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The First Descendant PC Optimization: Every Graphics Setting Benchmarked

Best graphics settings for The First Descendant: Optimized for High & Low-end PCs

The First Descendant is out on Steam and consoles. It is the next-generation MMO featuring the Unreal Engine 5 and its advanced lighting and geometric upgrades. Of course, there’s ray tracing for the higher-end PCs, but it’s complemented by DLSS/FSR frame generation to offset the performance drop. The game suffers from crashes (CTDs/BSODs) on Intel 13th/14th Gen CPUs, but that’s on the chipmaker. Before we dive in, here are our add-on guides for low-end PCs and budget gaming notebooks:

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.

The First Descendant: PC System Requirements

The First Descendant has relatively modest system requirements. At the minimum, you need a 14-year-old quad-core Ivy Bridge CPU and an 8-year-old NVIDIA Pascal GPU (or AMD Polaris) with 4 GB of graphics memory. This has to be paired with 8 GB of system memory and 50 GB of storage (SSD recommended). These target the bare minimum (1080p 30 FPS at “Low”).

ItemsMinimum RequirementsRecommended Requirements
OSWindows 10 x64 20H2
CPUIntel i5-3570 / AMD FX-8350Intel i7-7700K/AMD Ryzen 5 2600X
System Memory8 GB RAM16 GB
VGANVIDIA GTX 1050 Ti/AMD Radeon RX 570NVIDIA RTX 2060/AMD Radeon RX 5600XT
DirectX 12
Storage50GB (SSD Recommended)

The recommended requirements include a Core i7-7700K or an AMD Ryzen 2600X alongside a GeForce RTX 2060 or a Radeon RX 5600 XT. The main memory requirement scales up to 16 GB. This setup should be good for 1080p 60 FPS, using the “High” quality graphics preset.

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.

The First Descendant: GPU Benchmarks

The GeForce RTX 4060 fails to hit the 45 FPS mark at 1080p using the “Ultra” quality preset, while the RTX 4070 averages 83 FPS. The Radeon RX 7900 series and the RTX 4080 Super average over 100 FPS.

At 1440p, the GeForce RTX 4070 falls short of 60 FPS, while the Radeon RX 7900 XT nets 78 FPS. The GeForce RTX 4080 Super holds a minor lead over the RX 7900 XTX, led by the RTX 4090 at 92.5 FPS.

At 4K, none of the GPUs other than the RTX 4090 come close to 60 FPS. The GeForce RTX 4080 Super halts at 55 FPS while the RX 7900 XTX registers an average of 51 FPS. The RX 7900 XT manages 45 FPS and the RTX 4070 posts 36 FPS.

The Radeon RX 7900 series averages ~40-45 FPS at 1440p with the highest ray tracing preset. The GeForce RTX 4080 Super produces a much more manageable 62 FPS in the same scenario, next to the RTX 4090 (72 FPS). The RTX 4070 is as fast as the Radeons.

For more performance data, including 4K and 4K “RT” performance numbers, you can go through our “The First Descendant” GPU Benchmarks post.

The First Descendant: Resolution Scaling & Graphics Presets

The First Descendant averages approximately 100 FPS on our GeForce RTX 4090 (+Core i9-12900K) setup at 1080p “Ultra,” without ray-tracing. QHD or 1440p is slightly slower with an average of ~95 FPS, while 4K finishes off with 69 FPS, with lows of 59 FPS. A performance deficit of 38% between 1440p and 4K makes sense, but a mere 8% gain upon switching to 1080p indicates a CPU bottleneck.

From 100 FPS at 1440p “Ultra,” we recorded an average framerate of 138 FPS at 1440p “Low,” and 119.4 FPS at the “Medium” quality preset. The “High” quality preset yielded 108 FPS with lows of 96 FPS. That’s a 38% framerate difference between the lowest and highest quality graphics preset, ignoring ray-tracing.

The First Descendant Ray Tracing Performance

The First Descendant features three ray-tracing effects: Ray-traced reflections, ambient occlusion, and shadows. Unfortunately, the game doesn’t allow you to choose between them, and all three are enabled with varying levels of quality depending on your settings.

Ray tracing is unsurprisingly brutal on even the fastest GPUs. The GeForce RTX 4090 drops from 100 FPS to 72 FPS at ultra-quality ray-tracing, averaging ~90 FPS at the medium and high-quality presets. The visual impact of ray tracing is quite significant, with shadows standing out the most. The comparisons below give a better understanding of how they impact image quality.

Click here for an image comparison of ray-traced ambient occlusion versus rasterization.
Click here for an image comparison of ray-traced shadows versus rasterization.
Click here for an image comparison of ray-traced reflections versus rasterization.

Anti-aliasing (TAA) and Visibility Quality (LOD)

The First Descendant uses temporal anti-aliasing to smoothen jagged edges. It can’t be turned off, you can only adjust the sampling quality/rate. TAA is mostly evident during motion, reducing shimmering and jagged teeth along object boundaries. The performance impact of anti-aliasing is minimal.

The “Visibility Quality” controls the LOD, adjusting the distance (from the player) at which objects are culled from view, including vegetation, buildings, and enemy units. The performance impact of visibility will vary from map to map but was nominal in the “Kingston” area.

Click here for LOD quality image comparisons

Post Processing and Effects Quality

Post-processing comprises shader-based effects like motion blur, depth of field, bloom, and lens flare. As expected, it has a subtle impact on visual quality and performance. The difference is mainly felt in the lows.

Click here for post-processing quality image comparisons

Effects quality enables texture weathering on buildings and other concrete structures, in addition to certain reflective and translucent visual effects such as tears/echos. It has a moderate impact on performance.

Click here for “Effects” quality image comparisons

Reflection and Shadow Quality

When ray-tracing is disabled, The First Descendant uses screen-space reflections (SSR) where only those objects visible on the screen are reflected in water bodies and shiny surfaces. It significantly impacts performance, with “Low” being 10% faster than “Ultra” at 1440p.

Click here for reflection quality image comparisons

The standard shadows are rendered using shadow maps whose resolution varies depending on the quality setting used. Like reflections, shadows drastically reduce the performance with ultra quality being 11% slower than low.

Click here for shadow-quality image comparisons

Global Illumination and Shader Quality

Global illumination calculates the diffuse lighting, which can drastically impact visual fidelity indoors. This involves calculating light generated by secondary light sources in the scene, most notably light reflected by transparent or opaque objects in an area. Due to the complexity of indirect light sources, this can be quite performance intensive, reducing the framerates by nearly 14% in The First Descendant. Medium or High are notably faster while providing comparable quality.

Click here for GI image comparisons

Shader quality sets the visual fidelity of ambient shadows, similar to ambient occlusion but more subtly, affecting the colors of different objects when illuminated. It has a low to moderate impact on performance, with the lows seeing more of a drop in comparison.

Click here for shader-quality image comparisons

Vegetation, Object Quality, and Physics

Vegetation quality sets the density of grass and foliage, and the distance (from the player) at which it’s culled in detail. It has a modest impact on performance.

Click here for vegetation-quality image comparisons

Object detail is used to control the geometric detail of objects, both nearby and far away from the player character. This is done by increasing the polygon count and the use of tessellation. Apart from the highest setting (ultra), all the other options perform roughly the same.

Click here for object-quality image comparisons

Physics quality sets the accuracy of object ragdoll and jiggle physics, among other motion-disrupting animations. Its performance impact is only notable in certain scenes with a lot of destruction/debris flying around.

Upscaling & Frame Generation: NVIDIA DLSS 3.5 & AMD FSR 3.1

Upscaling alone isn’t enough to boost framerates past 100 FPS, and frame generation is essential for gamers playing at 4K. Luckily, The First Descendant features NVIDIA DLSS 3.5 and AMD FSR 3.1, both incorporating frame generation.

Upscaling grants an underwhelming 20-25% performance boost, while frame generation straight-up doubles the frame rates, pushing them past 150 FPS. Gamers using NVIDIA RTX GPUs should stick to DLSS upscaling and ray reconstruction as FSR can produce blurry results.

Click here for upscaling and frame-generation image comparisons

The First Descendant: CPU Bottlenecks

The First Descendant is mostly GPU-bound at 1440p and 4K, with and without ray-tracing. FHD or 1080p is slightly CPU-bound with a GPU-busy deviation of 22% using the “Ultra” quality graphics settings.

1080p Ultra (RT Off)

The Medium/Low graphics quality presets are also CPU-bound with a GPU-busy deviation of 25% and 40%, respectively.

1440p Ultra (RT Off)

The First Descendant: GPU VRAM Usage

The Last Descendant takes up to 10 GB of VRAM at 1440p Ultra, including ray-tracing, set to ultra. The lowest-quality preset uses just over 7 GB of graphics memory at 1440p, increasing to 8.4 GB at the highest, and 10 GB with ray-tracing “Ultra.”

Ultra HD or 4K uses 10.1 GB at the ultra-quality preset, while 1080p sits over 8 GB. This excludes ray tracing.

Best Settings for The First Descendant @ 60 FPS

Optimized SettingsHigh-end PCMid-Range PCLow-end PC
Resolution4K (3840 × 2160)1440p (2560 x 1440)1080p (1920 x 1080)
Target FPS60 FPS60 FPS60 FPS
Texture QualityUltraUltraUltra
Anti-aliasingUltraUltraUltra
Visibility (LOD)UltraUltraUltra
Shadow QualityUltraUltraUltra
Reflection QualityUltraUltraUltra
Global IlluminationUltraUltraUltra
Shader QualityUltraUltraUltra
Object QualityUltraUltraUltra
Vegetation QualityUltraUltraUltra
Effects QualityUltraUltraUltra
Ray Tracing QualityUltraUltraHigh
UpscalingDLSS/FSR QualityDLSS/FSR BalancedDLSS/FSR Quality
Frame GenerationOnOnOn

Best Settings for The First Descendant @ 120 FPS

Optimized SettingsHigh-end PCMid-Range PCLow-end PC
Resolution4K (3840 × 2160)1440p (2560 x 1440)1080p (1920 x 1080)
Target FPS120 FPS120 FPS120 FPS
Texture QualityUltraUltraUltra
Anti-aliasingUltraUltraUltra
Visibility (LOD)UltraUltraUltra
Shadow QualityUltraUltraUltra
Reflection QualityUltraUltraUltra
Global IlluminationUltraUltraUltra
Shader QualityUltraUltraUltra
Object QualityUltraUltraUltra
Vegetation QualityUltraUltraUltra
Effects QualityUltraUltraUltra
Ray Tracing QualityHighHighMedium
UpscalingDLSS/FSR BalancedDLSS/FSR BalancedDLSS/FSR Quality
Frame GenerationOnOnOn
High-end (4K)Mid-range (1440p)Low-end (1080p)
CPUCore i7-13700K/Ryzen 7 7700XCore i5-13600/Ryzen 5 7600Less 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 The First Descendant @ 120 FPS

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Best Settings for The First Descendant: Low-end PC

Here’s our mini-guide for low-end PCs.

Optimized SettingsNVIDIA RTX 3060NVIDIA RTX 3060 TiNVIDIA RTX 4060AMD RX 6600
Resolution1080p1080p1080p/1440p1080p
Target FPS60 FPS/90 FPS60 FPS/90 FPS120 FPS120 FPS
Texture QualityUltraUltraUltraUltra
Anti-aliasingUltraUltraUltraUltra
Visibility (LOD)UltraUltraUltraUltra
Shadow QualityUltraUltraUltraHigh
Reflection QualityUltraUltraUltraMedium
Global IlluminationUltraUltraUltraHigh
Shader QualityUltraUltraUltraUltra
Object QualityUltraUltraUltraUltra
Vegetation QualityUltraUltraUltraUltra
Effects QualityUltraUltraUltraUltra
Ray Tracing QualityHigh/OffHigh/OffHigh/MediumOff
UpscalingDLSS BalancedDLSS QualityDLSS High/BalancedFSR 3 Quality
Frame GenerationOffOffOnOn

The First Descendant: Best Settings for NVIDIA RTX 3060/RTX 4060 Laptop GPU

More details here.

Optimized SettingsNVIDIA RTX 3060 Laptop GPUNVIDIA RTX 4060 Laptop GPU
Resolution1080p1080p/1440p
Target FPS60 FPS60 FPS
Texture QualityUltraUltra
Anti-aliasingUltraUltra
Visibility (LOD)UltraUltra
Shadow QualityHighUltra/High
Reflection QualityMediumUltra/High
Global IlluminationHighUltra/High
Shader QualityUltraUltra
Object QualityUltraUltra
Vegetation QualityUltraUltra
Effects QualityUltraUltra
Ray Tracing QualityOffHigh/Off
UpscalingDLSS BalancedDLSS High/Balanced
Frame GenerationOffOn

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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