Dune Awakening is out in advanced access on Steam, already amassing nearly 100K concurrent players. The game is built on the Unreal Engine 5, features software Lumen, several upscaling techniques, and frame generation. It has fairly modest system requirements, demanding an RTX 4070 for 4K 60 FPS using the ultra quality preset, so this shouldn’t be too hard. Here’s our Dune Awakening optimization guide.
Dune Awakening PC Optimization TLDR
Dune Awakening: Official PC Specs
- Dune: Awakening requires a GeForce RTX 2070, an RTX 3060, or a Radeon RX 6600 for stable 60 FPS at 1080p using the medium quality settings.
- The CPU demands a Core i5-8600K or a Ryzen 5 2600 alongside 16 GB of main memory and 75 GB SSD storage.
| Setting | 1080p Low | 1080 Medium | 1440p High | 4K Ultra |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FPS | 30 FPS | 60 FPS | 60 FPS | 60 FPS |
| OS | Windows 10 64-bit or newer | |||
| CPU | Intel i5-7400|Ryzen 3 1200 | Intel i5-8600K|Ryzen 5 2600 | Intel i7-10700K|Ryzen 5 5600X | Intel i7-11700K|Ryzen 7 5800X |
| Memory | 16 GB | |||
| GPU | GTX 1060|Radeon 5600XT| Arc A380 | RTX 2070|RX 6600|Arc A770 | RTX 3070|RX 6700 XT|Arc B580 | RTX 4070|RX 7800 XT |
| Storage | 60 GB SSD | 75 GB SSD | ||
Graphics Settings for Best Performance
- Shadow Quality: Pair Virtual Shadows with the low quality option for well-detailed shadows at economical performance.
- Global Illumination: Unless you’re on a low-end PC (RTX 3060 or lower), set this to high and enable Lumen for balanced lighting quality. Drop down to medium if you’re struggling to hit 60 FPS.
- Post Processing: Reduce it to low for a healthy 8% FPS boost with a minimal quality loss.
- Reflections, Foliage, and Effects Quality can be set to ultra with minimal downsides.
- Upscaling: DLSS for NVIDIA users and TSR for everyone else. Performance mode for 4K, balanced for 1440p, and quality for 1080p.
- Most midrange and high-end GPUs like the RTX 4060 Ti, RTX 4070, and RTX 4070 Ti average over 60 FPS at the highest quality settings at 1080p native and 1440p using balanced-mode upscaling
- Frame Generation: NVIDIA RTX 30 series and older RTX GPU owners can pair DLSS 4 upscaling with FSR frame generation. Enable Reflex and V-Sync for stable frame pacing.
- Don’t enable the low-end laptop mode as it ruins the visual fidelity.
- These settings aim for 60 FPS in and around the trade centers with a lot of player and NPC activity.
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.
Dune Awakening: Resolution & Graphics Presets
Dune: Awakening scales decently with resolution, averaging 52 FPS at 4K, 82 FPS at 1440p, and 97 FPS at 1080p using the maximum quality graphics settings and DLAA.
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.
Dune: Awakening automatically enables frame generation and upscaling across all graphics presets. At 4K, the balanced mode upscaling kicks in at ultra and performance mode at the lower quality presets. We disabled these to gauge the true impact of the presets.
4K UHD paired with DLAA anti-aliasing produced the following averages across the four graphics quality presets, with a 47% performance deficit between the highest and lowest modes:
- Ultra: 51.6 FPS (0%).
- High: 60 FPS (+16%).
- Medium: 66 FPS (+28%).
- Low: 76 FPS (+47%).
Shadow Quality & Virtual Shadows
Shadow Quality sets the resolution of shadow maps, adjusting the definition of shadow silhouettes. Medium and lower quality options cull distant shadows, often causing the flickering of shadow edges.
- Low is 3-4% faster than the higher quality options.
- Medium and higher options perform about the same.
Virtual Shadows leverage the Unreal Engine 5-specific high-resolution shadow maps. Dune Awakening labels them experimental due to the increased GPU and VRAM requirements. They’re much more detailed than standard shadows and produce realistically diffusing penumbras.
- Virtual Shadows are 7% slower than standard shadows, increasing the VRAM usage by roughly 400 MB.
- The shadow preset mainly sets the penumbra quality, producing wider, more natural edges at higher options.
- It’s worth noting that the lowest quality virtual shadows look as good or better than ultra-quality standard shadows at the same performance.
Global Illumination & Lumen
Global Illumination sets the indirect lighting and shadow quality. By default, the more performance-friendly screen space global illumination is employed:
- Ultra and high look and perform the same.
- Medium brings a sharp reduction in quality, as much of the diffuse lighting is lost. It’s 7% faster than the higher quality options.
- Low is marginally faster than medium (+3%), but looks hardly any worse.
Further reading: Unreal Engine Lumen vs. Ray Tracing Explained: Software and Hardware
Lumen employs software ray-tracing to implement higher quality global illumination in Dune Awakening, accounting for multi-bounce diffuse light and offscreen light sources. It can be enabled at the high and ultra quality options:
- High-quality Lumen is barely slower than standard GI, drastically improving the scene lighting. Occluded and indoor surfaces are more accurately lit, with deeper and more detailed ambient shadows.
- Ultra-quality Lumen uses higher-quality SDFs (trace meshes), enhancing the illumination and shadowing of finer geometry. It also increases the GI resolution.
- Ultra quality is 10-11% slower than high, and should be avoided unless you’re running a high-end GPU.
Reflection Quality is largely redundant, as there aren’t many (any?) glossy surfaces in Dune Awakening. It mainly adjusts the reflectability of light off shiny, rough surfaces like metals. Doesn’t impact performance.
The low-end laptop mode reduces all the graphics settings to low and enables ultra-performance upscaling, setting the internal resolution to 33%. It offers a large FPS boost, but makes the image cartoonish. We don’t recommend using it.
Effects & Post Processing Quality
Effects Quality enables secondary shader effects, including particles, material detail, shadow effects, etc. These are gradually reduced from ultra to medium, and mostly disabled at low quality. It lowers frame rates by 2-3% at medium and higher options.
Post Processing implements motion blur, depth of field, bloom, ambient occlusion, etc. Ultra to medium gradually lowers ambient occlusion quality, while low disables it along with bloom.
- Low quality mode is 8% faster than the rest.
- Medium and higher perform the same.
View Distance & Foliage Quality
View Distance sets the density and LOD of rocks, pebbles, terrain elements, etc. The performance and visual impacts are both nominal.
Foliage Quality sets the detail and density of grass, bushes, rocks, etc. It also doesn’t impact the frame rates much.
Upscaling & Frame Generation
Dune Awakening includes NVIDIA DLSS 4, AMD FSR 3.1, Unreal’s TSR, and Intel XeSS 2. NVIDIA’s proprietary solution produces the best quality, followed by TSR. FSR and XeSS deliver similar image clarity, with the latter better handling cables and thin meshes:
- Quality mode upscaling is 48% faster than native 4K.
- Balanced mode is 11% faster than quality mode and 64.5% faster than native 4K.
- Performance mode is 6% faster than balanced mode and 73% faster than native 4K.
- Dune Awakening lets the player set a custom internal resolution for the selected upscaler, so you can choose between 30% and 100%.
- Quality mode uses 67%, balanced uses 59%, performance uses 50%, and ultra performance drops to 33%. These are recommended for 1080p, 1440p, 4K, and 8K, respectively.
Dune Awakening features DLSS 4 and FSR 3-based frame generation. While DLSS 4 upscaling can be paired with both, FSR upscaling can’t. Frame generation grants massive performance boosts ranging from ~70% at native 4K to 50-60% when paired with upscaling.
Dune Awakening: VRAM Usage & CPU Bottlenecks
Dune: Awakening is relatively forgiving on the graphics memory for an Unreal Engine 5 title. It peaks a bit over 10 GB at 4K, dropping to 8.5 to 9 GB at lower quality presets.
QHD 1440p and 1080p using 8.5 GB and 8 GB of VRAM at the maximum quality settings (without virtual shadows).
Dune Awakening: CPU Performance & Bottlenecks
The Raptor Lake-based Core i9-13900K, Core i7-14700K, and the Core i9-14900K are 15-20% faster than the Core i9-12900K and the Ryzen 9 7950X at 1080p (and 4K with performance upscaling). The Ryzen 7 7800X3D and the 9800X3D should be even faster.
The performance deficit between Alder and Raptor Lake shrinks to under 15% at 1440p (and 4K with balanced upscaling).
Dune is moderately CPU-bound at native 1080p with a GPU-busy deviation of 10-15%. Similar figures are observed at 4K using performance upscaling and 1440p with balanced upscaling.
The CPU bottleneck becomes a severe issue at upscaled 1080p near the 100 FPS mark. The GPU-Busy deviation increases to 20-30%, limiting most midrange processors to under 100 FPS without frame generation.
Dune Awakening: GPU Benchmarks
Dune Awakening averages 53 FPS on the GeForce RTX 4070 and 58.5 FPS on the 4070 Ti at 1440p using the highest quality settings. Upscaling boosts them to nearly 80 FPS and 90 FPS, respectively.
The GeForce RTX 5070 Ti and the 4080 Super yield ~70 FPS at 1440p, with upscaling producing close to 100 FPS. Frame generation can be enabled for 140 FPS and higher.
4K UHD is playable using the highest quality settings with upscaling on the RTX 4090, 4080 Super, and the 5070 Ti. All three average ~90 FPS using performance mode upscaling, and around 140 FPS with added frame generation.
Dune Awakening PC Optimized Settings
| Graphics Option | High-end | Midrange | Low-end PC |
|---|---|---|---|
| Resolution | 4K (3840×2160) | 1440p (2560×1440) | 1080p (1920×1080) |
| FPS Target | 60 FPS | 90 FPS | 60 FPS |
| Field of View | Up to you | Up to you | Up to you |
| Upscaling Mode | Performance (50%) | Balanced (~60%) | (Quality ~70%) |
| Frame Generation | For 100 FPS+ | For 144 FPS | For 90 FPS |
| Shadow Quality | Ultra | Low | Low |
| Virtual Shadows | On | On | On |
| Global Illumination | Ultra | High | High |
| Lumen | On | On | On |
| Reflection Quality | Ultra | Ultra | Ultra |
| Effects Quality | Ultra | Ultra | Ultra |
| Post Processing | Ultra | Ultra | Ultra |
| View Distance | Ultra | Ultra | Ultra |
| Texture Quality | Ultra | Ultra | Ultra |
| Foliage Quality | Ultra | Ultra | Ultra |
| 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 4080 Super | GeForce RTX 4070 Super | RTX 3060|RTX 4060 |
| Memory | 32GB (dual-channel) | 16GB (dual-channel) | Less than: 16GB (dual-channel) |
Dune Awakening: Best Settings for Budget & Low-end PCs
Dune Awakening averages 54 FPS on the GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop GPU at 1080p using the highest quality graphics settings and balanced mode upscaling (DLSS). The former is playable, but you’ll have to endure stutters and drops close to 30 FPS. Here’s our guide for budget and low-end PCs.
| Graphics Option | RTX 3060 | RTX 4060 | RTX 3060 Ti |
|---|---|---|---|
| Resolution | 1080p | 1080p|1440p | 1080p|1440p |
| FPS Target | 60 FPS | 60 FPS | 60 FPS |
| Field of View | Up to you | Up to you | Up to you |
| Upscaling Mode | Balanced (58%) | Balanced (58%) | Balanced (58%) |
| Frame Generation | *For 1080 Max | Off|On | Off|On |
| Shadow Quality | Ultra | Low|High | High |
| Virtual Shadows | Off | On | On |
| Global Illumination | Medium | High | High |
| Lumen | Off | On | On |
| Reflection Quality | Ultra | Ultra | Ultra |
| Effects Quality | Ultra | Ultra | Ultra |
| Post Processing | Low | Ultra | Ultra |
| View Distance | Ultra | Ultra | Ultra |
| Texture Quality | Ultra | Ultra | Ultra |
| Foliage Quality | Ultra | Ultra | Ultra |
