in its beautiful graphics. It’s a pretty game, no doubt, but all this eye candy comes with a high hardware price tag. Thus, if your hardware is struggling or if you want a stable 60+ FPS without sacrificing visuals, our The First Descendant graphics settings optimization guide should help.
Graphics Settings Optimization for The First Descendant
This is assuming you’ve met or are close to the ‘Recommended’ system requirements for the game:
| Component | Recommended | Minimum |
| OS | Windows 10 x64 20H2 | Windows 10 x64 20H2 |
| Processor | Intel i7-7700K / AMD Ryzen 5 2600X | Intel i5-3570 / AMD FX-8350 |
| Memory | 16 GB RAM | 8 GB RAM |
| Graphics | GeForce RTX 2060 / AMD Radeon RX 5600XT | GeForce GTX 1050Ti / AMD Radeon RX 570 |
| Storage | 50 GB available space | 50 GB available space |
Custom Graphics & Display Settings Tweaks
If you have a PC that only meets the minimum requirements or is close to it, then you’re better off playing on the ‘Low’ preset at the top of the ‘Graphics’ tab in The First Descendant‘s settings menu.
Otherwise, this is what I recommend:
| Graphics | Custom |
| Ray Tracing | Off |
| Additional Options (Upscaling) | NVIDIA / AMD |
| DLSS / FSR | Quality / Balanced |
| VSync | Off (as it introduces input lag) |
| Max Frame Rate | 95 or 144 (anything above 60) |
| Frame Generation | On (if you have an NVIDIA RTX 4000-series GPU |
| Visibility | High / Medium |
| Anti-Aliasing | High / Medium |
| Post-Processing | High |
| Shadows | Medium (High if you have 3060 Ti or 6700 XT) |
| Global Illumination | Medium |
| Reflections | Medium |
| Textures | High (Ultra if your GPU has 12+ GB VRAM) |
| Effect | Medium (causes FPS drop in combat) |
| Vegetation | Medium / Low |
| Shader Quality | High |
| Object Quality | Medium / High |
| Physics | Ultra |
| Motion Blur | Off (On if you’re getting below 55 FPS) |
| Display Mode (Display Section) | Borderless Window |
| Field of View (Display Section) | 90 |
| Sharpness (Display Section | 3 or 4 |
Hence, the biggest offenders here would be the following settings:
- Shadows (as usual)
- Reflections
- Object Quality
- Global Illumination
- Visibility
You want to turn them to Medium (or even Low) if your PC is struggling to maintain 50+ FPS, especially in combat. If you want smooth combat since this game’s controls are quite jittery and sensitive, then having FPS above 40+ in the heat of battle helps make it feel more responsive, and reducing the “Effects” graphics setting will help with that.
Do feel free to tinker around with the graphics settings in The First Descendant as you see fit. Perhaps you might be able to crank up some of them without lowering your frame rate.
