F1 2025 is out in advanced access on Steam, EA Play, and the Xbox Store. It’s the first title in the series to feature path-tracing, albeit with hefty system requirements. We’re happy to report that the game performs as smoothly as the previous F1 games, requiring only upscaling for smooth 60 FPS on most PCs. Here’s our optimization guide for F1 2025.
F1 25 PC Optimization Brief
Official System Requirements
- F1 25 requires an RTX 2070 or an RX 6600 XT for 1080p 60 FPS using the high quality settings. The Core i5-9600K or the Ryzen 5 2600X are sufficient for 60 FPS.
- 1440p requires an RTX 3080 or an RX 6800 XT. Running the game at 144 FPS or higher demands a newer CPU, like the Core i5-12600K or the Ryzen 5 7600X.
- 4K Ultra quality settings require an RTX 3080 Ti or an RX 7900 XTX. Upscaling is recommended.
- You’ll also need 16 GB of system memory for optimal performance.
| Target | Preset | CPU | GPU | RAM | Ray Tracing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1080p 60 FPS | Low | Core i5-6400|Ryzen 3 1200 | GTX 1060|RX 570 | 8 GB | Off |
| 1080p 60 FPS | High | Core i5-9600K|Ryzen 5 2600X | RTX 2070|RX 6600 XT | 16 GB | Off |
| 1440p 144 FPS | High | Core i5-12600K|Ryzen 5 7600X | RTX 3080|RX 6800 XT | 16 GB | Off |
| 4K 60 FPS | Ultra High | Core i5-10600K|Ryzen 5 5600X | RTX 3080 Ti|RX 7900 XTX | 16 GB | On + Q. Upscale |
| 8K 60 FPS | Ultra High | Core i5-12600K|Ryzen 5 7600X | RTX 4090 | 32 GB | On + B. Upscale + FG |
| 1080p 60 FPS | Ultra Max | Core i5-12600K|Ryzen 5 7600X | RTX 4080 SUPER|RX 7900 XTX | 16 GB | Path Tracing + Q. Upscale |
F1 25 runs remarkably well with high-quality rasterization. The following optimizations are recommended for midrange and entry-level PCs:
- Ray tracing requires dedicated RT Cores and upscaling. It runs best on the RTX 30 and RTX 40 series GPUs. We recommend disabling it on AMD Radeon RX 6000 and older GPUs:
- Path Tracing is mainly for RTX 40 and 50 series GPUs, and requires upscaling and frame generation.
- Ray Reconstruction is only recommended for RTX 40 & 50 series GPUs.
- A compromise would be enabling RT Shadows, RT DDGI with SSR, and SSAO.
- Weather Effects should be reduced to medium quality if facing FPS drops on rainy tracks.
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).
- Here’s a guide with more detailed instructions.
Resolution Scaling: 4K >1440p >1080p
F1 25 scales decently with resolution, averaging 119 FPS at 4K, 164 FPS (+38%) at 1440p, and 185 FPS (+55%) at 1080p using the maximum quality rasterization settings.
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.
Ray Tracing and path tracing dramatically increase the performance delta between the three resolutions: 1080p (104.5 FPS) is 155% faster, while 1440p (75.7 FPS) is 85% faster than 4K (41 FPS) using ray-tracing.
1080p (83 FPS) is 196% faster, and 1440p (53 FPS) is 89% faster than 4K (28 FPS) using path-tracing and DLAA.
Graphics Presets
F1 25 shows remarkable scaling across its five graphics presets, even without ray or path-tracing. We recorded the following averages at 4K UHD:
- Very Low: 200 FPS (+68%).
- Low: 178 FPS (+49.6%).
- Medium: 158 FPS (+33%).
- High: 125 FPS (+5%).
- Ultra Max (RT/PT Off): 119 FPS (0%).
Path Tracing
Path-tracing implements multi-bounce global illumination (indirect lighting) and high-quality reflections in F1 25. As the pixel count increases with resolution, so does the number of rays cast per frame. Ray-tracing and path-tracing are substantially more taxing at higher resolutions.
FHD or 1080p averages 83 FPS using path-tracing, 104.5 FPS (+26%) using ray-tracing, and 185 FPS (123%) without either.
QHD or 1440p averages 53 FPS using path-tracing, 75 FPS (+43%) using ray-tracing, and 164 FPS (>3x) using only rasterization.
4K UHD yields a mere 28 FPS using path-tracing, 41 FPS (+46%) using ray-tracing, and 119 FPS (>4x) using only rasterization.
DLSS Ray Reconstruction
Upscaling shrinks the rendering resolution, conducting ray-tracing and path-tracing at lower pixel counts. The resulting performance mimics the native frame rates of the rendering resolution. At 4K “quality” upscaling, each frame is internally rendered at 1440p, producing similar frame rates.
Denoisers fill in the missing ray data for the upscaled pixels, using temporal and spatial interpolation. DLSS Ray Reconstruction improves denoising quality by filtering out the poor samples, reducing noise, and pixel blurring:
- Ray Reconstruction makes ray-tracing up to 10-15% slower at 4K.
- Quality mode (-16%) sees a larger hit than performance mode (-10%) despite having to resolve more pixels.
- Ray reconstruction has less impact on path-tracing performance, with frame rates dropping by 7-11% at 4K.
- Similar FPS drops are observed across the different upscaling modes: Performance mode: -11%; Quality mode: -10%.
Ray reconstruction negligibly impacts path tracing performance at lower resolutions like 1080p, while ray-tracing sees a mild to moderate decrease at quality mode (-7.5%).
Ray Tracing: GI, Shadows, AO & Reflections
F1 25 employs ray-traced lighting for shadows, reflections, ambient occlusion, and global illumination. These can be individually disabled as per your performance requirements:
- Ray-traced reflections are the most taxing (and visually apparent) ray-tracing setting, accounting for a 10% FPS drop at 4K.
- Ray-traced transparent reflections come second, improving frame rates by 6% when disabled. These two settings together cut performance by nearly 20%.
- Ray-traced ambient occlusion can boost frame rates by 5% when disabled. It has a less obvious visual impact.
- DDGI (Dynamic Diffuse GI) is more performance-friendly, granting a nominal 3% FPS gain when disabled.
- Ray-traced shadows hardly impact performance or visual fidelity.
Lighting Quality & Post Process
Lighting Quality sets the fidelity of pre-baked lighting effects. The high and ultra quality options perform the same, while medium and low are (each) a frame higher.
Post Processing enables a range of late-stage filters, including motion blur, depth of field, tonemapping, auto-exposure, etc. Its performance impact is negligible.
Shadows & Particles
Shadows set the resolution of shadow maps, bias, and filters. F1 25 makes sparse use of hard shadows, so the performance impact is marginal.
Particles enable various particle effects, including smoke, sparks, embers, smog, etc. Disabling this option grants a ~4% performance boost at the cost of a notable quality drop. Higher quality options perform the same
Crowd & Mirrors
Crowd sets the draw distance and LOD of in-game crowd NPCs. Its performance impact is negligible.
Mirrors set the resolution of pre-baked cubemapped mirror reflections. It doesn’t noticeably impact frame rates.
Car/Helmet Reflections & Weather Effects
Car and Helmet Reflections set the detail of said reflections. These are mostly screen space or cubemapped (pre-baked). The ultra quality option is 4% slower than the rest, which perform the same.
Weather Effects set the intensity and detail of weather effects, including raindrops, fog, clouds, etc. These are mainly relevant for wet tracks. The low and medium quality options perform the same. In comparison:
- High is 14% slower.
- Ultra is 15% slower.
Ground Cover & Trees
Ground cover adjusts the detail of grass patches past the race track. It hardly impacts the performance or visual fidelity.
Trees set the LOD of off-track trees and vegetation. Like the former, the performance impact is negligible.
Ambient Occlusion & Screen Space Reflections
F1 25 features AMD’s Combined Adaptive Compute Ambient Occlusion (CACAO) and Adaptive Screen Space Ambient Occlusion (ASSAO). Both produce similar quality using the solid angle occlusion model.
- Disabling this setting grants a 6% performance boost.
Screen Space Reflections render on-screen reflections using ray-marching. They’re considerably less detailed than ray-traced reflections, and don’t account for off-screen objects:
- Disabling them grants a 4% FPS gain.
- Anything higher than “Off” performs the same.
- We don’t recommend disabling them, especially for wet races.
- Ambient Occlusion & Screen Space Reflections are disabled when using ray or path tracing.
Variable Rate Shading & High Quality Hair
Variable Rate Shading reduces the shading rate for off-focus sections of the screen. Its visual and performance impact isn’t notable.
High-quality hair enables strand-based hair models for in-game characters. It’s only applicable in select scenes and doesn’t impact the performance otherwise.
Upscaling & Frame Generation
Upscaling helps attain playable frame rates when using ray tracing or path tracing. It improves performance by 80-170% at high resolution, like 4K, with even quality mode nearly doubling the FPS.
Frame Generation allows for 144 FPS and above with ray/path tracing. It boosts frame rates by 70-90%, helping older CPUs break past the 60 FPS mark.
CPU Bottlenecks & VRAM Usage
F1 25 is predominantly GPU-bound and showed no signs of a CPU limitation during our testing. However, the game generously uses the graphics memory, averaging 15.5 GB at 4K without RT, and 17 GB with it.
QHD and FHD are more forgiving, using a bit over 11 GB and 10 GB VRAM at the highest quality graphics presets.
F1 25 PC Optimized Graphics Settings
| Graphics Options | High-end | Midrange | Low-end |
|---|---|---|---|
| Resolution | 4K | 1440p | 1080p |
| FPS Target | 60 FPS+ | 90 FPS | 60 FPS |
| Upscaling | Balanced | Balanced | Quality |
| Frame Generation | On for PT 144 FPS | On for PT | Off |
| Path Tracing | On (Off for RT 144 FPS) | Needs FG | On for RT |
| Ray Reconstruction | On | On | Off |
| RT Shadows | On | On | Off |
| RT Reflections | On | On | Off |
| RT Transp. Reflections | On | On | Off |
| RTAO | On | On | Off |
| RT DDGI | On | On | Off |
| Lighting Quality | Ultra | Ultra | Ultra |
| Post Process | High | High | High |
| Shadows | Ultra | Ultra | Ultra |
| Particles | High | High | High |
| Crowd | Ultra | Ultra | Ultra |
| Mirrors | Ultra | Ultra | Ultra |
| Car & Helmet Reflections | Ultra | Ultra | Ultra |
| Weather Effects | Ultra | Ultra | Ultra |
| Ground Cover | Ultra | Ultra | Ultra |
| Trees | Ultra | Ultra | Ultra |
| Skidmarks | High | High | High |
| Skidmark Blending | On | On | On |
| Ambient Occlusion | CACAO | CACAO | CACAO |
| Screen Space Reflections | Ultra | Ultra | Ultra |
| Texture Streaming | Ultra | Ultra | Ultra |
| Variable Rate Shading | On | On | On |
| High Quality Hair | On | On | On |
| 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 4090 | GeForce RTX 4070 Super | RTX 3060|RTX 4060 |
| Memory | 32GB (dual-channel) | 16GB (dual-channel) | 16GB |
