Guides

Dragon Age Veilguard Optimized Settings: Best Settings for PC

Dragon Age: Veilguard is out on Steam, with a peak concurrent player count of 89K on launch day. The game is off to a fairly good start, garnering “Mostly Positive” player reviews on the platform. Built on EA’s proprietary Frostbyte engine, Veilguard runs well across most devices, averaging up to 144 FPS at 4K using the right settings on our GeForce RTX 4090. Here’s our performance analysis of Dragon Age: Veilguard with every graphics setting benchmarked and compared.

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.
  • Disable Memory Integrity. Windows Menu->VBS->Device Security.
  • Ensure you use the proper XMP/EXPO memory profile (if available).
  • Overclock your GPU if you’re narrowly missing the 60 FPS mark.
  • Here’s a guide with more detailed instructions.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard PC Requirements

1080p 30 FPS @ Low

  • OS: Windows 10/11 64-bit
  • Processor: Intel Core i5-8400 / AMD Ryzen 3 3300X
  • Memory: 16GB
  • Graphics: NVIDIA GTX 970/1650 / AMD Radeon R9 290X
  • DirectX: Version 12
  • Storage: 100GB available space

1080p 60 FPS @ High

  • OS: Windows 10/11 64-bit
  • Processor: Intel Core i9-9900K / AMD Ryzen 7 3700X
  • Memory: 16GB
  • Graphics: NVIDIA RTX 2070 / AMD Radeon RX 5700XT
  • DirectX: Version 12
  • Storage: 100GB SSD available space

4K 60 FPS @ Ultra (RT Off)

  • OS: Windows 10/11 64-bit
  • Processor: Intel Core i9-12900K / AMD Ryzen 9 7950X
  • Memory: 16GB
  • Graphics: NVIDIA RTX 4080 / AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX
  • DirectX: Version 12
  • Storage: 100GB SSD available space

1440p 60 FPS @ RT Selective

  • OS: Windows 10/11 64-bit
  • Processor: Intel Core i9-9900K / AMD Ryzen 7 3700X
  • Memory: 16GB
  • Graphics: NVIDIA RTX 3080 / AMD Radeon RX 6800 XTX
  • DirectX: Version 12
  • Storage: 100GB SSD available space

1440p 30 FPS @ RT On

  • OS: Windows 10/11 64-bit
  • Processor: Intel Core i9-9900K / AMD Ryzen 7 3700X
  • Memory: 16GB
  • Graphics: NVIDIA RTX 3080 / AMD Radeon RX 6800 XTX
  • DirectX: Version 12
  • Storage: 100GB SSD available space

4K 30 FPS @ Ultra RT

  • OS: Windows 10/11 64-bit
  • Processor: Intel Core i9-12900K / AMD Ryzen 9 7950X
  • Memory: 16GB
  • Graphics: NVIDIA RTX 4080 / AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX
  • DirectX: Version 12
  • Storage: 100GB SSD available space

Contents & Testing Methodology

  • Benchmarks at a glance:
    1. Resolution & Graphics Presets.
    2. Ray Traced Reflections & Ambient Occlusion.
    3. Lighting & Shadows.
    4. Terrain Quality, Terrain Decoration & LOD.
    5. Hair Strand & Post-Processing.
    6. Upscaling & Frame Generation.
    7. VRAM usage.
    8. CPU bottlenecks.
    9. Dragon Age: Veilguard Optimized Settings.
  • Hardware setup used:
    • CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7950X.
    • Cooler: Arctic Liquid Freezer III 420.
    • GPU: NVIDIA RTX 4090 FE.
    • Motherboard: MSI MPG B650 Edge WiFi.
    • Memory: 16 GB x2 @ 6000 MT/s CL30.

Resolution & Graphics Presets

Dragon Age: Veilguard averages 93 FPS at 4K and drops to 131 FPS at 1440p and 138 FPS at 1080p using the “Ultra” quality preset with DLSS upscaling set to “Quality” mode. This indicates a mild to moderate CPU bottleneck at 1080p.

Update: The first title update adds an even higher-quality mode for textures and LOD, Fade-Touched. It’s slightly more taxing than “Ultra,” rendering marginally higher detail.

Dragon Age: Veilguard is well-optimized, yielding an average of 101 FPS at the “Ultra” quality preset and 78 FPS upon maxing out the individual settings. Dropping the graphics to “Medium” increases the framerate to 136.5 FPS, while “Low” produces 145 FPS at 4K UHD.

Ray Traced Reflections & Ambient Occlusion

Dragon Age: Veilguard features ray-traced reflections and ambient occlusion. The former is more taxing, reducing framerates by up to 40% at the “Ultra RT” quality settings. Enabling “Ultra Ray Tracing” increases the range and resolution of reflections, significantly degrading performance. Selective only enables ray-tracing in select areas, replacing it with screen-space reflections in the rest. Disabling “RT Ultra” provides a more balanced result that’s 16% faster with comparable image quality.

Ray Traced Ambient Occlusion mildly impacts performance, reducing the average framerate by 10-15% at 4K. Selective only marginally reduces FPS unless paired with the “Ultra Ray Tracing” setting, which extends the range and resolution of ambient occlusion.

Disabling ray tracing improves the average framerates by 54% while switching to “Selective” mode grants a 52% performance boost. Similarly, pairing the latter with “Ultra Ray Tracing” provides a 36% FPS bump at 4K.

Lighting & Shadows

Disabling ray-tracing enables HBAO (Horizon-Based Ambient Occlusion) and Screen Space Reflections. Disabling them isn’t recommended as it results in a massive quality loss with a marginal performance gain of a mere 4-5%.

Lighting Quality enables global illumination which affects the shadows and ambient occlusion of the scene. It reduces performance by 5-7% at the highest quality setting. It’s best at the default setting.

Texture Filtering, Volumetric Lighting, Contact Shadows, and Sky Quality have no appreciable impact on performance.

Terrain Quality, Terrain Decoration & LOD

Terrain Quality enables tesselation for the otherwise flat (2D) terrain meshes. Its impact on quality and performance is subtle, so we recommend leaving it untouched unless your PC struggles to hit 60 FPS.

Terrain Decoration sets the density and variety of vegetation. Lower-quality settings render scant vegetation, while the higher options produce denser and more diverse grass and shrubs. We recommend setting it to the highest quality.

Level of Detail sets the detail of various landscape features, including trees, bushes, and shadows cast by distant structures. Reducing it to the lowest improves performance by just 4% and is best left at “Ultra.” Fade Touched slightly improves detail at the cost of 5% lower framerates (7% slower than the lowest).

Hair Strand & Post-Processing

Hair Strand enables the rendering of individual hair strands for character heads. It drastically improves the realism of player/NPC faces at the cost of a moderate 6-8% performance drop. We recommend enabling it.

Post Processing enables motion blur, depth of field, bloom, and ripples along river/stream surfaces. Like most of the other settings, the performance hit is minimal. Leave it at the highest setting.

Visual Effects don’t appreciably impact performance and are only visible in certain scenes with plenty of particles and special effects.

FOV Slider

Dragon Age: Veilguard features an FOV slider which can be used to increase the view field. Increasing it past 100% can reduce framerates by up to 10% while reducing it grants minimal gains. We recommend going with 120% or higher for an immersive experience.

Upscaling & Frame Generation

Dragon Age: Veilguard features the three popular upscalers, but frame generation is limited to RTX 40 series owners. Depending on your chosen upscaling preset, upscaling can improve performance by 30-60% at 4K. We recommend sticking to “Quality” or “Balanced,” relying on “Performance” mode only at 4K or above. Sheer quality-wise DLSS produces the best results, retaining more details than FSR and XeSS.

Frame generation propels the GeForce RTX 4090 to 144 FPS, removing any CPU bottlenecks that come with the added cost of ray-tracing. That’s a 30-40% increase over standard upscaling at 4K.

Dragon Age Veilguard: VRAM Usage

Dragon Age: Veilguard uses over 12 GB of graphics memory when set to the highest graphics settings at 4K. Reducing the graphics settings can reduce the VRAM consumption to under 7 GB, but that’s only at the lowest quality preset. The game allocates 7.5 GB to 10 GB of graphics memory at 4K, and 8.5 GB to 9 GB at lower resolutions.

Update: The “Fade Touched” settings increase the VRAM usage to 15.1 GB at 4K.

Dragon Age Veilguard: CPU Bottlenecks

Dragon Age: Veilguard can get severely CPU-bound with ray tracing. We recorded an average GPU-Busy deviation of 40% at the highest quality settings at 4K. The value decreases to about 20% at 1440p and 1080p. Disabling ray tracing reduces it to almost 0.

Dragon Age: Veilguard Performance Summary

Ray Traced Reflections” is the most taxing graphics setting in Dragon Age: Veilguard, reducing performance by up to 40%. Ray Traced Ambient Occlusion is more forgiving, granting a ~10% framerate uplift when switched to “Selective” mode.

HBAO is the most costly rasterized setting, reducing the average FPS by 15% or more. In comparison, Lighting and “Hair Strands” cost a trivial 3-4%.

Best Settings for Dragon Age: Veilguard

Keep VSync disabled if you’re getting FPS drops!

Optimized SettingsHigh-endMidrangeLow-end PC
Resolution4K (3840×2160)|1440p (2560×1440)1440p (2560×1440)1080p (1920×1080)
UpscalingDLSS BalancedDLSS Balanced|QualityDLSS Quality
Frame GenerationOnOnOff
FPS Target90 FPS|144 FPS90 FPS|120 FPS60 FPS
Ray Traced ReflectionsOnOnSelective
Ray Traced Ambient OcclusionOnOnSelective
Ultra Ray TracingOnOnOff
Texture QualityFade TouchedUltraUltra
Texture FilteringUltraUltraUltra
Lighting QualityUltraUltraUltra
Contact ShadowsOnOnOn
Ambient Occlusion
Screen Space Reflections
Volumetric LightingUltraUltraUltra
Sky QualityUltraUltraUltra
LODFade TouchedUltraUltra
Strand HairOnOnOn
Terrain QualityUltraUltraUltra
Terrain DecorationUltraUltraUltra
Visual EffectsUltraUltraUltra
Post ProcessingUltraUltraUltra
CPUCore i7-14700K|Ryzen 7 7800X3DCore i5-13600K|Ryzen 5 7600Core i5-12400|
AMD Ryzen 5 3600
GPURTX 4080|RX 7900 XTXRTX 4070|RX 7800 XTRTX 3060|RTX 3060 Ti|RX 6600
Memory32GB (dual-channel)16 GB (dual-channel)Less than: 16GB (dual-channel)
Optimized SettingsRTX 4090RTX 4080RTX 4070 SuperRTX 3080 TiRTX 4060 Ti
Resolution4K|1440p4K|1440p1440p|4K1440p|4K1440p
UpscalingDLSS BalancedDLSS BalancedDLSS Balanced|PerformanceDLSS Balanced|PerformanceDLSS Balanced
Frame GenerationOnOnOnOffOn
FPS Target100 FPS|144 FPS90 FPS|125 FPS90 FPS|60 FPS75 FPS| 60 FPS75 FPS
Ray Traced ReflectionsOnOnOnSelectiveOn
Ray Traced Ambient OcclusionOnOnOnSelectiveOn
Ultra Ray TracingOnOnOnOff|OnOn
Lighting QualityUltraUltraUltraUltraUltra
Texture QualityFade TouchedFade TouchedUltraUltraUltra
Texture FilteringUltraUltraUltraUltraUltra
Contact ShadowsOnOnOnOnOn
Ambient Occlusion
Screen Space Reflections
Volumetric LightingUltraUltraUltraUltraUltra
Sky QualityUltraUltraUltraUltraUltra
LODFade TouchedFade ToucedFade TouchedUltraFade Touched
Strand HairOnOnOnOnOn
Terrain QualityUltraUltraUltraUltraUltra
Terrain DecorationUltraUltraUltraUltraUltra
Visual EffectsUltraUltraUltraUltraUltra
Post ProcessingUltraUltraUltraUltraUltra

Dragon Age Veilguard Settings for Low-end PC: RTX 3060/RTX 4060/RX 6600

Dragon Age: Veilguard performs well on low-end hardware, averaging just under 60 FPS at 1080p “Ultra” using DLSS “Balanced” upscaling. The 1% lows drop around highly reflective surfaces like water bodies, but apart from that the performance is stable.

Optimized SettingsRTX 3060RTX 4060RTX 3060 Ti
Resolution1080p1080p1080p
UpscalingDLSS BalancedDLSS BalancedDLSS Balanced
Frame GenerationOffOnOff
FPS Target60 FPS60 FPS60 FPS
Ray Traced ReflectionsSelective OnSelective
Ray Traced Ambient OcclusionSelectiveOnSelective
Ultra Ray TracingOffOnOn
Lighting QualityUltraUltraUltra
Contact ShadowsOnOnOn
Ambient Occlusion
Screen Space Reflections
Volumetric LightingUltraUltraUltra
Sky QualityUltraUltraUltra
LODUltraUltraUltra
Strand HairOnOnOn
Terrain QualityUltraUltraUltra
Texture QualityUltraUltraUltra
Texture FilteringUltraUltraUltra
Terrain DecorationUltraUltraUltra
Visual EffectsUltraUltraUltra
Post ProcessingUltraUltraUltra

Dragon Age Veilguard Settings for RTX 3060|RTX 4060 Laptop GPU

Dragon Age: Veilguard performs remarkably well on the GeForce RTX 4060 laptop GPU, largely due to the availability of frame generation. We recorded an average framerate of 68 FPS at 1080p “Ultra” and 64 FPS at 1440p “Ultra” with DLSS (and frame generation) running in quality and balanced mode, respectively.

Optimized SettingsRTX 3060 Laptop GPURTX 4060 Laptop GPU
Resolution1080p1440p|1080p
UpscalingDLSS BalancedDLSS Balanced| Quality
Frame GenerationOffOn
FPS Target60 FPS60 FPS
Texture QualityUltraUltra
Texture FilteringUltraUltra
Ray Traced ReflectionsOffSelective
Ray Traced Ambient OcclusionOffSelective
Ultra Ray TracingOffOff|On
Lighting QualityUltraUltra
Contact ShadowsOnOn
Ambient Occlusion HBAO
Screen Space ReflectionsOn
Volumetric LightingUltraUltra
Sky QualityUltraUltra
LODUltraUltra
Strand HairOnOn
Terrain QualityUltraUltra
Terrain DecorationUltraUltra
Visual EffectsUltraUltra
Post ProcessingUltraUltra

Dragon Age Veilguard: Best Steam Deck Graphics Settings

Here’s our analysis of the game’s performance on the Steam Deck handheld.

Optimized SettingsLow-end PC
Resolution1280×800
UpscalingAMD FSR 2 Balanced|Performance
Frame GenerationOff
FPS Target30 FPS
Ray Traced ReflectionsOff
Ray Traced Ambient OcclusionOff
Ultra Ray TracingOff
Texture QualityMedium
Texture FilteringMedium
Lighting QualityLow
Contact ShadowsOff
Ambient Occlusion Off
Screen Space ReflectionsOff
Volumetric LightingLow
Sky QualityLow
LODLow
Strand HairOff|On
Terrain QualityLow
Terrain DecorationMedium
Visual EffectsLow
Post ProcessingLow
Depth of FieldOff
Motion BlurOff
FOV90%

Areej Syed

Processors, PC gaming, and the past. I have been writing about computer hardware for over seven years with more than 5000 published articles. Started off during engineering college and haven't stopped since. Find me at HardwareTimes and PC Opset.
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