ARC Raiders Graphics Optimization Guide | How to Achieve Epic Visuals with High Performance?
Category: ARC Raiders Posted: Dec 31, 2025 Views: 3326
Arc Raiders' graphics are one of the secrets to its success, and you might wonder how a non-major studio could pull this off. This is not only because they have developed The Finals, but also because its core members have participated in projects such as Battlefield 5, so they have experience developing large-scale multiplayer games.
The optimization of Arc Raiders is exceptionally good, but players often still choose the game graphics for a smoother gaming experience. But you can actually improve your graphics with almost no impact on game frame rates.
Game Engine
ARC Raiders is based on the deeply customized Unreal Engine 5, but its technical path is completely different from other UE5 games. The development team adopted a performance-focused strategy.
They intentionally reduced features such as Lumen global illumination and Nanite virtual geometry, and instead adopted mature technologies such as classic lighting solutions and traditional mesh level-of-detail systems. This is to ensure that the game's frame generation times are stable and predictable.
This option significantly reduces the load on CPU and GPU, allowing ARC Raiders to experience less lag on each device and more stable overall performance. Its running performance is closer to the well-optimized Unreal Engine 4 era works than to typical UE5 games.

Graphics Presets
ARC Raiders' graphics presets are divided into 5 options: Low, Medium, High, Epic, Cinematic.
After testing, it was found that the performance of high, medium and low presets with RTXGI turned on is almost exactly the same. The main difference lies in visual quality rather than frame rate.
It is recommended that you use Dynamic High. The visual effect is very close to the Epic picture preset effect, except for a few scenes where the shadows are slightly darker.
Compared to RTXGI, lowering the overall preset level can bring about the most significant performance improvement. You can adjust the graphics preset according to your own acceptance.
- Epic reduced to High: performance increased by about 22%.
- Epic reduced to Medium: performance increased by about 38%.
- Epic reduced to Low: Performance is greatly improved by 66%.
Anti-Aliasing
ARC Raiders has 6 anti-aliasing options:
- TAAU: A variant of standard temporal anti-aliasing (TAA), the graphics is the softest, but somewhat blurry, with little performance loss.
- TSR: Unreal Engine's built-in upconverter is much sharper than TAAU, but the performance drops significantly.
- DLAA (CNN): Deep learning anti-aliasing based on Convolutional Neural Network.
- DLAA (Transformer): Deep learning anti-aliasing based on the new Transformer model, with higher performance requirements than CNN model.
- FSR 3: AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution 3, performance is similar to DLSS Transformer model.
- XeSS: Intel Xe super sampling, the graphics is softer, the performance is close to TSR, and cost-effectiveness is low.
TAAU and TSR can adjust the rendering resolution, but even if TAAU is set to 100%, the graphics is still obviously too soft and flickering, so it is not recommended.
Upscalers
Upscalers can reconstruct high-resolution graphics to greatly increase the frame rate, which can effectively relieve the pressure on GPU and improve graphics quality. DLSS CNN model is roughly equivalent to FSR 3, and DLSS Transformer model has similar resource usage to XeSS.
The main problem of DLSS CNN model is that it will produce smearing when moving, while the overall picture of DLSS Transformer model is cleaner, but it does not have an absolute advantage in all scenes.
FOV
Unlike other games, in ARC Raiders increasing FOV can actually slightly improve performance. Because the wider field of view makes objects on the screen smaller, it slightly reduces pixel shading complexity and GPU load, which is especially noticeable in scenes rich in detail or special effects.
View Distance
View Distance affects the rendering of distant objects and vegetation density. Epic option renders all objects, including the furthest vegetation, with the least noticeable level-of-detail (LOD) switching. High and below will start to cut distant objects or vegetation, and LOD switching will be earlier and more obvious.
If you want maximum visual fidelity and minimal LOD switching, you should choose Epic. If you need to improve your gaming performance, here are the best high View Distance presets that balance performance and graphics.
The Cinematic preset was added in patch 1.7.0, but compared with Epic, its visual improvement is minimal and the performance loss is large, so it is not recommended.
Shadows
- Epic reduced to High: performance increased by nearly 6%.
- Epic reduced to Medium: Performance improved by just over 6%.
- Epic reduced to Low: performance improved by nearly 10%.
Shadows under the Epic setting are the softest, while High is visually close to Shadow effect of Medium.
Patch 1.7.0 significantly improves LOD transition of shadows. Shadow switching in all presets is now smoother and more gradual, and the switching distance is pushed further, making the Medium and Low shadow settings much more practical than before the patch.
But it is still recommended that you use at least the High setting, because in a dark environment, settings lower than this may cause abnormal lighting in certain areas at specific distances.
Textures
Textures option will affect the clarity of various objects on the screen. After testing, the performance under all settings is very close, and there is no substantial frame rate impact. This is because the game uses an efficient texture streaming mechanism and consumes very little video memory.
So you can choose High or Epic for the direction. If you choose Cinematic preset, the performance will drop by up to about 3% compared to Epic, and there is no visual difference, so it is not recommended.
Foliage
Foliage mainly controls the density, detail and display distance of plants and grass. If performance is not an issue, it is recommended that you at least use High to maintain the visual richness of the game world. There is not much difference between Foliage and Epic under Cinematic preset, but performance will be sacrificed.
Although Arc Raiders is made using Unreal Engine 5, it is very well optimized. If your device is average, you can choose Epic or High for most settings. Many Cinematic presets do not significantly enhance visuals but reduce performance.
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