GTA 5 was released over 9 years ago, but the player base is largely intact due to regular updates to the Online Multiplayer. The game had some technical issues at launch, most notably a CPU utilization issue, but recent PCs should chew through them. Our optimization guide for GTA V provides a closer look at the performance of every graphics setting along with Windows/system-level optimizations such as Resize BAR, XMP, HAGs, etc. The recommended settings for the Steam Deck can be found here. This post covers the game’s performance on low-end PCs.
Test Bench
| Motherboard | CPU | GPU | Memory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gigabyte B760M DS3H DDR4 ($99) | Intel Core i5-12400F ($127) | AMD RX 6600 ($189) | 8GB x2 D4 ($40) |
Testing and analysis: Dipin.
GTA 5 Best Settings for Low-end PC: RTX 3060/Radeon RX 6600
GTA 5 runs well on modern hardware. Our $600 Radeon RX 6600 PC produced an average of 76.6 FPS at 1080p “Ultra” with 1% lows of 52.5 FPS. Ramping the resolution up to 1440p reduces the averages to 48 FPS and the lows to 36 FPS. The optimized preset nets 141 FPS, but you’re better off at Ultra with MSAA disabled which should get you close to 70 FPS.
At 4K “Ultra,” we get an average framerate of 23.5 FPS with lows of 18 FPS. We recommend using our optimized graphics settings that produce close to 70 FPS on average with lows of 50 FPS. We use the “High” and “Very High” settings for most options.
| Optimized Settings | i5-12400F/RX 6600 |
|---|---|
| Resolution | 1080p |
| Texture Resolution | Very High |
| Texture Filtering | 8x AF |
| Shadows | Softest |
| Shadow Quality | High |
| Reflection Quality | Very High |
| Reflection AA | 2x MSAA |
| Shader Quality | High |
| Grass Quality | Very High |
| Ambient Occlusion | High |
| Water Quality | High |
| Particle Quality | High |
| PostFX | Very High |
| Anti-Aliasing | FXAA |
| Tesselation | Very High |
| Distance Scaling | 50 |
| Population Density | 50 |
| Population Variety | 100 |
| Extended Shadows | 50 |
| Extended Distance Scaling | 0 |
| Long Shadows | On |
| High Res Shadows | On |
GTA 5 Best Settings for RTX 3060/RTX 4060 Laptop GPU
Testing GTA 5 on the Alienware x14 produced similar results. The game is GPU-bound on both configurations, showing CPU bottlenecks during loading. At 1080p “Ultra,” the GeForce RTX 4060 laptop GPU averages 68 FPS with lows of 48 FPS.
The x14 offers pre-configured CPU and GPU overclocking profiles (Overdrive) that offer a healthy performance boost over the stock hardware. You won’t even need a cooling pad, but make sure not to keep the device on your lap.
QHD/1440p produces an average framerate of 53 FPS using the ultra preset with lows of 37 FPS. It’s recommended that you keep these settings, but reduce MSAA to 2x which should get you past 60 FPS. Pumping the resolution up to 4K nets a paltry 22.6 FPS on average, with the lows dropping to 17 FPS. Our optimized settings boost framerates to 55 FPS and the lows to 41 FPS.
| Optimized Settings | RTX 4060 Laptop GPU |
|---|---|
| Resolution | 1080p |
| Texture Resolution | Very High |
| Texture Filtering | 8x AF |
| Shadows | Softest |
| Shadow Quality | High |
| Reflection Quality | Very High |
| Reflection AA | 2x MSAA |
| Shader Quality | High |
| Grass Quality | Very High |
| Ambient Occlusion | High |
| Water Quality | High |
| Particle Quality | High |
| PostFX | Very High |
| Anti-Aliasing | FXAA |
| Tesselation | Very High |
| Distance Scaling | 50 |
| Population Density | 50 |
| Population Variety | 100 |
| Extended Shadows | 50 |
| Extended Distance Scaling | 0 |
| Long Shadows | On |
| High Res Shadows | On |
-
-
-
-
