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.
Once Human: Recommended PC Specs
- 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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
Best Graphics Settings for Once Human PC
Optimized Settings | High-end PC | Mid-Range PC | Low-end PC |
---|---|---|---|
Resolution | 4K (3840 × 2160) | 1440p (2560 x 1440) | 1080p (1920 x 1080) |
Target FPS | 120 FPS+ | 120 FPS | 90 FPS |
Graphics API | DirectX 12 | DirectX 12 | DirectX 12 |
Image Enhancement | DLSS/FSR Quality | DLSS/FSR Quality | DLSS/FSR Quality |
Frame Generation | RTX 40 GPUs Only | RTX 40 GPUs Only | RTX 40 GPUs Only |
Texture Quality | High | High | High |
Anti-aliasing | High | High | High |
Shade Quality | High | High | High |
Render Scale | 100 | 100 | 100 |
VFX Quality | Very High | Very High | Very High |
Motion Blur | Off | Off | Off |
Vegetation Quality | High | High | High |
Draw Distance | High | High | High |
Detail Quality | High | High | High |
High-end (4K) | Mid-range (1440p) | Low-end (1080p) | |
---|---|---|---|
CPU | Core i7-13700K/Ryzen 7 7700X | Core i5-12600K/Ryzen 5 5600 | Less than: Core i5-12400/Ryzen 5 3600 |
GPU | RTX 4070 Ti Super/RX 7900 XT | RTX 4070/RX 7800 XT | RTX 3060/RTX 3060 Ti/RX 6600 |
Memory | 32GB (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 Settings | RTX 3060 | RTX 3060 Ti | RTX 4060 Laptop GPU |
---|---|---|---|
Resolution | 1080p/1440p | 1080p/1440p | 1080p/1440p |
Target FPS | 100 FPS/60 FPS | 120 FPS/75 FPS | 120 FPS/75 FPS |
Graphics API | DirectX 12 | DirectX 12 | DirectX 12 |
Image Enhancement | DLSS “Quality” | DLSS “Quality” | “DLSS Quality” |
Frame Generation | Off | Off | On |
Texture Quality | High | High | High |
Anti-aliasing | High | High | High |
Shade Quality | High | High | High |
Render Scale | 100 | 100 | 100 |
VFX Quality | Very High | Very High | Very High |
Motion Blur | Off | Off | Off |
Vegetation Quality | High | High | High |
Draw Distance | High | High | High |
Detail Quality | High | High | High |