Ghost of Tsushima Optimized Settings PC: Every Graphics Option Benchmarked

Ghost of Tsushima has launched on PC with a long list of graphics options for you to tweak. Developed by Nixxes, it’s another well-optimized port integrating the latest upscaling and frame generation technologies from AMD, NVIDIA, and Intel. We took the port for a spin across several systems, and have compiled our performance optimization guide below. It’s still being updated, so please be patient.

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.

Test Bench

• CPU: Intel Core i9-13900K.
• Motherboard: ASUS ROG Maximus Z790 Hero.
• Cooler: Lian Li Galahad 360.
• GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090.
• Memory: 16GB x2 DDR5-6000 CL30.
• Power Supply: Corsair RM1000e.

Ghost of Tsushima: Official PC Specs

Ghost of Tsushima has modest CPU requirements, demanding the three-year-old Core i5-11400 or the Ryzen 5 5600 for “Very High” settings.

On the GPU side, you need the GeForce RTX 3070 or the Radeon RX 6800 for High at 1440p 60 FPS or 4K 30 FPS. The highest quality preset requires a GeForce RTX 4080 or the Radeon RX 7900 XT, little extreme considering how old this game is.

You’ll need 16GB of main memory (preferably dual-channel) and 75GB of SSD storage for optimal load time in Ghost of Tsushima. The download size is a bit under 50GB.

Ghost of Tsushima: Resolution Scaling & Graphics Presets

Ghost of Tsushima scales remarkably well with resolution. From 80 FPS at 4K “Very High,” we observed 159 FPS at 1080p “Very High” on our GeForce RTX 4090/Core i9-13900K configuration. QHD or 1440p performed closer to 1080p with an average of 133.5 FPS and 113.5 FPS lows.

At 4K, the framerates varied from 117.5 FPS to 80 FPS average, going from the “Very Low” to “Very High” quality presets. “High” performs 18% faster than “Very High” while “Medium” is only 5% faster than “High.”

Similarly, going from “Low” to “Very Low” grants a 5% performance uplift, and “Low” is 12% faster than “Medium.”

Graphics Quality Presets: Image Comparisons (Click here)

Texture Filtering and Field of View (FOV)

Texture filtering has a subtle impact on performance and quality. Trilinear and Anisotropic 16x are only a few FPS apart. Increasing the field of view (FOV) by 25 similarly has a negligible reduction in performance.

Texture Filtering: Image Comparisons (Click here)

Shadow Quality and Ambient Occlusion

Shadow Quality sets the resolution of shadow maps in the game. Generally, anything above Medium is good enough, but seeing the minimal performance hit, I’d recommend “High” to most gamers. Ultra is a cut above the rest and needs to be enabled individually.

Ghost of Tsushima features four different Ambient Occlusion techniques. Screen Space Ambient Occlusion Quality (Full Resolution), Screen Space Ambient Occlusion Performance (Half Resolution), Horizon Based Ambient Occlusion or HBAO+ (Half Resolution), and Ground Truth Ambient Occlusion (GTAO).

Shadow Quality: Image Comparisons (Click here)

GTAO provides the best coverage but is the most taxing of the bunch. SSAO Quality offers the best balance between quality and performance.

Ambient Occlusion: Image Comparisons (Click here)

Screen Space Shadows and Reflections

Screen Space Shadows complement Ambient Occlusion, adding shadows for foliage and vegetation usually missed by shadow maps. Despite a nominal performance hit, they significantly improve visual fidelity in the dark.

Screen Space Shadows: Image Comparisons (Click here)

Screen Space Reflections render reflections for on-screen objects. These are low-fidelity reflections that have a subtle impact on gameplay. SSR is one of the most taxing settings in Ghost of Tsushima. They reduce frame rates by 8-9% on “Very High” and 4% on “High.”

Screen Space Reflections: Image Comparisons (Click here)

Level of Detail and Terrain Quality

The Level of Detail setting controls the distance at which objects disappear from view and lose geometric detail. LOD has a subtle impact on performance, but can significantly alter your view in a given scene. “Low” is a mere 6% faster than “Very High.”

LOD: Image Comparisons (Click here)

Terrain quality sets the visual fidelity of the terrain, often by use of tesselation. The “Medium” and “High” settings perform roughly the same, while “Low” is 2-3 FPS faster.

Terrain Quality: Image Comparisons

DLSS, FSR & XeSS: Anti-aliasing, Upscaling, and Frame Generation

Ghost of Tsushima features several anti-aliasing techniques, including SMAA, SMAA T2x (temporal SMAA), TAA, DLAA, and more. SMAA, SMAA T2x, and DLAA were the fastest on our setup, while XeSS AA and FSR 3 Native AA were the slowest.

FSR 3 Frame Generation was the fastest upscaler + frame generator, followed by DLSS 3.5 using the “Performance” quality preset. DLSS 3.5 FG “Quality” was slower than DLSS upscaling using the “Performance” preset.

High-res anti-aliasing and upscaling quality comparisons.

DLSS upscaling was faster than FSR 3 and XeSS on NVIDIA hardware which isn’t surprising, but the performance delta compared to the rest was minimal.

Ghost of Tsushima: CPU Bottlenecks

Ghost of Tsushima is mostly GPU-bound at “Very High” settings. Drop down to “High” or “Medium” and you’ll be CPU-limited instead.

At 1440p “Low,” we were CPU-limited with a GPU-Busy Deviation of 66%. If you find yourself CPU-bound at your chosen settings, enable “Frame Generation.”

Ghost of Tsushima: GPU VRAM Usage

Ghost of Tsushima uses close to 8GB of VRAM at 4K “Very Low.” Increasing the settings to “Medium” ups the graphics memory usage to 8.5GB, while “High” pushes it to 9.3GB. “Very High” peaks at 10GB. It’s a little higher than I’d have liked as this game looks average.

Ghost of Tsushima Optimized Settings for Low-end, Midrange, and High-end PCs

Ghost of Tsushima: Optimized Settings for the Steam Deck

Below, you’ll find the optimal settings for the Steam Deck, tweaked to grant you a stable 40-45 FPS at 720p in Ghost of Tsushima. More details here.

Ghost of Tsushima: Optimized Settings for RTX 3060/4060 Laptop GPU

Ghost of Tsushima Optimized Settings for Low-end PCs

We found the following graphics settings optimal on lower-end PCs running Ghost of Tsushima. More details here.

Ghost of Tsushima: PS5 Graphics Settings