Warhammer 40K Space Marine 2 Optimization Guide: Best Graphics Settings for PC

Warhammer 40000: Space Marine 2 is out on Steam in “Advance Access” for users who pre-ordered the “Gold Edition.” Focus Entertainment is offering a generous 4-day headstart for pre-orders on the $90 bundle, including the season pass and the “Macragge’s Chosen DLC.” In addition to the Gold Edition, there’s an “Ultra Edition” for $100 and “Collector’s Edition” for $249. The base version is priced at $59. Let’s try to figure out the optimal settings for Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2.

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.

Warhammer 40K Space Marine 2: PC System Requirements

Warhammer 40K: Space Marine has relatively hefty GPU system requirements for a mediocre-looking game. The CPU specs are quite justified as this game features hordes and hordes of on-screen enemies. The memory requirement starts at 8 GB for 1080p 30 FPS “Low,” increasing to 16 GB for 1080p 60 FPS “Ultra.” You’ll need 75 GB of storage space for a comfortable experience.

For the best performance, you’ll need a Core i7-12700 or Ryzen 7 5800X paired with a GeForce RTX 3070 or a Radeon RX 6800 XT.

Overview + Testing Methodology

• The “Ultra” quality graphics preset was chosen as the reference point at 4K “native”.
• An overview of benchmarks::
  1. Resolution scaling & graphics presets.
  2. Upscaling.
  3. Texture filtering & texture resolution.
  4. Shadows & ambient occlusion.
  5. Reflections & volumetrics.
  6. Details & effects.
  7. Cloth simulation.
  8. CPU bottlenecks.
  9. VRAM usage.
  10. Optimized graphics settings for PC.
• Hardware setup 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.

Warhammer 40K Space Marine 2: Resolution Scaling & Graphics Presets

Warhammer 40000: Space Marine 2 is heavily CPU-bound even at higher resolutions like 4K. Consequently, we see minimal framerate scaling going from 4K to 1080p. We observed almost similar performance across all three resolutions in heavily populated scenes.

Unfortunately, there’s no way to adjust the elements tanking CPU performance (enemy hordes), so we see the tiniest gains upon changing the graphics presets. The below benchmarks were conducted in a semi-populated scene while the one after was chockful of enemies.

Unless you have a top-of-the-line CPU, you’ll mostly be stuck under 75 FPS when facing hordes of enemies. Moderately and thinly populated areas average 85-100 FPS on a high-end GPU such as the GeForce RTX 4090.

Space Marine 2 Upscaling: TAA, FSR & DLSS

Update: Following the game’s official launch, we’ve received optimizations that improve CPU utilization, easing the performance bottlenecks in heavily crowded areas. DLSS is also available for NVIDIA RTX users, and it performs much better than FSR on GeForce cards:

Warhammer 40000: Space Marine 2 features FSR and DLSS upscaling, although the pre-launch version is limited to the former. Much like the resolution slider, upscaling doesn’t help performance in a CPU-limited scenario. When FSR 2 is enabled, the average FPS inches from 74 FPS to 77 FPS. Frame generation would be greatly appreciated here.

Upscaling reduces the GPU workload, but leaves the CPU-side pipeline untouched. This often leads to CPU-bound scenarios at higher resolutions like 1440p and 4K. Upscaling reduces the original pixel count, but leaves the geometry/polygons, characters, and other indivudual effects unchanged.

Consequently, the number of CPU draw calls isn’t reduced, but the GPU workload is cut by up to half or more. Frame generation inserts a complete frame between every two individual frames, cutting the CPU draw calls in approximately half.

Texture Filtering & Texture Resolution

Texture filtering subtly impacts visual fidelity and performance, granting a couple of additional FPS at the cost of a slight loss in (distant) texture quality. It mainly affects grills, nets, and other chain-like structures. It’s best left on as the framerate hit is nominal.

Shadows & Ambient Occlusion

Shadow quality adjusts the resolution of shadow maps, with higher settings producing sharper silhouettes and vice versa for their lower counterparts. Like texture filtering, the performance hit stays within the margin of error.

Ambient occlusion (Screen Space ambient occlusion) renders ambient shadows, mostly covering corners, edges, crevices, and other blindspots missed by shadow maps. The performance hit is slightly more prominent than the latter.

Reflections & Volumetrics

Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2 features screen-space reflections for specular shadows, re-rendering onscreen objects at a lower resolution. It is rendered on glass, mirrors, water, and other reflective (smooth) surfaces. The performance impact varies from scene to scene, reaching its peak around water bodies.

Volumetrics adjusts the resolution of fog, godrays, and other particle effects. It negligibly affects performance, and is best left at “High.”

Details & Effects Quality

Details quality adjusts the quality of 3D geometry, primarily terrain, rocks, and ground surfaces using tesselation, parallax mapping, bump mapping, and the like. Here’s an excellent explanation of how these techniques are achieved. The performance impact is larger than the other settings, but so is the visual aspect.

Effects quality controls the intensity of particles, water effects, and decals on characters. The performance impact is (once again) negligible.

Cloth Simulation Quality

Cloth simulation adjusts the quality of cloth physics. It controls how realistic the interaction of cloth/fabric meshes will be in the game world. Unsurprisingly, it affects the CPU performance, reducing the lows by 2-3 FPS.

Warhammer 40K Space Marine 2: CPU Bottlenecks

Warhammer 40000: Space Marine 2 is heavily CPU bottlenecked. At 1080p “Ultra,” we observed a GPU-busy deviation of 53% which drops to 44% at 1440p, and 33% at 4K. This implies that the GPU was busy rendering for only 53% of the frame render time, the remaining being CPU-bound.

Lowering the graphics settings at 4K (or enabling upscaling) has a similar impact as lowering the resolution. The GPU-Busy deviation increases to 42% with FSR “Quality” and 52% with FSR “Performance.”

Space Marine 2: VRAM Usage

Space Marine 2 uses a generous amount of graphics memory, peaking at 10 GB at 4K “Ultra.” Reducing the graphics quality doesn’t reduce it by much, with “Low” using an average of 9.6 GB. Enabling upscaling has a more palpable effect, reducing VRAM usage by up to 400 MB at 4K.

Reducing the resolution brings down the VRAM consumption to 7 GB and 6.25 GB at 1440p and 1080p, respectively.

Space Marine 2 Performance Summary

Best Graphics Settings for Warhammer 40K Space Marine 2

Best Settings for Warhammer 40K Space Marine 2: Low-end PC

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