7 Days to Die 1.0 Optimization: Every Graphics Setting Benchmarked

After nearly a decade in early access, 7 Days to Die has finally hit v1. The Fun Pimps have delivered consistent content updates, including graphical and technical upgrades. Through its prolonged “early-access” journey, the game has sold a whopping 18 million copies, defining the survival genre alongside Rust (our guide). We tested 7 Days to Die on our primary rig, benchmarking the performance and visual impact of its two dozen+ graphics settings.

Windows/System Settings to Optimize

• Enable Resizable BAR.
• Turn on Game Mode.
• Enable Hardware-accelerated GPU Scheduling (HAGS) and Windowed Optimizations.
• Use the Windows “High Performance” power profile and set your GPU power management mode to the same.
• Overclock your GPU if you’re narrowly missing the 60 FPS mark.
• Ensure you use the proper XMP/EXPO memory profile (if available).
• Here’s a guide with more detailed instructions.

7 Days to Die: PC System Requirements

7 Days to Die has incredibly modest system requirements. All you need is a 3.2 GHz 4-core CPU, 4 GB graphics memory, and 12 GB of main memory. The game weighs a paltry 15 GB, making it the smallest title we’ve ever tested. I reckon these specs are for 1080p “High” or “Medium” at 45 FPS.

Test Bench

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7950X.
• Cooler: Lian Li Galahad 360 AIO.
• GPU: NVIDIA RTX 4090 FE.
• Motherboard: MSI MPG X670E Carbon WiFi.
• Memory: 8 GB x2 @ 6000 MT/s CL30.

7 Days to Die: Resolution Scaling & Graphics Presets

7 Days to Die scales decently from 4K to 1440p, but runs into a CPU bottleneck at 1080p. We’re talking about averages of 72 FPS at 4K to 153 FPS at 1440p, and almost the same at 1080p (maximum quality graphics settings).

7 Days to Die comes with five graphics quality presets ranging from lowest, low, medium, high, ultra, and ultra+. There’s a world of difference between the lowest and highest quality settings, with the former rendering part of the scene using ugly 2D models and textures.

Graphics quality preset image comparisons.

The lowest graphics preset produces average framerates of 291 FPS, down to 123 FPS at medium, and finally 85 FPS at ultra.

Anti-aliasing & Texture Filtering

7 Days to Die leverages shader-based anti-aliasing with temporal AA being a recent addition along with AMD FSR 1.0. All four anti-aliasing settings perform roughly the same, so we recommend opting for TAA (temporal AA) due to its superior coverage with transparent textures.

Anti-aliasing image comparisons.

Texture filtering is likely anisotropic, offering 2x, 4x, 8x, and 16x under medium, high, ultra, and ultra+, respectively. Like anti-aliasing, the highest option has a minimal performance penalty.

Texture filtering image comparisons.

Reflections: Cube-mapping & Screen Space

7 Days to Die features cube-mapped (not 100% sure) and screen space reflections, both tanking performance more than any other graphics setting. The former renders low-quality reflections, reducing framerates by over 20% at the highest setting.

Reflection quality image comparisons.

Screen space reflections are even more taxing, cutting the average (4K) FPS from 99.3 FPS at “Off” to 79.3 FPS at “Ultra+.” A 25% performance drop is nothing to scoff at.

Screen space reflection image comparisons.

Shadow Quality & LOD

7 Days to Die allows you to adjust the shadow resolution and the LOD. Shadow quality drastically impacts performance, reducing the averages from 99 FPS (Off) to 72 FPS (Ultra+) at 4K. This 40% framerate drop can be alleviated by reducing the shadow quality to low (89.4 FPS) or medium (84.2 FPS).

Shadow quality image comparisons.

Shadow distance sets the draw distance or LOD of shadows, but more often than not, it doesn’t substantially affect quality or performance.

Shadow distance image comparisons.

Particle Quality, LOD & View Distance

Particle quality lets you adjust the resolution of particle effects, including fire, embers, smoke, dust, etc. Understandably, it only impacts framerates under certain conditions. For example, when there’s a large fire or explosion onscreen.

LOD or “Level of Detail” sets the polygon complexity of object meshes, adjusting their depth and 3D detail. Like the previous setting, LOD doesn’t notably impact framerates in most scenarios.

LOD image comparisons.

View distance allows you to adjust the render distance of various objects and increase/decrease the culling rate of meshes (and polygons). Like LOD, it doesn’t hurt performance much.

Terrain, Grass & Water Quality

Terrain quality affects the quality of the ground (rocks and pre-baked grass), employing tesselation at higher settings. The lowest value is 12-13% faster than the highest “ultra+” at 4K.

Terrain quality image comparisons.

Grass distance sets the render distance of individual grass tufts. Despite significantly reducing pop-ins, the higher-quality options perform much like their lower counterparts.

Grass distance image comparisons.

Water quality offers two settings to choose from, namely, low and high. At high, the water bodies are rendered with underwater detail, caustics, blending, and vegetation. Low renders opaque water that looks more like a stick-on. Despite this, the two options perform the same.

Water quality image comparisons.

Ambient Occlusion, Object Quality & Godrays

Ambient occlusion is among the most important shaders used in computer graphics. 7 Days to Die relies on traditional screen space ambient occlusion (SSAO) for global illumination. SSAO lowers framerates by a sizable 18% at 4K.

SSAO On/Off: image comparisons.

Object quality controls the number of meshes (or polygons) rendered in the scene. Higher settings increase detail by including additional objects while lowering them reduces complexity. Object quality has a nominal 4-5% impact on the average framerate.

Object quality image comparisons.

Dynamic Mesh & Max Region Loads

7 Days to Die includes a separate section for dynamic mesh count and quality. These settings control the long-distance LOD of meshes and the size of the game world rendered at a time. Like the other LOD settings, they don’t have an observable impact on performance. That said they do increase the memory usage by 600-800 MB.

Spatial Upscaling: AMD FSR 1.0

7 Days to Die features spatial upscaling in the form of AMD FSR 1.0. Interestingly, the ultra-quality preset is about as slow (or slower) than 4K-native when using the ultra+ settings. I wouldn’t recommend anything lower than high. NVIDIA DLSS 3.5 and FSR 3.1 will be added in the near future.

FSR upscaling image quality comparisons.

7 Days to Die: VRAM Usage

7 Days to Die uses over 7 GB of graphics memory (VRAM) at 4K ultra+. Medium settings lower it to ~6 GB, while the lowest preset utilizes a bit over 4 GB. Reducing the resolution has an inconsequential impact on VRAM consumption, with 1080p and 1440p using 6 GB and 6.4 GB at the highest quality settings.

Texture quality image comparisons.

7 Days to Die: CPU Bottlenecks

7 Days to Die is heavily CPU-bound at 1080p with a GPU-busy deviation of 32%. Increasing the resolution to 1440p or 4K makes the game GPU-bound with a deviation of less than 10%. Only the lowest-quality preset has a higher GPU-busy deviation of 12-18% at 1440p/4K.

Best Graphics Settings for 7 Days to Die 1.0

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