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Throne and Liberty Optimized Settings: Best Settings for PC

The best graphics settings for playing "Throne and Liberty" on PC!

Throne and Liberty is shaping up to be the next “Elder Scrolls Online” with a concurrent player count of over 300K on Steam. The vast open-world, cutting-edge visuals, and speedy servers have contributed to the apparent success of this F2P MMORPG. Leveraging the Unreal Engine 4, T&L scales from the lowest-end PC to enthusiast-grade rigs with ease. Here’s our breakdown of the graphics settings with benchmarks for each option.

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.
  • Disable Memory Integrity. Windows Menu->VBS->Device Security.
  • 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.

Throne and Liberty: PC System Requirements

  • OS: Windows 10/11 64-bit.
  • Processor: Intel Core i5-11600K.
  • Memory: 16 GB RAM.
  • Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX1660.
  • DirectX 12.
  • Network: Broadband Internet connection.
  • Storage: 63 GB available space.

Minimum Specs

  • OS: Windows 10/11 64-bit.
  • Processor: Intel Core i7-7700.
  • Memory: 16 GB RAM.
  • Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960.
  • Network: Broadband Internet connection.
  • Storage: 63 GB storage space.

Contents & Testing Methodology

  • The “Epic” graphics preset was chosen as the reference point at 4K “native.”
  • We tested the game in and around the Kastleton area.
  • Benchmarks at a glance:
    1. Resolution and presets.
    2. Anti-aliasing and ambient occlusion.
    3. Reflection quality and view distance.
    4. Character quality, count, and post-processing.
    5. Shading and shadow quality.
    6. Texture quality and filtering.
    7. Effects and vegetation quality.
    8. Level of detail and lighting quality.
    9. Volumetric fog and clouds.
    10. DX12, shader preload, and combat optimization.
    11. Upscaling and frame generation.
    12. VRAM usage.
    13. CPU bottlenecks.
    14. Optimized settings for Throne and Liberty PC.
  • Hardware setup used:
    • CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7950X.
    • Cooler: Lian Li Galahad 360 AIO.
    • GPU: NVIDIA RTX 4090 FE.
    • Motherboard: MSI MPG B650 Edge WiFi.
    • Memory: 16 GB x2 @ 6000 MT/s CL30.

Throne and Liberty: Resolution & Graphics Presets

Throne and Liberty is incredibly scalable. You go from 74 FPS at 4K “Epic” to 200 FPS at the lowest quality preset. High yields 98 FPS, and medium produces 118 FPS. Resolution scaling is less impressive as much of the details are retained.

Using the “Epic” quality preset, our framerates rose from 74 FPS at 4K to 114 FPS at 1440p and 142 FPS at 1080p. This implies a heavily GPU-bound workload despite the game’s MMORPG elements.

Basic: Anti-Aliasing & Ambient Occlusion

Most players won’t be using the in-game anti-aliasing; instead, they will rely on the upscaling technologies. The anti-aliasing option implements some form of temporal filter as is the norm with most Unreal Engine games. The impact on performance and quality is negligible.

Ambient occlusion is more important, adding depth and dimension to the game world. Apart from the lowest option (which looks bland), the performance impact is nominal going below “Epic.”

Screen Space Reflections & View Distance

Screen space reflections have a drastic impact on performance; quality less so. Going from the lowest option to the highest can reduce the 1% lows by a whopping 70%. The averages are less impacted (by 18%). Most users will obtain the best performance-quality compromise at the “High” setting.

View distance controls the distance at which objects are culled from view. This includes vegetation, rocks, fences, and even buildings. Unsurprisingly, it can drastically impact performance, peaking at ~20% at the epic quality option.

Character Count, Character Quality & Post-Processing

Character count sets the number of onscreen characters, including NPCs and other players. They are rendered into view at a much closer distance at the lower options. During heavy player activity, this option can reduce your framerates by half around quest hubs. It’s best left at “Medium” or “High.”

Character quality sets the equipment and pattern details of other players. At lower-quality settings, body equipment and designs are culled in detail to save resources. It can be of import during heavy player activity. Like the previous setting, it primarily affects the lows…by up to 30%. It’s best left at “High.”

A setting affecting the character shadows is available in the advanced section. We found that it doesn’t appreciably impact performance while making the shadow edges softer and less detailed at lower-quality options.

Post-processing enables certain late pipeline effects including bloom, blur, radiance, and lens flare. The performance drop is minimal.

Shading & Shadow Quality

Shading quality encompasses a variety of effects, including terrain tesselation, weathering marks, object detail, and more. The performance hit can be quite severe at higher quality settings, with “Epic” being 15% slower than “Low.”

Shadow quality controls the resolution of shadow maps, with higher settings producing more detailed (sharper) silhouettes. At the lower-quality options, the shadows are little more than blocky blobs of darkness. The performance impact is nominal, and is best left at “High” or “Epic.”

Distant shadows set the quality of well…distant shadows. The impact on quality and performance is relatively minor but can be turned down to low for some extra FPS.

Texture Quality & Texture Filtering

Texture quality adjusts the resolution of in-game objects, most notably tables, wood structures, concrete walls, vegetables/fruits, and signboards. The VRAM usage increased from 8.5 GB at “Low” to ~10 GB at the “Epic” quality option.

Texture filtering cleans up distant textures (at oblique angles to the screen) by continuously sampling mipmaps perpendicular to the viewport. The performance impact ranges from subtle to moderate.

Effects & Vegetation Quality

Effects quality sets the detail of special effects, including magic spells, objective markers, and other shiny particle effects. It nominally impacts performance.

Vegetation quality sets the detail and density of grass, bushes, and trees. Unlike view-distance, it affects the quality of vegetation near and farther away from the player character. Depending on your location, the performance impact can vary from 15% to 25%.

Advanced: Level of Detail, Terrain & Lighting Quality

Level of detail or LOD configures the number of objects (and therefore, polygons) visible to the player. These include mud marks, rain animations, clutter, and decoration items. The performance hit is minimal unless you switch to the epic quality setting (where it increases to 6%).

Terrain quality supposedly affects the detail of ground meshes, but we couldn’t identify any notable impact on quality and performance. Best left at the highest quality.

Lighting quality adjusts the dispersion of light in the scene, drastically affecting the ambient indoors. There doesn’t seem to be any advanced form of diffuse lighting in use. The performance impact of lighting quality is within the margin of error.

Volumetric Clouds & Fog Quality

Volumetric clouds render clouds in 3D, adding more depth to the scene. At the lowest quality option, they are replaced by 2D placements that look rather dull. They mildly impact performance.

Volumetric fog adjusts the quality of dynamic fog and its reactivity to light. At lower settings, the atmosphere doesn’t change its color according to the light and takes a more neutral tone. Since it’s performance hit is minor, it’s best left at “High” or “Epic.”

DirectX 12, Shader Preloading & Large-Scale Combat

Throne and Liberty supports DirectX 11, but unless your GPU lacks support for DirectX 12, we recommend leaving the latter enabled. When using the older API, the framerates (especially the lows) are nearly 20% lower in CPU-intensive scenes.

This is due to improved core utilization using DirectX 12, versus DX11 largely being a single or dual-threaded API with a deferred context.

DX12
DX11
  • Shader preloading should be set to “High,” or “Epic” if you have sufficient memory and storage. This ensures there’s no real-time buffering of assets when entering new areas, resulting in a smoother experience.
  • Optimize Large Scale Combat automatically reduces the draw distance of characters in the siege and other community events if framerates plummet. Enable it if you have an older or low-end CPU.
  • Hair Strands” doesn’t seem to do anything. Switching the option doesn’t have a noticeable impact on quality or performance.

Upscaling & Frame Generation

Throne and Liberty offers NVIDIA DLSS 3.5 and FSR 2 upscaling solutions. The two boost performance to the same degree, roughly doubling framerates at the “Ultra Performance” preset. We recommend sticking to “Balanced” or “Performance” if you’re running low on FPS, especially if you’re using FSR as the “Ultra Performance” mode significantly degrades texture quality and detail.

Being an Unreal Engine 4 game, Throne and Liberty uses the older (v2) iteration of FSR, lacking frame generation. Consequently, frame generation is only available to RTX 40 series GPU owners.

Frame generation boosts performance by as much as 2.3x on a GeForce RTX 4090 at 4K, using the highest quality graphics preset. The game also includes Intel XeSS, but it’s still a WIP, producing artifacts when enabled.

Throne and Liberty: VRAM Usage

Throne and Liberty uses 10 GB of graphics memory at the “Epic” quality preset regardless of the resolution. Reducing the settings to “High” brings it down to 8.4 GB, “Medium” uses up to 7.76 GB, while “Low” sits at ~7.5 GB. You’ll need at least a 6 GB GPU to play this game at “High” or “Epic” without any issues.

Throne and Liberty: CPU Bottlenecks

Throne and Liberty is almost completely GPU-bound with an observed GPU-Busy deviation of 1% (average) recorded through the course of our testing. You won’t find yourself CPU-bound unless you have a Skylake-era processor or older.

Throne and Liberty Performance Summary

Throne and Liberty features several graphics settings on PC. Among them, “Shader Quality,” “Vegetation,” “View Distance,” and “Ambient Occlusion” are the most resource-intensive.

In settlements and player hubs, “Character Count,” and “Character Quality” tend to tank framerates. If you’ve got an old or low-end CPU, consider dropping these to the lowest.

Areas close to the sea or with water bodies or surfaces are covered with reflections. Poor performance in these areas can be attributed to “Screen Space Reflections.” Drop down to “Medium” or “Low” if your system struggles.

High-resolution 4K comparisons are attached (G-Drive link).

Optimized Settings for Throne and Liberty PC

Best SettingsHigh-endMidrangeLow-end PC
Resolution4K (3840×2160)1440p (2560×1440)1080p (1920×1080)
Target FPS120 FPS90 FPS60 FPS
Anti-AliasingEpicEpicEpic
Ambient OcclusionEpicEpicHigh
SSREpicHighHigh
View DistanceEpicEpicMedium
Character CountHighMediumMedium
Post-ProcessingEpicEpicEpic
Character QualityHighHighHigh
Shading QualityEpicEpicHigh
Shadow QualityEpicEpicHigh
Distant Shadow QualityEpicEpicLow
Texture QualityEpicEpicEpic
Anisotropic FilterEpicEpicEpic
Effect QualityEpicEpicEpic
Vegetation QualityEpicEpicHigh
Depth of FieldOffOffOff
Motion BlurOffOffOff
C. AberrationOffOffOff
Lens FlareOnOnOn
Level of DetailEpicEpicEpic
Character ShadowsEpicEpicEpic
Lighting QualityEpicEpicEpic
Terrain QualityEpicEpicEpic
Volumetric CloudsEpicEpicHigh
Volumetric FogEpicEpicHigh
Shader PreloadingHighHighHigh
Hair StrandsOnOnOn
Optimize Large Scale CombatOffOnOn
Use DirectX 12OnOnOn
Upscaling (DLSS/FSR)Quality/BalancedQuality/BalancedQuality/Balanced
Frame GenerationOnOnOn
Set upscaling to “Balanced” if frame generation isn’t available
CPUCore i7-13700K/Ryzen 7 7700XCore i5-12600K/Ryzen 5 7600Core i5-12400
AMD 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 SettingsRTX 4090RTX 4080RTX 4070 TiRTX 4070 SuperRTX 4070
Resolution4K4K4K|1440p4K|1440p4K|1440p
Target FPS120 FPS90 FPS75 FPS|120 FPS60 FPS|90 FPS60 FPS|90 FPS
Anti-AliasingEpicEpicEpicEpicEpic
Ambient OcclusionEpicEpicEpicEpicEpic
SSREpicEpicEpicEpicEpic
View DistanceEpicEpicEpicEpicEpic
Character CountHighHigh or MediumHigh or MediumMediumMedium
Post-ProcessingEpicEpicEpicEpicEpic
Character QualityHighHighHighHighHigh
Shading QualityEpicEpicEpicEpicEpic
Shadow QualityEpicEpicEpicEpicEpic
Distant Shadow QualityEpicEpicEpicEpicEpic
Texture QualityEpicEpicEpicEpicEpic
Anisotropic FilterEpicEpicEpicEpicEpic
Effect QualityEpicEpicEpicEpicEpic
Vegetation QualityEpicEpicEpicEpicEpic
Depth of FieldOffOffOffOffOff
Motion BlurOffOffOffOffOff
C. AberrationOffOffOffOffOff
Lens FlareOnOnOnOnOn
Level of DetailEpicEpicEpicEpicEpic
Character ShadowsEpicEpicEpicEpicEpic
Lighting QualityEpicEpicEpicEpicEpic
Terrain QualityEpicEpicEpicEpicEpic
Volumetric CloudsEpicEpicEpicEpicEpic
Volumetric FogEpicEpicEpicEpicEpic
Shader PreloadingHighHighHighHighHigh
Hair StrandsOnOnOnOnOn
Optimize Large Scale CombatOffOffOffOnOn
Use DirectX 12OnOnOnOnOn
DLSS UpscalingQualityBalancedBalanced|QualityPerformance|QualityPerformance|Quality
Frame GenerationOnOnOnOnOn

Throne and Liberty Settings for Low-end PC

Built on the Unreal Engine, Throne and Liberty runs well on low-end hardware. Hitting 60 FPS on the RTX 3060 at 1080p requires reducing the “Character Count” and “Character Quality.” Quality-mode DLSS/FSR upscaling is given, which boosts the average FPS to 81. If you’d like 90 FPS or higher, switch to balanced-mode upscaling.

QHD or 1440p is more of a challenge and requires further reduction of the character count and quality. While quality-mode upscaling does attain 60 FPS, RTX 3060 owners are recommended to opt for the balanced preset for better lows. Refer to our dedicated low-end PC guide for the RTX 60-class GPUs.

Optimized SettingsNVIDIA RTX 3060NVIDIA RTX 3060 TiNVIDIA RTX 4060NVIDIA RTX 4060 Laptop GPU
Resolution1080p/1440p1080p/1440p1080p/1440p1080p (1920×1080)
Target FPS75 FPS90 FPS90 FPS90 FPS
Anti-AliasingEpicEpicEpicEpic
Ambient OcclusionEpicEpicEpicEpic
SSRHighHighEpicEpic
Character CountMediumMediumMediumMedium
Post-ProcessingEpicEpicEpicEpic
Character QualityMediumHighHighMedium
Shading QualityEpicEpicEpicHigh
Shadow QualityEpicEpicEpicEpic
Distant Shadow QualityEpicEpicEpicEpic
Texture QualityEpicEpicEpicEpic
Anisotropic FilterEpicEpicEpicEpic
Effect QualityEpicEpicEpicEpic
Vegetation QualityEpicEpicEpicEpic
Depth of FieldOffOffOffOff
Motion BlurOffOffOffOff
C. AberrationOffOffOffOff
Lens FlareOnOnOnOn
Level of DetailEpicEpicEpicHigh
Character ShadowsEpicEpicEpicEpic
Lighting QualityEpicEpicEpicEpic
Terrain QualityEpicEpicEpicEpic
Volumetric CloudsEpicEpicEpicEpic
Volumetric FogEpicEpicEpicEpic
Shader PreloadingHighHighHighHigh
Hair StrandsOnOnOnOn
Optimize Large Scale CombatOnOnOnOn
Use DirectX 12OnOnOnOn
Upscaling (DLSS/FSR)Quality/BalancedQuality/BalancedQuality/BalancedQuality/Balanced
Frame GenerationOffOffOnOn
MotherboardCPUGPUMemory
Alienware x14 ($1249)Intel Core i7-13620HNVIDIA RTX 4060 8GB Laptop GPU8GB x4 DDR5-4800
GIGABYTE B450M DS3H WIFI ($84)AMD Ryzen 5 5600 ($116)NVIDIA RTX 3060 12 GB ($269)
NVIDIA RTX 4060 8 GB ($284)
8GB x2 D4 ($40)

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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