Guides

War Thunder Performance Optimization: Best Graphics for Tanks & Planes

War Thunder is among the most-played games on Steam. With a daily concurrent player count of 76K, it stands as a giant among war simulation games. With its diversified tank, warship, and airplane combat/defense, it offers players tons of competitive/coop content for free. Although War Thunder is over a decade old, Gaijin Entertainment has kept it in tip-top shape with regular content and technical updates. Here’s our performance guide for War Thunder:

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.

War Thunder: PC System Requirements

War Thunder has been out for a while, 11 years to be exact. Its system requirements are fairly modest, coming in with a Ryzen 5 3600 and a GeForce GTX 1060/Radeon RX 570 for a standard 1080p experience. The memory requirement stands at 16 GB, with up to 95 GB of storage space recommended.

Contents & Testing Methodology

  • Benchmarks at a glance:
    1. Resolution scaling.
    2. Anti-aliasing and texture filtering.
    3. Shadow and effects resolution.
    4. Terrain and cloud quality.
    5. Tree/grass range and particle density.
    6. SSAO and reflections.
    7. Terrain deformation and displacement.
    8. Water quality and effects.
    9. Effect Shadows, Advanced Shore & Foliage
    10. Upscaling.
    11. VRAM usage.
    12. CPU bottlenecks.
    13. Best settings for War Thunder: Tank and Planes.
  • Hardware setup used:
    • CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7950X.
    • Cooler: Arctic Liquid Freezer III 420.
    • GPU: NVIDIA RTX 3080 Ti.
    • Motherboard: MSI MPG B650 Edge WiFi.
    • Memory: 16 GB x2 @ 6000 MT/s CL30.

War Thunder: Resolution Scaling

War Thunder averaged 171 FPS on our system at 4K using the maximum quality graphics settings. Dropping the resolution to 1440p increased the framerates to 250 FPS, which is where it stayed at 1080p as well. This indicates a hard CPU bottleneck at 1440p and below.

Anti-Aliasing & Texture Filtering

War Thunder features FXAA and TAA anti-aliasing techniques. The former costs no performance, but isn’t as effective as the latter. Temporal anti-aliasing removes most jaggies, including shimmering, but reduces the average framerate by 7-8%.

Texture filtering helps smooth out texture blurring without substantially impacting performance. It’s advised to leave it at 16x.

Shadow & Effects Resolution

Shadow quality sets the resolution of the shadow maps, producing more detailed silhouettes at higher settings, and blurry outlines at low settings. It reduces the performance by 6-7% at the highest quality setting, and anything below that performs well.

In tank

Effects quality sets the detail of special effects, including smoke, explosions, and other destructive visuals. It subtly affects quality and performance and is best left at the default quality settings.

When flying, the impact of shadow quality is reduced to just 1.4% at the highest value, versus “Minimum.”

In airplane

Terrain & Cloud Quality

Terrain quality adjusts the detail, density, and complexity of land terrain. Lower settings produce simpler surfaces, while higher options render a more fleshed-out appearance with more features. The performance impact is more prominent when driving a tank. The highest option drains framerates by 5-6%, but anything at or below 75 is acceptable.

In tank

Cloud quality (ground) doesn’t notably impact performance, but its “Flight” counterpart can reduce the average framerate by 20% or more while flying. The visual hit is minimal, so target this setting if you’re facing low FPS while flying through cloudy weather.

In airplane

Tree/Grass Range & Particle Density

Tree/grass range sets the render distance of vegetation which can have a mild to moderate impact on performance. An average FPS drop of 4-6% was observed at the highest “tree range,” while the “grass range” had a more subtle 2-4% impact on performance.

In tank
In tank

Particle density adjusts the density of particle effects, including smoke, fog, smog, etc. In most cases, the performance implications are nominal, but certain weather conditions can change that.

In tank

SSAO & Reflections

War Thunder handles ambient occlusion and reflections (calculated in screen space) in a single pass. Disabling SSAO disables ambient occlusion, small object shadows, and reflections, granting a 7-9% FPS bump (on land). Half-resolution ambient occlusion paired with full-resolution reflections is more economical, costing a mere 2-3% performance on average.

In tank

SSAO and reflections have a large impact on performance when flying (especially above the sea/ocean), tanking framerates by 11% at the highest setting. Half-resolution SSAO is taxing still, but setting reflections to 50 produces a much more balanced result that is almost indistinguishable.

In airplane

Small object shadows enable shadows for objects like grass, bushes, stacks of hay, and other objects of minute size but multiple quantities in the scene. It’s best left at the highest option.

Terrain Displacement & Deformation

Terrain displacement and deformation refer to the “landscaping” caused by heavy bombardment and tank assaults. They deplete framerates by 2-3% and are best left at the highest to preserve battle immersion.

In tank

Physics quality didn’t have a measurable impact on performance, but that may change during battle-intensive scenes as the number of physics objects onscreen increases. Tire marks are a cosmetic effect that doesn’t hurt performance.

In tank

Water Quality & Effects

Water quality sets the complexity of water, including wave physics, wave density, frothing, etc. It can reduce performance by 5% or more, and we don’t recommend going below “High.”

In airplane

Water effects quality adjusts the detail of marine explosions, bombardment, and other events that are the result of player action. It marginally affects performance, and should be left at “High” or “Medium.”

In airplane

Global illumination changes the look and tone of the game, but we didn’t observe a tangible impact on performance. As such, it’s left to player preference.

Effect Shadows, Advanced Shore & Foliage

Effect shadows enable shadows for explosions, smoke, and other player-created destruction effects. Advanced shore renders waves close to the shoreline, while “Far Terrain Details,” “Detailed Foliage,” and “Object Shadows” enable more detailed landscape features that are noticeable only while in the air. The performance hit is minimal.

In airplane

Upscaling: DLSS & XeSS

Although War Thunder is CPU-bound at 1080p, upscalers like DLSS are instrumental in making the game playable at higher resolutions. We observed an average performance uplift of 20% at 4K “Ultra” using the “Quality” preset. Beyond that, you’re CPU-bound. Do yourself a favor and download the latest DLSS DLLs to replace the default versions.

In tank

War Thunder: VRAM Usage

War Thunder uses up to 10 GB of graphics memory 4K “Max.” 1440p is more forgiving with an average VRAM usage of closer to 8 GB, while 1080p tops out under 7 GB. You’ll need a 6 GB GPU for 1080p, 8 GB of 1440p, and 12 GB for 4K “max.” The game was tested without the high-resolution textures. Stay away from them as they bloat your memory and storage without improving anything.

War Thunder: CPU Bottlenecks

War Thunder is mild to moderately CPU bound at 1080p with an average GPU-Busy deviation of 19%. This can climb up to 30% or higher in some maps, leaving you capped below 200 FPS. 1440p and 4K are predominantly GPU-bound.

1080p Max

War Thunder: Performance Summary

For Tanks

For Planes

For Planes (Cloudy)

Best Settings for War Thunder: Tanks & Planes

Optimized SettingsHigh-endMidrangeLow-end PC
Resolution4K (3840×2160)1440p (2560×1440)1080p (1920×1080)
FPS Target200 FPS144-165 FPS90-120 FPS
Anti-AliasingTAATAATAA
Anistropy16x16x16x
Shadow QualityVery HighVery HighHigh
Effects ResolutionHighHighMedium
Terrain Quality10010050
Cloud Quality (Land)10010050
Cloud Quality (Flight)10010050
Tree Range10010075
Grass Range10010075
Particle Density10010050
SSAO10010050
Small Shadows10010050
Reflections10010050
Terrain DeformationVery HighVery HighVery High
Terrain Displacement100100100
Water QualityVery HighVery HighHigh
Water Effects QualityHighHighHigh
Effects ShadowsOnOnOn
Advanced ShoreOnOnOn
FoliageOnOnOn
Object ShadowsOnOnOn
Upscaling (DLSS/XeSS)OffOff/QualityQuality
CPUCore i5-13600K/Ryzen 7 7700XCore i5-12600K/Ryzen 5 7600Core i5-12400
AMD Ryzen 5 3600
GPURTX 4070/RX 7800 XTRTX 4060/RX 7600RTX 3060/RX 6600
Memory8 GB (dual-channel) 8 GB4 GB
High-endMidrangeLow-end PC

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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