ARC Raiders best settings for performance (2026)

Updated November 2026 · 6 min read

ARC Raiders is one of the most-played games on PC right now, and it's also one of the heavier ones. It runs on Unreal Engine with big outdoor maps, dense foliage and a lot of lighting work. On a mid-range PC the default settings can feel sluggish, and on a low-end PC they can be rough.

The good news is that a handful of settings carry most of the cost. Get those right and the game feels very different. Embark updates the options menu often, so if a name below doesn't match exactly, look for the closest setting under the graphics or video tab.

Upscaling first, everything else second

In a heavy Unreal game, upscaling is your best friend. It renders the game at a lower resolution and rebuilds a sharp image, and it usually beats dropping every other setting to Low.

• NVIDIA RTX cards: DLSS on Quality. Drop to Balanced only if you still need frames.
• AMD cards: FSR on Quality or Balanced.
• Intel Arc: XeSS on Quality or Balanced.
• Older cards without DLSS: FSR works on most of them and is still worth trying.

At 1080p, Performance and Ultra Performance modes start to look blurry, and distant targets get harder to read. We'd rather lower shadows than go that far.

Recommended settings

Why these choices

Global illumination and reflections are the expensive ones. They handle how light bounces around the world, and in Unreal games they're often the biggest single cost. Low still looks fine in motion.

Foliage costs a lot and hides enemies. Lower foliage means fewer grass and bush details to draw, and on some maps it can make it easier to spot movement. It's one of the easiest wins in the menu.

Keep view distance at Medium or higher. This is an extraction shooter. Seeing threats and other raiders at range matters more than sharp shadows under your feet.

Motion blur and film grain go off. They're style choices that smear the image. Nobody plays better with them on.

Textures and VRAM

Texture quality barely touches your frame rate as long as the textures fit in your graphics card's memory. Once they don't, you get hitching every time you turn a corner. As a rough guide, keep textures at Low or Medium on a 4 GB card, Medium or High on 6 to 8 GB, and High on anything bigger. If the game has a VRAM meter in the menu, keep total use comfortably below the limit.

Is frame generation worth it?

DLSS Frame Generation and FSR Frame Generation add generated frames between real ones. The FPS counter goes up a lot, but input lag doesn't improve, and it can feel worse if your base frame rate is low. Our rule: use it only if you already get around 60 FPS or more without it, and you care more about smoothness than reaction time. If you're at 40 FPS, frame generation won't save you. Lower settings first.

Fixes outside the game

A heavy game exposes every weak spot in your setup:

• Install the latest GPU driver from NVIDIA, AMD or Intel. New games often get fixes in driver updates.
• Keep the game on an SSD with some free space. Hard drives cause stutter when new areas stream in.
• On a laptop, plug in, use the maker's performance mode and make sure the game uses the dedicated GPU.
• Turn on Game Mode, the Best performance power mode and hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling.

Our Windows 11 FPS guide has each step with the exact menu path.

Still stuttering?

Unreal games compile shaders the first time you visit an area, and that causes hitches for the first few sessions after a patch. Let it settle before you blame your settings. If FPS is fine at first and drops after 20 minutes, check temperatures. A hot CPU or GPU slows itself down.