Adjusting PC game settings is a way of life in the PC master race. The quest for that magical 60+ FPS and Ultra graphical quality is a real struggle sometimes. Games often have auto-detection options that run when you first boot the game. Like many users, I find these a bit inaccurate in many games. And when it comes to Shadow of War graphics settings, the auto-detect isn’t great. The game runs well on PC, but you’re going to need to adjust a few things. If you’re running closer to the minimum settings, 60 FPS will only be attainable on Low settings. Those of use PC gamers still using FX-era hardware on the CPU front are in trouble. Use this guide to figure out the best graphical settings for this game.
For players interested in Ultra settings or resolutions like 1440p, ultra-wide 1440p, or 4K, more power is required from your hardware. And with modern hardware, you’re going to need a top-end rig to run the biggest AAA releases.
Shadow of War System Requirements
Getting the right system requirements is the first thing you need to do. Having a powerful rig is the best thing you can do to get the most FPS and the highest graphical settings. Before even trying to adjust things, check the list below. You can only really run the game if you have relatively decent hardware. You will need to at least meet the minium requirements listed below.
Minimum:
- OS: Windows 7 SP1 with Platform Update for Windows 7
- Processor: Intel i5-2550K, 3.4 GHz
- Memory: 8 GB RAM
- Graphics: GeForce GTX 670 | Radeon HD 7950
- DirectX: Version 11
- Network: Broadband Internet connection
- Storage: 60 GB available space
Recommended:
- OS: Windows 10 version 14393.102 or higher required
- Processor: Intel Core i7-3770, 3.4 GHz
- Memory: 16 GB RAM
- Graphics: GeForce GTX 970 or GeForce GTX 1060 | Radeon R9 290X or Radeon RX 480
- DirectX: Version 11
So now, let’s talk about what kind of settings you’re going to need to adjust.
Best Settings for FPS and Quality in Shadow of War
There are a handful of settings found under the advanced graphical options. Due to its strict demands for memory and visual effects, the GPU is a huge factor here. Having a good GPU that’s in-line with modern games will be vital. While you will see benefits from using the newest AMD Ryzen and Intel CPUs, there’s much more power to be seen from adding a GPU with more raw power and VRAM. Having more VRAM, in particular, will help with the rendering of higher-quality textures. Players using GPUs with 3GB or less VRAM are going to have issues going beyond medium settings. The higher you crank various options, the more likely you are to get lag.
Knowing your way around Shadow of War graphics settings will help a lot with picking how to set them. For now, let’s talk about what each of the core settings means.
- V-Sync – This is one of the most important settings at higher framerates. Most modern monitors have a refresh rate higher than 60 Hz, so you need to use something to sync the drawing of new frames to the rate that the monitor refreshes the game’s visuals.
- Dynamic Resolution – This setting will scale down the resolution of textures on render to hit a certain FPS target. This can have a major negative impact on visual quality as the textures can get very muddy.
- Anti-Aliasing – Anti-aliasing refers to a sampling technique that uses the surrounding visual data to better draw lines and edges. There are multiple settings that accomplish this. TAA (temporal anti-aliasing) seems to be the best.
- Lighting, Shadows and Mesh – This collection of settings refers to the preset quality of lighting effects and shaders as a whole. Turning this down can help a lot.
- Texture Filtering – Texture filtering is a method that is used to improve the texture quality in a scene. Without texture filtering, artifacts like aliasing generally look worse. Turning this up can drastically increase the clarity of textures, at the cost of performance.
- Ambient Occlusion – This is a value that helps graphical algorithms better depict accurate lighting conditions. It has a lot to do with shadow effects, and turning it down can help a lot with performance.
Dropping ambient occlusion, shadow quality, mesh quality, and lighting quality seems to be the best way to maximize FPS. To get good quality, you have to find a good balance between the settings and your desired visual quality. The lighting and various post-processing effects will take a hit in quality, but the higher FPS is well worth it. Dynamic Resolution can actually help a lot with hitting that 60+ FPS mark if you’re willing to deal with the overall loss in quality.
Having something solid like a mid-to-high range 1000-series GPU is more than enough. Something more expensive like a 1080 Ti will be more than enough. Those PC gamers on a budget can get by with cheaper older cards from either AMD or Nvidia. Something such as a GTX 1060 6GB or an RX 480 will be more than enough for a steady 60 FPS when running the game at High or Ultra settings. Going forward, you will be able to run the game even better as the hardware gets better. If you’re running something older, like a GTX 900-series, Medium to High settings should be fine at 60 FPS.