Star Wars Outlaws Optimization: Every Graphics Setting Benchmarked

Star Wars: Outlaws is out on PC via Ubisoft Connect and Epic Games Store. Built on Ubisoft’s Snowdrop Engine, the game features sprawling worlds with cutting-edge visuals. In addition to ray-traced shadows and reflections, it also includes NVIDIA RTXGI, a sophisticated global illumination technology. Of course, these settings come at a cost. That is what we’ll analyze in this post and try to come up with optimized settings for different PC configurations, high and low-end.

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.
• Ensure you use the proper XMP/EXPO memory profile (if available).
• Overclock your GPU if you’re narrowly missing the 60 FPS mark.
• Here’s a guide with more detailed instructions.

Star Wars Outlaws: PC System Requirements

Star Wars: Outlaws requires a high-end PC for cranking all the graphics settings to “Ultra.” The GeForce GTX 1660 is the bare minimum for 1080p 30 FPS “Low” alongside a Core i7-8700K or a Ryzen 5 3600. Attaining 60 FPS at 1080p “High” demands an RTX 3060 Ti and a Core i5-10400 or Ryzen 5 5600X.

QHD or 1440p 60 FPS at “High” settings requires a GeForce RTX 4070 and a Core i5-11600K or Ryzen 7 5800X. Finally, 4K 60 FPS at “Ultra” demands an RTX 4080 or an RX 7900 XTX alongside a Core i7-12700K or Ryzen 7 5800X3D.

These PC specifications are applicable with upscaling set to “Quality” mode. The main memory and storage requirements are uniform across all four configurations at 16 GB (dual-channel) and 65 GB (SSD), respectively.

Overview + Testing Methodology

• We tested Star Wars: Outlaws on the planet of Toshara while exploring the Underworld on foot and the wilderness on a speeder.
• The “Ultra” quality graphics preset with DLSS “Quality” Frame Generation was taken as the reference point at 4K.
• The following benchmark order was used for testing the graphics settings:
  1. First, we’ll test the resolution scaling and graphics preset performance.
  2. Followed by upscaling and frame generation benchmarks.
  3. Lastly, ray-tracing and the remaining settings will be tested, one at a time.
• The following hardware setup was used:
  • CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7950X.
  • Cooler: Lian Li Galahad 360 AIO.
  • GPU: NVIDIA RTX 4090 FE.
  • Motherboard: MSI MPG X670E Carbon WiFi.
  • Memory: 16 GB x2 @ 6000 MT/s CL30.

Star Wars Outlaws: Resolution Scaling & Graphics Presets

Star Wars: Outlaws scales well with resolution, averaging 71 FPS, 52 FPS, and 30 FPS at 1080p, 1440p, and 4K, respectively. The use of ray-tracing which is pixel-based heavily increases the GPU load at higher resolutions. Either way, you won’t have a satisfying experience running this game without upscaling and/or frame generation.

Star Wars: Outlaws looks gorgeous even at the lowest graphics preset. The performance difference between the lower three presets is smaller than expected, with “Ultra” being 23% slower than “High.” These presets control ray-traced shadows and reflections, while RTXGI (global illumination) has a separate section.

Star Wars Outlaws: Upscaling & Frame Generation

Star Wars: Outlaws features four upscaling technologies, including AMD FSR 3, NVIDIA DLSS 3.5, Intel XeSS, and Ubisoft’s in-house temporal upsampler. The latter is the fastest, but looks the worst, while DLSS outputs the best image quality. The higher-quality presets perform roughly the same.

Modern upscalers are based on temporal anti-aliasing which leverages image data from previous frames instead of generating it at full resolution. Objects are tracked across frames using motion vectors, accumulating samples and increasing detail using previously rendered frame data.

Reprojecting and accumulating frames tends to be an approximation and invalid pixel data from previous frames is often carried over. This leads to loss of complex geometry (grass, twigs, hair, etc), often causing ghosting (translucent edges) and aliasing.

Ray Reconstruction gives DLSS an edge in ray tracing, producing higher-quality reflections at the same performance. Unlike FSR and XeSS which use manually-tuned denoisers, it employs a neurally trained denoiser that filters temporal and spatial frame data, accumulating high-quality pixels and discarding the rest. This improves lighting detail and reduces ghosting in fast-paced sequences.

DLSS and FSR feature frame generation in addition to upscaling. The latter works across all hardware, including iGPUs, and delivers superior performance. However, it has trouble processing complex geometry like grass, branches, and wire fences. The visual deficit is trivial, except with specular reflections where it can lead to a lot of noise.

Although FSR “Ultra Performance” delivers (by far) the highest framerates, there’s a substantial drop in object detail and shading. Ergo, we recommend sticking to “Performance” or higher upscaling/frame generation presets.

Frame generation is based on interpolation where an additional frame is inserted between every two consecutive ones. Motion vectors and optical flow are used to track objects from frame to frame, creating interpolated frames by blending and reprojecting neighoring frame data. Unfortunately, this technique has its flaws, at times resuting in ghosting in high frequency scenes.

NVIDIA RTXGI: Dynamic Diffuse Global Illumination

NVIDIA’s RTXGI is a ray-traced global illumination technology that uses temporal accumulation and distance fields to produce infinite-bounce, diffuse lighting or global illumination (GI). It comes with a massive 35-40% drop in framerates but can produce highly accurate lighting in interiors and densely forested areas.

“Ultra” produces the best lighting quality but can reduce framerates by a quarter or more. “Medium” offers the best performance-quality balance while being as fast as “Low.” RTXGI affects lighting indoors and outdoors, but the performance hit tends to be higher indoors due to the complex ray-tracing paths. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work on AMD Radeon GPUs, often producing overly dark interiors.

RTXGI or Dynamic Diffuse Global Illumination (DDGI) consists of:

• Placing probes: First, numerous probes are placed in the game world.
• Ray trace and shade: These are used to trace and shade rays cast from active probes (light sources) into the scene.
• Update probes: The data gathered by the rays is stored as irradiance and distance to geometry which is then used to compute diffuse lighting.

DDGI can be extended to infinite-bounce global illumination by combining probe data temporally across frames. Unlike most ray-traced settings, RTXGI/DDGI is independant of screen resolution (and by extension, upscaling) and. The quality of lighting depends on the probe density and radiance.

Ray Traced Shadows & Reflections

Star Wars: Outlaws features ray-traced reflections and shadows that can’t be disabled. The reflections can adjusted by resolution (ray count) and range (LOD), while contact shadows have a singular setting that controls both.

Diffuse reflections refer to the reflections cast on rough surfaces that don’t produce a mirror image. They have a subtle impact on image quality and performance. Switching to the “Ultra” resolution can only be enabled when ray reconstruction is disabled and has a hefty impact on framerates. Stick to “High.”

Specular reflections are shiny, often producing mirror-like images, greatly adding to the visual design. Fortunately, all but the highest settings have a nominal impact on performance. Like diffuse lighting, the highest resolution quality can not be paired with ray reconstruction. It’s best left at “High” which looks about as good as “Ultra” with ray reconstruction.

Contact shadows set the quality of soft shadows cast by the sun. Like diffuse reflections, they subtly affect performance and quality. Unlike reflections, the resolution and range of shadows are controlled using the same setting.

BVH quality adjusts the detail of geometry used for ray tracing. Higher quality means more polygons and intersection tests. Surprisingly, it doesn’t noticeably affect image quality or performance.

Rasterized Shadows & Reflections

Rasterized shadows are highly performant, with spot shadow count and resolution substantially improving the ambiance of settlements and indoor scenes. The lower three options perform similarly, while the highest is a few frames slower.

Shadow proxies can be enabled to replace the shadow-casting geometry with lower-quality structures. This improves performance at the cost of fewer long-distance shadows.

Environmental reflections set the quality of pre-baked reflections on shiny, static objects. Like most cube-mapped reflections, they don’t add much to the scene.

Object Detail & LOD

Object detail sets the distance at which different objects lose detail and are completely culled from view. This includes shadows and reflections cast by distant objects. Despite its large FPS hit, object detail doesn’t notably impact visual quality. It increases the CPU usage.

Extra streaming distance mainly tanks your VRAM and storage bandwidth. Unless you’re on a speeder at full speed, it won’t affect pop-ins or performance.

Deformable terrain quality sets the detail of loose matter like sand and snow. It doesn’t affect the performance unless you’re in a desert or snowy region.

Texture Quality & Resolution

Destruction quality can be used to adjust the density and detail of destruction particles produced by blaster fire and explosions. The lowest quality option is notably faster than the rest.

Terrain tesselation quality improves rock/pebble detail by subdividing the polygons, producing higher quality without the need for extra storage or VRAM. It subtly affects performance.

Spotlight projection resolution sets the quality of spotlight textures cast by spotlights. Its impact on visual quality and performance is imperceptible.

Fog, Clouds & Volumetrics

Volumetric fog and clouds control the quality of the volumetric effects of fog and clouds. These include godrays, distance visibility, and cloud density. Their contribution is most apparent in forested and frosty areas, in addition to hyperspace. In most cases, the performance drain is nominal.

Particles & Scatter Density

Particle quality sets the detail of particulate objects, including dust, smoke, and pollution. It moderately impacts performance, and in most cases, you won’t be able to tell the four options apart.

Scatter density adjusts the density of objects in the world. This includes grass, bushes, and other clutter. It has a nominal impact on framerates. Microdetail object scatter does the same thing for minute entities dispersed across the world.

Star Wars Outlaws: VRAM Usage

Star Wars: Outlaws uses a ton of VRAM regardless of your settings and resolution. FHD or 1080p uses close to 18 GB at “Ultra,” 1440p uses 18.4 GB, and 4K tops out at 20 GB.

Upscaling slightly reduces the VRAM consumption, but FSR 3 uses about as much as native with frame generation. Interestingly, DLSS doesn’t exhibit the same behavior, using the same amount of graphics memory with and without frame generation.

The lowest quality graphics preset consumes 17 GB at 4K, climbing to 18 GB at the highest. Enabling RTXGI increases VRAM usage by another 2-3 GB to nearly 21 GB.

Star Wars Outlaws: CPU Bottlenecks

Star Wars: Outlaws is mildly CPU-bound, exhibiting a GPU-Busy deviation of 13% at 1080p “Ultra.” This figure dwindles to low single-digits at 1440p and 4K, but DLSS pushes it right back up.

DLSS produces a GPU-Busy deviation of 12-17% at 4K “Ultra” even with frame generation enabled. This phenomenon intensifies when DLAA is paired with frame generation, increasing to 29%.

FSR 3 doesn’t exhibit this behavior, peaking at a 10% GPU-Busy deviation, and remaining under 5% with frame generation enabled. Interestingly, RTXGI doesn’t increase the CPU usage.

Best Graphics Settings for Star Wars Outlaws: High & Low-end PCs

Star Wars Outlaws: Ray Tracing Setting

Click here for 4K uncompressed image comparisons (Google Drive link).

Best Settings for Star Wars Outlaws: Low-end PC

Click here for more details on our low-end PC setups and testing methodology.