Helldivers 2 Best Settings for Low-End PC: RTX 3060/RX 6600/RTX 4060 Laptop GPU

Helldivers 2 is among the most-played games on Steam. We have spent hours in-game, playing, testing, and tweaking different graphics settings for optimal performance. Our optimization guide for Helldivers 2 went live last month, exploring the performance impact of every graphics setting and resolution. This post analyzes the game’s performance on budget and entry-level PCs, costing between $600-700. Windows-level optimizations such as Resize BAR, XMP, HAGs, etc, can be found in the above guide.

Test Beds

Helldivers 2: 1080p Performance Benchmarks

We tested Helldivers 2 at 1080p on our two budget builds, aiming for a solid 60 FPS. A mix of medium/low settings got us over 60 FPS on average, with upscaling required for the Radeon RX 6600. Particles, reflections, and volumetrics should be toned down for satisfactory performance.

For the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti and 4060, the below graphics settings grant over 60 FPS at native 1080p with lows of 49 FPS. The Radeon RX 6600 averages 36.5 FPS at native 1080p “Ultra.” Reducing the visual fidelity and enabling upscaling with Ultra Quality nets an average of ~70 FPS. Resolution scaling can be disabled but might lead to FPS drops in intensive scenes.

Helldivers 2: Optimized Settings for Low-End PC

Helldivers 2: NVIDIA RTX 4060 Laptop GPU Benchmarks

We tested the game on the GeForce RTX 4060, one of the most popular laptop GPUs among Steam gamers. We used the Alienware x14 powered by the Core i7-13620H, the RTX 4060 mobile, and 32GB (8GB x4) of DDR5-4800 MT/s memory.

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.

Helldivers 2 averaged 48 FPS at 1080p on one of those fiery/foggy planets using the Ultra quality graphics preset. Increasing the resolution to 1440p reduced the frame rates to 39.6 FPS, with lows of 30.6 FPS. Let’s unpack. While 1080p is still playable with close to 50 FPS on average, 1440p isn’t quite there yet. Before we move to tweak the settings, let’s see if Helldivers 2 is GPU or CPU-bound:

As you can see, the game is completely GPU-bound at 1080p where most titles show some degree of CPU limitation. Using our previous optimization guide, we know the most taxing graphics options that tank performance: Shadows, Particle Effects, Volumetric Fog, and Volumetric Clouds. Anti-aliasing is also quite punishing, but there’s too much shimmering everywhere without it.

Reducing the “Shadow Quality” and “Particle Quality” to LOW increased the average framerate to 55.6 FPS, up from 48 FPS at Ultra. The lows are also quite tolerable, staying over 45 FPS through the run. We found this to be a satisfying experience, but if you want more frames, continue reading:

Next, we increased the screen resolution to 1440p and reduced “Volumetric Clouds” and “Reflections” to MEDIUM. The “Volumetric Fog” quality was set to LOW. Keep in mind that Shadows and Particles are also set to Low. This improved the performance to 56 FPS on average, up from just 39.6 FPS at Ultra. However, the lows are still lower than we’d like at 40 FPS.

Lastly, we disabled “Screen Space Global Illumination” which doesn’t impact the outdoors as much, especially during daytime. This boosted our 1440p average to 62 FPS, with lows of 55 FPS. You can disable the same setting at 1080p to get more than 55 FPS on average.

Helldivers 2: Best Settings for RTX 3060/4060 Laptop GPU