Best Dune Awakening Settings for Low-end PC: RTX 3060, 3060 Ti & RTX 4060

Dune Awakening is off to a crowded advanced access, garnering over 90K concurrent players on Steam alone. The game performs well on midrange and high-end PCs, but lower-end systems can have trouble with stutters and FPS drops near player hubs. Our optimization guide covers each graphics setting and its performance/visual impact. Here’s how Dune runs on mainstream 60-class GPUs like the RTX 3060, 4060, and the 3060 Ti.

Dune Awakening: PC System Specs

Dune recommends a GeForce RTX 2070 or a Radeon RX 6600 for 1080p 60 FPS using the medium quality settings. We’ll use the GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop GPU, which performs in the same ballpark as the RTX 2070.

We tested Dune Awakening on the Alienware x15 featuring the Core i7-13620H, the GeForce RTX 4060 laptop GPU, and 32 GB of DDR5-5600 memory.

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.

• Disabling Lumen (or dropping to Lumen High) is enough to get the RTX 4060 above 60 FPS.
• Virtual shadows can be used at low quality on the RTX 4060.
• Gamers on an RTX 3060 or lower are advised to disable virtual shadows and drop down to medium quality global illumination, thereby disabling Lumen.
• Frame generation boosts the frame rate past 60 FPS using the highest quality settings at 1080p, with the RTX 4060 averaging 60 FPS at 1440p.
• Dropping post-processing to low grants a hefty boost on the RTX 3060.
• Reflection, effects, and the remaining settings can be left at the highest presets.
• We recommend balanced upscaling for DLSS and quality mode for everyone else. TSR is our second pick.
• FSR-based frame generation works on all GPUs, but needs v-sync and reflex (on RTX GPUs) for smooth frame pacing.

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.

VRAM Usage & CPU Bottlenecks

Dune Awakening uses between 6 and 7 GB of graphics memory using the above settings at 1080p, maxing out at 8 GB. QHD or 1440p memory usage hovers closer to 8 GB with upscaling, and slightly over 8 GB at native.

Our main memory (RAM) usage hovered between 11 GB and 12 GB when running Dune: Awakening. Depending on your GPU and frame rate target, Dune can be mildly to moderately CPU-bound.

Midrange graphics cards, including the RTX 3070, 4060 Ti, and 5060 Ti, will face increasing CPU limitations when approaching 90 FPS using upscaling. Frame generation is the only way to get around this.

Dune Awakening: Optimized Settings for Low-end PC