Dawnwalker

This guide covers Dawnwalker’s graphics options, from the settings with the largest FPS impact to the ones that make little difference.

The options are ordered by measured FPS impact, so you can target the changes that recover performance with the smallest visual trade-off.

Quality Preset

The overall preset has the largest effect. Ultra adds terrain deformation, foliage, and other small details. The visual steps shrink from High to Medium; lower levels mainly remove shrubbery, rocks, and distant lighting.

Most GPU-limited gains come from lowering the preset to Medium, with a smaller increase at Low. Start with Medium.

Upscaling (DLSS)

At 1080p or 1440p, use Quality or Balanced. At 4K and above, Performance provides more FPS with less visible image-quality loss.

Reflections

Reflections has the largest FPS impact when water or another reflective surface is visible. It can still recover 1 to 3 FPS around 60 when no obvious reflections are present.

Most of the change between Ultra and Medium is likely from ray tracing and related effects. Low loses too much image quality, so use Medium for a useful FPS gain.

Effects Quality

Effects Quality mainly affects dialogue and cutscenes, where depth of field and similar effects are most visible. Ultra was the only setting with a substantial FPS drop.

Use High, or Low if you need more FPS. Avoid Ultra.

Shadow Quality

Lower shadow settings mostly remove smaller, less noticeable shadows. Major shadows from characters and large foliage remain high quality, making this an easy FPS gain.

Set it to Low and leave it there.

Light Quality

Most of the light-quality change occurs from Ultra to High. The comparison images show a few distant-shadow changes, but little else changes.

Avoiding Ultra provides most of the FPS gain. High is a good balance; use Low if you need more FPS.

Detail Quality

Dropping from Ultra produced a larger FPS gain here. The main difference appears to be terrain deformation, which only Ultra uses. Choose High for a better balance.

Foliage Quality

Foliage Quality is effectively a slider: lower levels reduce small bushes and tall grass. The largest stability gain was from Ultra to High, so start at High and lower it further only if needed.

On lower-end hardware, VRAM limits may make lower foliage settings more useful.

Volumetric Quality

Each lower Volumetric Quality level gives a small FPS gain, but the image changed little in this test. Low is a reasonable default.

Bloom

Bloom also controls lens flares. It is mostly a preference setting; disabling it may slightly improve stability, but I prefer it enabled.

Shading Quality

Shading Quality produced no clear visual difference or substantial FPS gain in this test. I leave it on High.

Texture Quality

Texture Quality primarily depends on available VRAM. If you have enough VRAM, raise it to Ultra for a visual-quality boost without a meaningful FPS cost in this test.

Post-Processing Quality

Post-Processing Quality made little visible difference in this test. Leave it at the preset value.

Depth of Field

Depth of Field did not affect FPS during general gameplay. It can affect dialogue or cutscene performance slightly, but the choice mostly comes down to preference.

Chromatic Aberration

Chromatic Aberration is most visible near the edges of the screen. I did not observe an FPS change, so enable or disable it based on preference.

Motion Blur

These screenshots were taken while the analog stick was held fully right. I saw no motion blur with the setting enabled or disabled, so it may only appear during dialogue, scripted scenes, or combat.

It did not affect FPS in this test.

Upscaling (Native)

Outside the overall preset, upscaling usually provides the largest FPS gains. The native anti-aliasing modes perform similarly to no upscaling, so use DLAA or another native AA option if you have FPS to spare.