Best Roadcraft Settings PC & Optimization Guide

Roadcraft is among the more interesting indie game launches of May. You play as the leader of a construction company that restores destroyed buildings, compounds, and other public sites. The game performs smoothly on most midrange systems, but if you’re facing stutters or FPS drops, here’s our optimization guide for Roadcraft (Steam).

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.

Roadcraft System Requirements

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Roadcraft PC Optimized TLDR

Roadcraft performs well enough on most PCs. To improve the game’s performance, adjust the following settings:

• Enable upscaling and frame generation.
• Mirrors: Disable if you’re facing FPS drops in first-person mode.
• Volumetric Fog: Reduce it to the lowest for a 6-7% gain.
• Screen Space Reflections: Switch to “Default” for a 4-5% improvement.

Resolution & Graphics Scaling

Roadcraft scales admirably with resolution, averaging 59 FPS at 4K, 93 FPS at 1440p, and 105.5 FPS at 1080p using the ultra-quality settings and DLAA. A near 60% increase from 4K to 1440p indicates a predominantly GPU-bound pipeline.

Test Setup

• CPU: Intel Core i9-12900K @ 5.3 GHz.
• Cooler: Arctic Liquid Freezer III 420.
• GPU: NVIDIA RTX 4090 FE.
• Motherboard: MSI PRO Z790-P WIFI.
• Memory: 16 GB x2 @ 6000 MT/s CL30.

Roadcraft shows relatively slim gains upon tweaking the graphics settings. At 4K UHD with DLAA, we recorded:

• 59 FPS at Ultra (+0%)
• 67 FPS at High (+13.5%).
• 69 FPS at Medium (+17%).
• 79 FPS at Low (+34%).

Texture Filtering & Shadow Quality

Texture Filtering is an absolute must in a game like Roadcraft. Without it, the roads lose much texture detail, appearing flat and one-dimensional. Weirdly, the developers haven’t included 16x Anisotropic Filtering (it’s needed!):

• We recommend maxing it out to 8x.
• It costs a mere 1.5% performance.

Shadow Quality barely impacts performance or visual fidelity. Lower quality options reduce the shadow map resolution, making them blurry and poorly defined.

Screen Space Ambient Occlusion & Reflections

Screen space ambient occlusion adds self-contained shadows along edges, crevices, and object boundaries. The default option provides basic coverage, while the high option improves the accuracy and intensity of the effect.

• SSAO can be reduced to “default” for a 4-5% FPS gain.
• Minimal quality drop going a step below high.

Screen Space Reflections render low-resolution reflections of onscreen objects on glossy surfaces like puddles, mirrors, and steel. High increases the reflection resolution over the default.

• Disabling reflections grants a 6% boost.
• We recommend opting for high as the quality loss isn’t worth the gain.

Mirrors (Reflections)

The Mirrors setting enables real-time reflections for the in-vehicle mirrors in first-person view. It doesn’t do anything in third-person.

• Disabling it boosts frame rates by 8-9%.
• When disabled, the mirrors show a static cubemapped reflection.

During rains, the performance impact of mirror reflections increases to 12%, so it’s the most taxing setting in this game.

Effects & Details

Effects adjust the particle quality and decals, including wetness, dirt, and other weather effects. Hardly impacts the performance.

Details set the LOD of most geometry, including foliage, terrain, rocks, rubble, buildings, etc. Reducing it to the lowest grants an 8% FPS boost at the cost of increased pop-ins.

• We recommend opting for high or ultra quality.
• High is 5%, while Ultra is 8% slower than Low.
• Medium is 3% slower than Low.

Volumetric Fog & Clouds

Volumetric Fog is among the more taxing settings in Roadcraft, and can be safely lowered without impacting the visual quality. Lowering it reduces the density and accuracy of environmental fog:

• Low is up to 6% faster than the other options.
• Anything above low performs the same
• Drop to low if you’re facing performance issues.

Volumetric Clouds adjust the cloud detail, producing more complex shapes at higher quality options. It doesn’t impact performance.

Upscaling & Frame Generation

Roadcraft includes DLSS 4, FSR 3, and TAA-based upscaling. Unsurprisingly, NVIDIA’s solution produces the best visual quality. The quality mode is 40% faster than native, with balanced increasing it to 51%, and performance to 59%.

Frame Generation is highly effective in Roadcraft, boosting frame rates by 70% at native resolution and over 60% with upscaling.

VRAM Usage & CPU Bottlenecks

Roadcraft uses up to 12 GB of graphics memory at 4K using the ultra quality settings. Unfortunately, lowering the quality doesn’t decrease the VRAM usage much, with the lowest using close to 11 GB.

4K UHD uses up to 2 GB more than 1080p, and 1.7 GB more than 1440p using the ultra quality settings.

Roadcraft is predominantly GPU-bound with a 0% busy deviation through our testing.

Roadcraft PC Optimized Settings

Graphics Settings	High-end	Midrange	Low-end PC
Resolution	4K (3840×2160)	1440p (2560×1440)	1080p (1920×1080)
FPS Target	90 FPS|144 FPS	75 FPS|130 FPS	60 FPS|100 FPS+
Texture Resolution	High	High	High|Medium
Texture Filtering	8x	8x	8x
Shadows	High	High	High
Screen Space AO	High	High	High
Reflections	High	High	High
Mirrors	On	On	On
Effects	High	High	High
Details	Ultra	Ultra	Ultra
Volumetric Fog	Ultra	Ultra	Ultra
Volumetric Clouds	High	High	High
Upscaling	DLSS Quality	DLSS Quality	DLSS Balanced
Frame Generation	Off|On	Off|On	Off|On

	High-end (4K)	Mid-range (1440p)	Low-end (1080p)
CPU	Core i7-13700K|Ryzen 7 7700X	Core i5-12600K|Ryzen 5 7600	Core i5-12400 AMD Ryzen 5 3600
GPU	GeForce RTX 4090	GeForce RTX 4070 Super	RTX 3060|RTX 4060
Memory	32GB (dual-channel)	16GB (dual-channel)	16GB