Dynasty Warriors: Origins Optimization- Best Settings for PC

Dynasty Warriors: Origins is the latest entry in the long-running DW saga. Set in mainland China during the tumultuous period of the Three Kingdoms, the game follows a “nameless hero” through countless battlefields. Each conflict features hordes of enemy units commanded by generals and officers, and only the most strategic approaches will grant you victory. Here’s an optimization guide for your PC as it renders hundreds of allied and enemy units simultaneously.

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.

Dynasty Warriors Origins: PC System Requirements

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Dynasty Warriors Origins: Resolution & Graphics Presets

Dynasty Warriors: Origins features a 240 FPS cap on PC which prevents scaling from 1440p to 1080p. We averaged 151 FPS at 4K and 235 FPS at 1440p/1080p. The 1% percentile is important here, as it represents the game’s performance during crowded scenes when you’re battling hordes of enemies at once.

Our 1% lows ranged from 115 FPS at 4K to 147 FPS at 1440p, and 163 FPS at 1080p using the highest quality settings. The latter looks like a CPU bottleneck which we’ll investige towards the end of the post.

Test Setup

• CPU: Intel Core i9-12900K @ 5.3 GHz.
• Cooler: Arctic Liquid Freezer III 420.
• GPU: NVIDIA RTX 4090 FE.
• Motherboard: MSI PRO Z790-P WIFI.
• Memory: 16 GB x2 @ 6000 MT/s CL30.

Dynasty Warriors: Origins exhibits limited scaling across the three graphics presets, averaging 151 FPS, 164.5 FPS, and 175 FPS at the high, medium, and low quality presets, respectively. It’s worth noting that the graphics preset doesn’t affect the advanced settings, including display distance and fog.

Graphics Quality: Model & Shadows

Model Quality adjusts the geometric detail (mesh quality) of terrain, in-game objects, characters, and architecture. Higher quality levels employ tessellation and increased detail for various game assets throughout. It has a moderate 4-6% impact on the average framerate. The Steam Deck option isn’t much faster than low, and should be avoided.

Shadow Quality sets the resolution of distant shadow maps, making them blurry and detailed at the lower and higher quality settings, respectively. The performance and visual impact of shadows are negligible.

Foliage, Effects, & Ambient Occlusion

Foliage Quality sets the density and frequency of grass patches throughout the landscape. It nominally impacts performance, reducing the average framerates by 2-3% at the high quality setting.

Effects Quality adjusts the resolution of special combat and ability animations. It subtly impacts the average and lows (2-3%) and can be reduced to the lowest for a minimal visual penalty.

Dynasty Warriors: Origins leverages screen space ambient occlusion (SSAO) for ambient shadows. Disabling it grants a 7% FPS boost, but makes the game bland and one-dimensional. Low isn’t much better either. We recommend sticking to medium or high quality for the best experience.

Advanced Settings: Texture Quality

Texture Quality adjusts the resolution of various textures, including ground, terrain, architecture, and other man-made structures in the game. This directly impacts the game’s VRAM utilization which starts a bit over 6 GB at the lowest and peaks at 9.6 GB at the “maximum” quality setting at 4K.

Anisotropic texture filtering is also enabled depending on the setting applied. It varies from 2x, 4x, 8x, and 16x for the low, medium, high, and maximum quality settings, respectively.

Display Distance & Volumetric Fog

Display Distance sets the LOD or render distance of various objects in the game. It primarily affects how far enemy units, trees, and foliage are rendered in the scene. It has a moderate 4-5% impact on performance and can be set to medium for a balanced experience.

Volumetric Fog enables high-quality 3D fog which is prevalent across most battlegrounds. It can be disabled for a paltry 2-3% FPS gain. Disabling it doesn’t completely remove the fog, replacing it with a low-quality placeholder.

Bloom, Lens Flare & Characters

Characters adjusts the number of soldies (enemy and ally) visible on the screen simultaneously. It can be set to “normal” or “many.” However, it doesn’t have a notable performance impact, and is best left at the default value. Likewise, bloom and lens flare don’t affect framerates.

Upscaling & Frame Generation

Dynasty Warriors: Origins features DLSS 3.7, FSR 3.1, and XeSS 1.3 upscaling technologies. As seen in the screenshot comparisons below, DLSS produces the best quality, followed by FSR, while XeSS is the worse. Interestingly, FSR 3’s native AA does a better job at retain detail than DLAA due to its aggressive sharpening filter.

Frame generation using FSR and DLSS allow for framerates as high as 480 FPS, though we could only reach an average of 256 FPS using DLSS “Performance” and frame generation. Frame generation isn’t very effective in Dynasty Warriors, only slightly improving the average at the cost of worse frame pacing and lows.

Dynasty Warriors Origins: VRAM Usage

Dynasty Warriors: Origins uses nearly 10 GB of graphics memory at the maximum settings at 4K. Reducing the texture quality to high brings it down to 7.8, while low requires just over 6 GB. At 1440p and 1080p, the game’s VRAM usage peaks at 7.3 GB and 7.8 GB, respectively.

Dynasty Warriors Origins: CPU Bottlenecks

Dynasty Warriors: Origins is fairly CPU-bound at 1080p, especially during crowded battle sequences. We observed a GPU-Busy deviation of 28% at 1080p “High” on our setup. QHD and upscaled 4K are also mildly CPU-bound with deviations of 5-10%.

Dynasty Warriors: Origins Performance Summary

If you’re struggling to run the game at acceptable framerates, you’re likely CPU-bound. To alliviate the bottleneck:

• Reduce the display distance to the lowest.
• Effects can also be reduced to “low” for a nifty performance boost.
• Model and Ambient Occlusion grant healthy framerate uplifts at the medium-quality preset.
• Use upscaling, and avoid frame generation unless it provides a tangible gain.

Optimized Settings for Dynasty Warriors: Origins (PC)

Graphics Settings	High-end	Midrange	Low-end PC
Resolution	4K (3840 x 2160)	1440p (2560x 1440)	1080p (1920 x 1080)
FPS Target	240 FPS	180 FPS	144 FPS
Model Quality	High	High	Medium
Shadow Quality	High	High	High
Foliage Quality	High	High	High
Effect Quality	High	High	Medium
Ambient Occlusion	High	High	Medium
Texture Quality	Max	Max	Max
Display Distance	High	High	Medium
Volumetric Fog	On	On	Off
Bloom	On	On	On
Lens Flare	On	On	On
Characters	Many	Many	Many
Upscaling	Balanced	Balanced	Balanced
Frame Generation	On	Off	Off

CPU	Core i7-13700K|Ryzen 9 7900X	Core i5-12700K|Ryzen 5 7600X	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)