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How to Get Max FPS in Helldivers 2: Best PC Settings Guide (Tested & Proven)

Joseph Campo Jr
How to Get Max FPS in Helldivers 2: Best PC Settings Guide (Tested & Proven)

The RTX 4090 can push Helldivers 2 to a mind-blowing 171 FPS at 4K resolution. But most players can't reach anywhere close to these numbers on their systems.

Players everywhere face performance problems, with FPS drops becoming a regular headache on the new urban maps. The good news? You can boost your game's performance by a lot with the best Helldivers 2 PC settings. Our tests show switching from 4K to 1080p resolution alone can improve FPS by up to 107%.

You'll find exactly how to optimize your settings for peak performance, regardless of your setup - from top-tier rigs to older hardware. We've done all the testing and measuring so you won't have to.

Want to supercharge your Helldivers 2 experience? Let's head over to the settings that make a real difference.

System Requirements and Performance Targets

Let's take a closer look at the best settings for Helldivers 2, but first you should know what your PC can handle. This will help you set realistic performance goals.

Helldivers 2 has modest base requirements. You can get 30 FPS at 1080p with a GTX 1050 Ti or RX 470, an i7-4790K or Ryzen 5 1500X, and 8GB RAM. Better performance at 60 FPS needs stronger hardware - an RTX 2060 or RX 6600 XT, with an i7-9700K or Ryzen 7 3700X, and 16GB RAM.

Setting Realistic FPS Goals

Your hardware determines the frame rate you can expect. Our tests show:

  • 4K Ultra Settings: RTX 4090 runs at 101.5 FPS with 87.4 FPS lows
  • 1440p Ultra Settings: RX 7800 XT hits 77 FPS on average
  • 1080p Ultra Settings: RTX 3060 stays steady at 63 FPS

Memory speed makes a big difference in performance. A DDR5-6000 CL30 kit helps you get higher frame rates.

Understanding Your Hardware Limits

The game's VRAM needs change with quality settings: 3GB for Low, 6GB for Medium, 8GB for High, and 10GB for Ultra. This means older GPUs might have trouble even with optimized settings.

Storage space is important - while you need 20GB to download, the game takes up 70GB after installation. At 4K resolution, the game can use up to 13GB of system RAM.

The new city maps that light up pose special challenges and can drop frame rates on both new and old hardware. You might need to adjust your settings to keep the game running smoothly in these areas until performance patches come out.

Essential Windows Optimizations

You can boost Helldivers 2's performance by tweaking Windows settings without touching the game options. Your frame rates and stability depend a lot on background processes and system setup.

Game Mode Settings

Windows Game Mode helps your system prioritize gaming resources. The Nvidia overlay can cause FPS drops, so turn it off first. Discord users should disable hardware acceleration in both general and voice settings to avoid GPU conflicts.

Shader cache management is vital for performance. You need to delete the shader_cache folder in the Arrowhead directory under "%appdata%". The game will build new optimized shaders next time you launch it.

Power Plan Configuration

Your system's power plan settings affect gaming performance. Switch to the "High Performance" power profile in Windows settings. Make sure your GPU power management matches this setting for better results.

Here are more system tweaks to improve your gaming:

  • Free up CPU resources by disabling background apps in Windows settings
  • Turn off fullscreen optimizations in game properties
  • Run the game as administrator to get better resource priority
  • Try DirectX 11 mode by adding "--d3dx11" to launch options

Nvidia GPU users can get extra performance with Resizable BAR support. Enable this in your BIOS settings and check its status in the Nvidia Control Panel's system information section.

Keep an eye on your CPU and GPU temperatures while playing. Helldivers 2 pushes your hardware to its limits. If you have issues with new drivers, try rolling back to previous versions.

High-Impact Graphics Settings

You can dramatically improve your Helldivers 2 performance by focusing on three key graphics settings. These settings will give you the best FPS boost while keeping your game looking good.

Render Scale Effects

The render scale setting works just like DLSS or FSR, though these technologies aren't available in Helldivers 2 yet. Your average frame rate will jump by about 20 FPS when you switch from native resolution to Ultra Quality render scale [link_1]. You'll barely notice any difference in visual quality during gameplay, though things start looking a bit rough at the Balanced setting.

Here's what works best:

  • Ultra Quality: Perfect mix of performance and crisp visuals
  • Quality: Trade a bit of visual polish for better FPS
  • Balanced: Best kept for lower-end systems
  • Performance: Use this only if you really have to - it makes the game look pretty rough

Shadow and Lighting Options

Shadow quality changes how detailed and sharp your shadows look in-game. You'll get a 6-8% FPS boost by dropping shadow quality from high to medium [link_2]. Medium quality hits the sweet spot - low and lowest settings make shadows look jagged and distracting.

Lighting quality needs careful attention. It can hit your performance by up to 8% in city areas. The medium preset strikes a great balance - you'll keep all the important lighting effects that help you see what's happening without tanking your FPS.

Volumetric Settings Guide

Volumetric effects make a big difference to both how your game looks and runs. The fog setting creates 3D fog that changes with weather and time of day. This feature can drop your average FPS by 6%. The medium quality setting uses almost as much power as the highest one, so dropping to low or lowest will actually help your performance.

Cloud quality settings follow this same pattern. Most players won't notice much difference between quality levels, especially during heavy combat. You can safely keep both volumetric settings at their lowest to get the best performance without making the game look bad.

These tweaks together can give you a serious FPS boost if your system struggles. The most effective changes are medium shadow quality, medium lighting, and low volumetric effects. Your game will still look great, and you'll get much smoother gameplay.

Medium-Impact Visual Options

Texture and object quality settings, plus anti-aliasing options, are the foundations of performance-affecting features in Helldivers 2. These settings help you find the sweet spot between visual quality and frame rates.

Texture and Object Quality

Your graphics card's VRAM availability determines the texture quality. The game uses memory based on these quality levels:

The actual VRAM usage stays under 8GB even with 4K Ultra settings. Most modern GPUs can handle medium to high texture settings without any performance hits.

Object Detail Quality determines the polygon count of in-game models and affects their 3D depth. Dropping from High to Medium settings gives you a 2.8% FPS boost, while Low settings bump it up by 7%. The High setting offers the best balance between visuals and performance.

Anti-Aliasing Choices

Helldivers 2 uses Temporal Anti-Aliasing (TAA) to smooth out jagged edges. This setting affects both image quality and performance. You'll get an 8% frame rate boost by turning AA off, but keeping it on removes distracting edge shimmer and visual artifacts.

Your resolution changes how anti-aliasing works:

  • TAA creates sharper images with minimal blur at 4K
  • Players notice more image softness at 1440p and lower resolutions

Here's what you should know:

  1. Native resolution benefits most from enabled AA
  2. You can adjust image sharpness through game settings to fix any TAA blur
  3. AA has a smaller performance impact than other major settings

The game's anti-aliasing works great with fine details and grid patterns. TAA combined with proper sharpening gives you the most balanced solution. You'll get clean edges without taking a big hit to performance.

Low-Impact Settings to Keep

Helldivers 2 has several graphics settings that can make your game look better without taking a big hit on performance. Let's look at how you can get the best visuals while keeping your frame rates smooth.

Ambient Occlusion Benefits

Ambient Occlusion adds small shadows where objects meet to create depth in the game world. Helldivers 2 uses Screen Space Ambient Occlusion (SSAO), which only drops performance by 1-2%. This setting makes a big difference in how the game looks by adding realistic shadows, yet it barely affects your system.

Here's what ambient occlusion does in different situations:

  • Adds depth where objects meet and along edges
  • Makes shadows in hidden areas
  • Makes scenes look more real

You should keep ambient occlusion turned on because it makes the game look much better without slowing things down. Some players say it acts weird in certain areas. You might want to test it out in different places to see how it runs on your PC.

Screen Space Effects Worth Using

Screen Space Global Illumination (SSGI) figures out how light bounces around the environment. This setting changes how sunlight and artificial lights hit surfaces and sets the mood of the game. It's pretty light on your system too - you'll only lose about 3% of your frame rate.

Screen space effects work better or worse depending on a few things:

  1. Global Illumination Impact
    • Makes sunlit surfaces look better
    • Improves scenes with white lighting
    • Light changes look more natural
  2. Performance Considerations
    • Your CPU won't work harder
    • GPU usage goes up just a little
    • Memory use stays low

The game's temporal anti-aliasing (TAA) works really well with these screen space effects. Supersampling options can make things even better, but the results depend on your resolution.

These settings are perfect if your game isn't running as smoothly as you'd like. They make the game look much better for very little performance cost. This is especially true in city areas where good lighting helps you see what's going on.

A few tips for setting things up:

  • You can turn off Screen Space Global Illumination to get a small speed boost without losing much visual quality
  • Keep Ambient Occlusion on - it barely affects performance but makes everything look better
  • Anti-aliasing works great with these effects and helps get rid of jagged edges while keeping your frame rate steady

Using these settings together makes the game look more immersive without the big performance hits you get from other options. Players with older systems can pick and choose which features to turn on based on their hardware and how fast they want the game to run.

Conclusion

Getting the best FPS in Helldivers 2 takes a balanced mix of different settings. Windows tweaks are the foundations, and adjusting key graphics options like render scale and shadows can boost your performance by a lot.

Your visual experience depends on how you set up texture quality and anti-aliasing. Players who have modern GPUs should stick to medium or high texture settings. TAA should stay on because it gives you clean edges without costing too much performance.

Some settings like ambient occlusion and screen space effects might seem less important but they deserve your attention. These options boost visual quality by a lot without using many system resources, so it makes sense to keep them on.

The ideal settings come down to your hardware and what performance you're aiming for. You can start with our suggested tweaks and adjust them based on how your system handles them. Each small change can give you big performance gains, so keep an eye on your FPS as you make adjustments.