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Once Human Optimization: Every Graphics Setting Benchmarked

The best settings for Once Human, optimized for your PC

Once Human is out on Steam as a free-to-play open-world survival game with sci-fi elements and plenty of PUBG vibes. Although the game can be enjoyed as a completely free-to-play title, it features paid cosmetics and other premium features available only to paid customers. Here’s a look at the performance of “Once Human” on modern hardware, including which graphics settings affect the performance the most.

Windows & System Optimizations

  • 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).
  • For detailed instructions, here’s a guide.

Once Human: Minimum PC Specs

  • OS: Windows 10 64-bit.
  • Processor: Intel Core i5-4460.
  • Memory: 8 GB RAM.
  • Graphics: NVIDIA GTX 750 Ti 4GB/AMD Radeon RX 550.
  • DirectX: Version 11.
  • Network: Broadband connection.
  • Storage: 55 GB HDD space.
  • OS: Windows 10 64-bit.
  • Processor: Intel Core i7-7700.
  • Memory: 16 GB RAM.
  • Graphics: NVIDIA GTX 1060 6GB/AMD Radeon RX 580 2304SP.
  • DirectX: Version 11.
  • Network: Broadband connection.
  • Storage: 55 GB SSD available space.

Once Human: Specs for 60 FPS

  • OS: Windows 10 64-bit.
  • Processor: Intel Core i5-12400F.
  • Memory: 16GB RAM.
  • Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060/AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT.
  • DirectX: Version 11.
  • Network: Broadband connection.
  • Storage: 55 GB SSD space.

Test Bench

  • CPU: Intel Core i9-12900K.
  • 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.

Once Human Resolution Scaling

Once Human runs well on modern hardware, averaging over 100 FPS on our system at 4K and ~220 FPS at 1440p. This 80% performance delta between the two resolutions suggests healthy scaling with a completely GPU-bound workload. FHD or 1080p is marginally faster with 227 FPS on average, indicating a CPU bottleneck.

Once Human Resolution Scaling
Using the Very High-Quality graphics settings

Update: FSR 2 & DLSS 3 Frame Generation

Once Human now supports AMD FSR 2 upscaling (DX11+DX12) and DLSS 3 upscaling + frame generation using the (still experimental) DirectX12 port. The latter pushes framerates as high as 200 FPS at 4K though it’s only available to RTX 40 series users. The addition of these technologies greatly reduces the PC system requirements of the game:

AMD FSR + DLSS upscaling
DLSS Frame Generation

Vegetation Quality

Vegetation quality sets the density and the view distance of grass and other foliage in the game world. It’s the only graphics setting that requires you to restart the game once changed. Regardless, it subtly impacts performance, reducing framerates by 5-10% on average.

Once Human Vegetation Quality

Draw Distance

Draw distance sets the distance at which different objects disappear from view. This only affects the line of sight of your character, keeping other player’s view distance unchanged. Draw distance doesn’t substantially affect performance, reducing framerates within the margin of error.

Once Human Draw Distance

Detail Quality and Motion Blur

Detail quality adjusts the polygon complexity of different objects in the scene, thereby adjusting their 3D detail. Once Human offers only two presets for setting the detail quality: Low and high. Reducing the detail quality from high to low grants a 3-4% improvement in frame rates. Interestingly, motion blur has a similar impact on performance. As such, we recommended turning it off.

Once Human Detail Quality Motion Blur

Texture and Shade Quality

Texture quality sets the resolution of in-game textures. Ergo, it impacts the VRAM usage without drastically affecting the framerates (unless you’re running low on graphics memory).

Once Human Texture

Shade quality sets the detail of shadows. Like textures, it doesn’t impact performance by a notable degree.

VFX Quality

VFX or visual effects quality sets the definition of special effects including bloom, lens flare, explosions, fire, etc. The performance impact of this setting varies from scene to scene, and situation to situation. On average, we observed a 2-3% reduction in performance with VFX set to “Very High” versus “Very Low.”

Once Human VFX Quality

Anti-aliasing Quality

Anti-aliasing smoothens the jagged edges of complex geometry and thin objects such as grass, branches, and wire fences. Once Human employs temporal anti-aliasing which can reduce performance by up to 10%. However, completely turning off AA can drastically increase visual artifacts like shimmering, especially at 1080p and 1440p.

Once Human Anti-aliasing Quality

Render Scale and Max Frame Rate

Render scale allows you to enable spatial upscaling by setting an internal resolution that is scaled up to fit your screen using a simple filter. We only recommend using this if you’re getting unplayable framerates and have already tried tweaking the other settings. Even then, a value of less than 70% isn’t advised. For most players, setting a max frame rate will get rid of frame tearing. However, if you’re short on performance, it’s best to leave it “unrestricted.”

Once Human: CPU Bottlenecks

As explained earlier, Once Human is completely GPU bottlenecked at 1440p and 4K with a GPU busy deviation of 6% or less. Nevertheless, the few FPS spikes were caused by mild CPU deficiencies.

Once Human: CPU Bottlenecks
1440p Very High

At 1080p, the game becomes CPU bottlenecked with a CPU busy deviation of 29% and higher. If you’re too CPU-bound, consider reducing the draw distance and vegetation quality.

1080p Very High

Once Human: VRAM Usage

Once Human uses a modest 7 to 8 GB of graphics memory at 4K which gets trimmed down to 6.3 GB and 6 GB at 1440p and 1080p, respectively. This was observed using the “Very High” graphics quality preset, and reducing the texture quality didn’t have a notable impact on VRAM usage.

Once Human: VRAM Usage

Best Graphics Settings for Once Human PC

Optimized SettingsHigh-end PCMid-Range PCLow-end PC
Resolution4K (3840 × 2160)1440p (2560 x 1440)1080p (1920 x 1080)
Target FPS120 FPS+120 FPS90 FPS
Graphics APIDirectX 12DirectX 12DirectX 12
Image EnhancementDLSS/FSR QualityDLSS/FSR QualityDLSS/FSR Quality
Frame GenerationRTX 40 GPUs OnlyRTX 40 GPUs OnlyRTX 40 GPUs Only
Texture QualityHighHighHigh
Anti-aliasingHighHighHigh
Shade QualityHighHighHigh
Render Scale100100100
VFX QualityVery HighVery HighVery High
Motion BlurOffOffOff
Vegetation QualityHighHighHigh
Draw DistanceHighHighHigh
Detail QualityHighHighHigh
High-end (4K)Mid-range (1440p)Low-end (1080p)
CPUCore i7-13700K/Ryzen 7 7700XCore i5-12600K/Ryzen 5 5600Less than: Core i5-12400/Ryzen 5 3600
GPURTX 4070 Ti Super/RX 7900 XTRTX 4070/RX 7800 XTRTX 3060/RTX 3060 Ti/RX 6600
Memory32GB (dual-channel)16GB (dual-channel)Less than: 16GB (dual-channel)

Best Settings for Once Human: Low-end PC

Click here for a detailed look at our low-end PC builds and testing strategy.

Optimized SettingsRTX 3060RTX 3060 TiRTX 4060 Laptop GPU
Resolution1080p/1440p1080p/1440p1080p/1440p
Target FPS100 FPS/60 FPS120 FPS/75 FPS120 FPS/75 FPS
Graphics APIDirectX 12DirectX 12DirectX 12
Image EnhancementDLSS “Quality”DLSS “Quality”“DLSS Quality”
Frame GenerationOffOffOn
Texture QualityHighHighHigh
Anti-aliasingHighHighHigh
Shade QualityHighHighHigh
Render Scale100100100
VFX QualityVery HighVery HighVery High
Motion BlurOffOffOff
Vegetation QualityHighHighHigh
Draw DistanceHighHighHigh
Detail QualityHighHighHigh

Areej Syed

Processors, PC gaming, and the past. I have been writing about computer hardware for over seven years with more than 5000 published articles. Started off during engineering college and haven't stopped since. Find me at HardwareTimes and PC Opset.
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