Stellar Blade runs well on any modern GPU, requiring only the GTX 1060 (or the RX 580) for 60 FPS at 1080p using the low quality settings. Medium and high demand the RTX 2060 Super (or RX 5700 XT) and the RTX 2070 Super (or RX 6700 XT). The CPU requirements are on par with the PS5 specs: Core i7-8400 or Ryzen 5 3600X.
| Specs | 1080p 60 FPS | 1440p 60 FPS | 1440p 60 FPS | 4K 60 FPS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Preset | Low | Medium | High | Very High |
| CPU | Core i5-7600K|Ryzen 5 1600X | Core i5-8400|Ryzen 5 3600X | Core i5-8400|Ryzen 5 3600X | Core i5-8400|Ryzen 5 3600X |
| GPU | GTX 1060|Radeon RX 580 | RTX 2060 SUPER|RX 5700 XT | RTX 2070 SUPER|RX 6700 XT | RTX 3080|RX 7900 XT |
| RAM | 16GB | 16GB | 16GB | 16GB |
| Storage | 75GB HDD | 75GB SSD | 75GB SSD | 75GB SSD |
Stellar Blade PC Optimization TDLR
- Most users won’t feel the need to reduce any of the graphics settings. Merely enabling upscaling (and frame generation for 100 FPS+) should suffice.
- Volumetric fog should be reduced to low quality if facing low frame rates.
- Shadow quality can be reduced to medium for a small FPS boost.
- Reducing the environmental object and character detail grants nominal performance boosts.
- Clutter density can be reduced to low on under-spec CPUs.
Resolution & Graphics Presets
Stellar Blade averages over 90 FPS at 4K using the highest quality settings on the GeForce RTX 4090. Switching to 1440p increases the frame rate to 166 FPS (+80%), while 1080p nets 178 FPS (+93%). This indicates a CPU bottleneck at 1080p. The 1% lows are only 7% higher at 1080p over 1440p.
Test Setup
- CPU: Intel Core i9-12900K @ 5.3 GHz.
- Cooler: Arctic Liquid Freezer III 420.
- GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 FE.
- Motherboard: MSI PRO Z790-P WIFI.
- Memory: 16 GB x2 @ 6000 MT/s CL30.
The graphics quality presets show decent scaling at higher resolutions. We recorded the following frame rates at 4K using DLAA anti-aliasing:
- Very High: 93 FPS (0%).
- High: 96 FPS (+3%).
- Medium: 108 FPS (+16%).
- Low: 136 FPS (+46%).
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).
- Disable Memory Integrity.
- Disable Virtual Machine Platform.
- Here’s a guide with more detailed instructions.
Environ & Chars Object Detail
Environmental Object Detail sets the 3D mesh detail of terrain, buildings, rocks, and other structures. It subtly impacts performance, with the low quality option being 3% faster than medium and high.
- It affects the CPU load, but Stellar Blade is hardly CPU-intensive.
- Best to leave it at high quality.
Character Object Detail adjusts the shading detail of NPCs and monsters, including ambient shadows, mesh and fabric detail, etc. It mildly impacts the 1% lows.
- Character detail is also CPU-dependent.
- It hardly impacts the visual fidelity.
Clutter Density mainly sets the foliage and vegetation density, marginally impacting the performance. The low-quality option is 4% faster than the rest. We recommend opting for high.
- Like the previous settings, it impacts the CPU usage, with low delivering 9% higher lows.
Environ & Chars Visible Distance
Environmental Object Visibility Distance sets the detail and render distance of rubble, terrain, foliage, etc. Reducing it slightly improves the average performance but worsens the lows and pop-in frequency. It’s best set to 50% or higher.
Character Visible Distance adjusts the render distance of NPCs and monsters in Stellar Blade. Lower values don’t offer any notable performance gains but worsen character pop-ins and frame pacing. Leave it at the highest quality.
Lighting & Shadow Quality
Shadow Quality sets the shadow map resolution, affecting the detail and sharpness of the silhouettes. The higher quality options enable detailed distant shadows. Anything above the lowest quality looks decent enough.
- Very High is 7-8% slower than the lowest quality option. It renders detailed distance shadows.
- High is 5% slower. It reduces shadow resolution and distant shadow detail.
- Medium is 4% slower. It further reduces the shadow resolution, halving distant shadow quality.
- Low is 3% slower. It drastically reduces the shadow detail, both near and far.
- Very Low renders blurry shadows, with blob-like distant shadows.
Lighting Quality enables low-quality global illumination and ambient shadows. Its visual and performance impacts are nominal. It slightly worsens the frame pacing. Opt for high.
Volumetric Fog & Particle Quality
Volumetric Fog adjusts the resolution and density of 3D fog. It is visually inconsequential for the most part, but has dire implications for the game’s performance.
- High is 9% slower, medium is 4% slower than the low-quality option.
- Volumetric Fog is the most taxing setting in Stellar Blade and should be reduced to low on older and lower-end PCs.
Particle Detail sets the quality of particle effects, including rain, explosions, smoke, embers, etc. It impacts the visual fidelity only when the effects are produced. Reducing it to medium or low slightly improves the frame pacing with a negligible impact on average performance.
Animation Quality sets the intricacy of NPC and monster movements. Lower quality options result in minimal animated behavior for distant characters. It barely impacts performance and tends to be CPU-dependent.
Ambient Occlusion & Reflections
Ambient Occlusion renders contact shadows along object boundaries, edges, corners, and crevices. Higher quality options leverage more accurate techniques, producing fewer false occlusions.
- High is 5% slower, while medium is 4% slower than low.
- Medium and high offer very similar visual quality.
Screen Space Reflections render low-resolution onscreen reflections in Stellar Blade. They hardly impact the game’s performance. However, areas with more glossy surfaces like water, glass, and metal may see slightly larger FPS drops.
Motion blur, depth of field, chromatic aberration, and film grain have negligible performance impacts and are left to personal preference. However, they do erode finer texture detail and are best disabled.
Upscaling & Frame Generation
Stellar Blade features DLSS 4 and FSR 3 upscaling and frame generation technologies. Upscaling is highly effective at 1440p and 4K, boosting frame rates by 54% at the quality and 87% using the performance scaling mode.
Frame generation is equally impressive, boosting the GeForce RTX 4090 to 240 FPS at 4K with performance upscaling. The gains range from 60% at native 4K to 46% with quality, and 41% with performance upscaling. The high base frame rate ensures minimal latency.
Stellar Blade: VRAM Usage
Stellar Blade uses up to 12 GB of graphics memory at 4K using the highest quality settings, including 4K environmental textures. Setting the latter to very high reduces the VRAM usage to 10 GB. Further lowering the texture quality to medium and low limits it to 8.3 GB and 8 GB, respectively.
Resolution doesn’t substantially impact the VRAM usage. 4K utilizes 12 GB, 1440p uses 11 GB, while 1080p peaks under 10 GB. Disabling 4K environmental textures reduces the memory budget by 2 GB.
Stellar Blade: CPU Bottlenecks
Stellar Blade is moderately CPU-bound at 1080p with a GPU-Busy deviation of 21%. Interestingly, we don’t see the same deficit at 1080p upscaled to 4K (performance mode).
While settings like object detail/view distance and character view distance impact CPU utilization, frame generation is the easiest way to eliminate it.
Stellar Blade PC: Optimized Settings
| High-end | Midrange | Low-end PC | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Resolution | 4K (3840×2160) | 1440p (2560×1440) | 1080p (1920×1080) |
| FPS Target | 160 FPS | 144 FPS | 140 FPS |
| Upscaling | Performance | Balanced | Balanced |
| Frame Generation | On for 240 FPS | On for 200 FPS | On for 180 FPS |
| Env Object Detail | High | High | High |
| Char Object Detail | High | High | High |
| Env Texture | 4K | 4K | Very High |
| Character Texture | Very High | Very High | Very High |
| Env Object Visible Distance | 100% | 100% | 100% |
| Char Visible Distance | 100% | 100% | 100% |
| Shadow Quality | Very High | Very High | Very High |
| Lighting Quality | High | High | High |
| Volumetric Fog | High | High | Low |
| Particle Quality | High | High | High |
| Animation Quality | High | High | High |
| Ambient Occlusion | High | High | High |
| SS Reflection Quality | High | High | High |
| High-end (4K) | Mid-range (1440p) | Low-end (1080p) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| CPU | Core i7-13700K|Ryzen 7 7700X | Core i5-12600K|Ryzen 5 7600 | Core i5-12400 AMD Ryzen 5 3600 |
| GPU | GeForce RTX 5080|RTX 4090 | GeForce RTX 4070 Super|RTX 5070 | RTX 3060|RTX 4060 |
| Memory | 32GB (dual-channel) | 16GB (dual-channel) | Less than: 16GB (dual-channel) |
Stellar Blade: Optimized Settings for Low-end PCs
Stellar Blade runs well on most midrange PCs. You only need a GeForce GTX 1060 or a Radeon RX 580 to run the game at 1080p 60 FPS using low-medium graphics settings. Here’s our low-end guide.
| RTX 3060 | RTX 4060 Laptop GPU | RTX 4060 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Resolution | 1080p | 1080p | 1440p | 1080p|1440p |
| FPS Target | 120-140 FPS | 144 FPS | 100 FPS+ | 160 FPS | 120 FPS |
| DLSS Upscaling | Balanced | Balanced | Performance | Balanced | Performance |
| Frame Generation | On | On | On |
| Env Object Detail | High | High | High |
| Char Object Detail | High | High | High |
| Env Texture | Very High | Very High | Very High |
| Character Texture | Very High | Very High | Very High |
| Env Object Visible Distance | 100% | 100% | 100% |
| Char Visible Distance | 100% | 100% | 100% |
| Shadow Quality | Medium | Medium | High |
| Lighting Quality | High | High | High |
| Volumetric Fog | Low | Low | Low |
| Particle Quality | High | High | High |
| Animation Quality | High | High | High |
| Ambient Occlusion | High | High | High |
| SS Reflection Quality | High | High | High |
Best Stellar Blade Settings for the Steam Deck
Stellar Blade runs well on handheld devices like the Steam Deck. A mix of low and medium settings produces a consistent console-grade experience. Here’s a link to the Steam Deck guide.
| Steam Deck OLED | |
|---|---|
| Resolution | 1280×800 |
| FPS Target | 45 FPS |
| Upscaling | FSR 3 Balanced |
| Frame Generation | Off |
| Env Object Detail | Low |
| Char Object Detail | Medium |
| Env Texture | Low |
| Character Texture | Low |
| Env Object Visible Distance | 30% |
| Char Visible Distance | 30% |
| Shadow Quality | Medium |
| Lighting Quality | Medium |
| Volumetric Fog | Low |
| Particle Quality | Low |
| Animation Quality | Low |
| Ambient Occlusion | Low |
| SS Reflection Quality | Off |
