God of War Ragnarok | OPTIMIZATION GUIDE

Want to get the most out of performance and visual quality in God of War Ragnarok? This guide, based on detailed analysis from the BenchmarKing channel , provides the best graphics settings to achieve the perfect balance between FPS, visual fidelity, and fluidity.

With objective explanations and recommendations tested on different hardware, this guide is ideal for players who want to optimize their experience without compromising the beauty of the game. Whether you want to improve the frame rate or get the best quality without performance drops, here you will find everything you need.

Enhance your journey through the Nine Realms with the best possible performance!

Image Quality (TAA, DLSS, FSR.1 and XeSS)

As mentioned in the introduction, all upscalers are available in this game alongside TAA. However, some issues remain.

Upscaler Stability

• XeSS (DP4a) – Even at native resolution, it exhibits stability issues, similar to what was observed in Horizon Forbidden West.
  
• Screen Space Reflection Issues – All upscalers struggle with SSR, resulting in noticeable pixelation.
  
• DLSS Stability – The most stable option, but still produces artifacts on reflective surfaces, particularly at 1440p.
  
• FSR3 Performance – Surprisingly, it avoids the usual pixelation and disocclusion fizzle during fast animations. However, noticeable ghosting occurs, especially on small and moving particles.

Frame Generation

FSR 3.1 Support: The game fully supports FSR 3.1, meaning that FSR Frame Generation can be used with DLSS or any other upscaler.

• Using FSR3 Frame Generation with DLAA on an RTX 3060 Ti smooths the gameplay without noticeable frame pacing or stuttering issues.
• However, UI elements and some other 2D assets update at a lower rate compared to the rest of the image.

DLSS Frame Generation Issues

Unfortunately, DLSS Frame Generation is currently broken.

1. Without Frame Generation: ~73 FPS
   
2. With FSR Frame Generation: ~107 FPS
   
3. With DLSS Frame Generation: Drops back to ~71 FPS

Right now, DLSS Frame Generation does not work properly.

Textures

This setting primarily impacts the quality of some specific textures, while most other surfaces maintain the highest possible quality as long as there is enough VRAM available, regardless of the selected option.

• The graphics menu includes a VRAM usage indicator.
• On an 8GB RTX 3060 Ti at native 1440p, a VRAM usage warning may appear when using Ultra for Textures and some other settings like Shadows.
• However, during gameplay, even when VRAM is near the limit, there were no performance drops or excessive RAM usage.

Recommendation:

• For 8GB GPUs at native 1440p, keep this setting at High or even Medium, especially if increasing other settings like Shadows.

Models

This setting controls the level of detail of objects in the environment.

• Higher options improve geometry detail both up close and at a distance.
• Reduces LOD pop-in when traversing the game world.
• As seen here, High and especially Ultra reduce pop-in compared to Low and Medium.

Performance impact:

1. In less complex areas, going from Low to Ultra costs only 5%.
   
2. In areas with more complex geometry, going from Low to High costs around 5%, and to Ultra around 16%.

Recommendation:

• High for a good balance between quality and performance.
  
• Medium if you don’t mind pop-in and need extra FPS.

Anisotropic Filtring

In most games, this setting has a big visual impact but a negligible performance cost.

• The same applies to God of War Ragnarök.
• It’s best to leave this setting at Ultra.

Lightning

This setting controls the quality of direct lighting from the sun, moon, and sky.

• At higher settings, moonlight travels further, illuminating darker areas better.
• Also impacts indirect lighting, specifically Ambient Shading.
• The game uses SSDO (Screen Space Directional Occlusion):

Low completely removes SSDO.

Medium and higher options enable it and adjust its accuracy.

Performance impact:

1. From Low to Medium: 6% performance cost.
   
2. From Low to High or Ultra: around 8% performance cost.

Recommendation:

• Medium for a good balance between quality and performance.
  
• Some scenes may show a bigger performance impact when using High or Ultra.

Shadows

This setting controls the resolution of shadow maps and their contact hardening, which causes shadows to become softer and more diffuse the further they are from the object casting them.

Performance impact:

1. From Low to Medium: ~5% performance cost.
   
2. From Low to High/Ultra: 32% performance cost.
   
3. In some areas, even Medium can be demanding (19% performance hit).

Recommendation:

• Medium for a balance between quality and performance.
  
• Low only if you need extra FPS.

Reflections

God of War Ragnarök uses Screen Space Reflections (SSR) alongside high-quality cubemaps as a fallback.

• This setting only affects SSR accuracy.
• Higher settings can cause flickering on reflective surfaces, especially at native 1440p, even with DLAA.

Performance impact:

1. From Low to Ultra: ~5% performance cost.

Recommendation:

• Medium is the best choice to avoid flickering while maintaining reflections.

Atmospherics

This setting adjusts the resolution of volumetric effects, such as light shafts.

• From Medium onwards, volumetric effects become more defined with fewer artifacts.
• Surprisingly, this setting is not very demanding.

Performance impact:

1. From Low to Ultra: ~4% performance cost.

Recommendation:

• Medium or High for a balance between quality and stability.
  
• Some areas with high fog density (e.g., Niflheim) may have a larger performance hit.

Ambient Occlusion

• Has a subtle visual impact, especially when SSDO is enabled (Lighting set to Medium or higher).
• If SSDO is enabled, the effect of Ambient Occlusion becomes even less noticeable.

Performance impact:

1. From Low to Ultra: Negligible performance cost.

Recommendation:

• Keep this setting at Ultra for the best visual quality with no real FPS loss.

Tessellation

This setting adjusts the detail and bumpiness of the terrain.

• Moving from Low to Medium makes little difference.
• High improves terrain depth significantly.
• Ultra provides a minor additional improvement.
• Also affects snow deformation, though the impact is less noticeable.

Performance impact:

1. From Low to Ultra: ~4% performance cost.
   
2. In some areas (e.g., Realm Between Realms), going from Low to High costs ~21%, and to Ultra ~26%.

Recommendation:

• Medium for a good balance.

Optimized Settings

Optimized Settings vs. Ultra Preset

To compare performance, we tested the Optimized Settings vs. Ultra Preset at native 1440p with DLAA and no Frame Generation.

• The test was conducted in a more demanding area rather than the starting area to provide a worst-case scenario.
• The Optimized Quality settings may drop below 60 FPS at native 1440p DLAA, but you can improve performance using upscaling or Frame Generation.
• Some frame time spikes are due to Nvidia Shadowplay, which was used for recording.

Performance gains:

1. From Ultra Preset to Optimized Quality: ~22% better performance.
   
2. From Ultra Preset to Optimized Performance: ~48% better performance.

Conclusion

That brings us to the end of this guide.

This video was 100% sourced from the BenchmarKing channel and if you want to watch the original video, it's below.

Thanks for reading! If you found this helpful, please consider favoriting/leaving a comment so it can reach more people!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6UPDPdFf4A