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| Optimization | Expected Effect | Difficulty |
|---|---|---|
| Lower UE5 Lighting/Shadow Settings | Varies by setup | Easy |
| DLSS / FSR / XeSS (Quality-Balanced) | Varies by setup | Easy |
| Fullscreen + Disable VSync | Varies by setup | Easy |
| Let Shader Cache Warm Up | Varies by setup | Easy |
| Ultimate Performance Power Plan | Varies by setup | Easy |
| High Process Priority | Varies by setup | Easy |
| Disable Overlays | Varies by setup | Easy |
| System Tweaks (SageTweaks) | Varies by setup | Automated |
Follow these steps in order. Each one is independent — skip any that don't apply to your setup.
ARC Raiders is built on Unreal Engine 5, which leans heavily on the GPU for lighting and shadow work. Open ARC Raiders -> Settings -> Video and start by lowering Global Illumination / Lighting Quality, Shadow Quality, and Post-Process / Effects Quality — these tend to cost the most on UE5 titles. Test each change and compare frame times on your own PC.
ARC Raiders supports DLSS, FSR, and XeSS. In Settings -> Video, select the upscaler that matches your GPU vendor and test Quality or Balanced mode rather than Native resolution — UE5 rendering is demanding enough that upscaling is usually worth reviewing before you touch anything else. Avoid Native/no-upscaling at 4K unless you have significant GPU headroom.
In Settings -> Video -> Display, use Fullscreen rather than Windowed/Borderless where available, and disable VSync if you are diagnosing input lag. Set a measured frame-rate cap that matches your display and GPU thermals rather than leaving frames uncapped.
Like many UE5 games, ARC Raiders can stutter on first launch or after a patch while shaders compile in the background. If you see stutter that clears up after a few minutes of play, that is expected shader-cache behavior, not a settings problem — benchmark again after the cache has warmed up.
Press Win+X -> Windows PowerShell (Admin) -> paste: powercfg -duplicatescheme e9a42b02-d5df-448d-aa00-03f14749eb61. Then go to Control Panel -> Power Options and select "Ultimate Performance." UE5 titles are sensitive to CPU clock ramp-up, and power throttling can show up as sudden frame-time spikes during fights.
Launch ARC Raiders and open Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc) -> Details tab. Find the game's executable, right-click -> Set priority -> High. This tells Windows to prioritize the game over background processes when allocating CPU time.
Go to Windows Settings -> Gaming -> Xbox Game Bar and toggle it off. Disable the Steam overlay (Steam -> Settings -> In-Game), Discord overlay (Discord -> Settings -> Game Overlay), and GeForce Experience/AMD overlay if installed. Every overlay running over a GPU-heavy UE5 game adds render overhead and input lag.
Before starting ARC Raiders, close browsers, streaming software, and any other application you do not need. Open Task Manager and check CPU/RAM/GPU usage at idle. If background load is high, close apps one at a time and compare frame-time stability.
For supported Windows review, use SageTweaks for timer resolution optimization, DPC latency reduction, TCP/IP tuning, USB polling, and selected system tweaks from the verified catalog.
Work through the checklist above: lower UE5-heavy settings like Global Illumination and Shadow Quality first, pick DLSS/FSR/XeSS at Quality or Balanced instead of Native, use Fullscreen, enable a high-performance power plan, disable overlays, and close background apps. Benchmark before and after each change on your own PC — UE5 games are GPU-heavy, so the biggest win depends on whether your system is GPU-bound or CPU-bound.
ARC Raiders is built on Unreal Engine 5, which compiles shaders in the background on first launch, after updates, or when new effects are seen for the first time — a known UE5 behavior, not unique to this game. That shows up as brief stutter that usually clears up once the shader cache has warmed up. If stutter persists well after that, check background apps, storage speed, and driver version.
Be cautious with tools that promise a fixed FPS number — gains always depend on hardware. What works is applying documented Windows-level changes: power plans, process priority, overlay removal, and system tweaks. SageTweaks automates a reviewed catalog of those Windows changes, without touching game files or memory.
ARC Raiders supports all three. Use the one that matches your GPU vendor (DLSS for Nvidia, FSR for AMD/cross-vendor, XeSS for Intel or as a fallback) and test Quality or Balanced mode. Because the game is UE5-based and GPU-heavy, upscaling is often one of the highest-impact settings to review — but the exact effect depends on your resolution and GPU.
Results vary by CPU, GPU, RAM, drivers, thermals, display resolution, background apps, overlays, and the current game build. UE5 titles like ARC Raiders tend to be GPU-bound, so lowering Global Illumination, Shadows, and Effects Quality plus using an upscaler are good starting points — benchmark your own PC before and after each change.
ARC Raiders uses Easy Anti-Cheat as a base layer, alongside additional anti-cheat and behavior-monitoring systems. SageTweaks applies Windows-level settings and does not require touching ARC Raiders game files, game memory, or packets. Anti-cheat policies can change, so avoid tools that modify the game process and keep optimization work at the OS, driver, and in-game settings level.
Start by testing Global Illumination / Lighting Quality, Shadow Quality, Effects/Post-Processing Quality, and your upscaler mode — these tend to be the most GPU-expensive settings in Unreal Engine 5 titles. The effect depends on whether your PC is CPU-bound, GPU-bound, thermal-limited, or affected by overlays and background apps.
SageTweaks can organize selected Windows optimizations from 1,280+ verified tweak entries across 44 tweak catalogs, plus dedicated or detected-game profile support where available. Review changes before you apply them.