2023 hasn’t been kind to PC gamers. From absolute train wrecks like Redfall and Gollum to otherwise good games like The Last of Us Part I, almost every PC title released this year came with an inexcusable amount of technical issues. Luckily, there are a handful of studios out there that still take PC gaming seriously and do their best to optimize their games for the platform. Larian Studios is one of them.

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Baldur’s Gate 3 is a CRPG that has no right to look as good as it does. Even more impressive is the fact that the game runs almost flawlessly on most systems. But while you shouldn’t run into any major technical issues while playing the game, it’s still worth changing a couple of things here and there in the settings menu if you want to get the most out of it both in terms of performance and visuals.

With that in mind, we’ve put together a handy Baldur’s Gate 3 optimization guide that will help you achieve fantastic results even on older hardware.

Updated by Jason Moth on August 16, 2023: This guide has been updated to include a video that showcases the differences between Low and Ultra settings in motion.

System Requirements And Driver Updates

It’s always worth checking the system requirements before you decide to install any PC game, and Baldur’s Gate 3 is no exception. Baldur’s Gate 3 has surprisingly modest requirements considering its scope and level of visual fidelity. At minimum, you’ll need an Intel i5 4690/AMD FX 8350 CPU, Nvidia GTX 970 or AMD equivalent GPU, and 8 gigs of RAM. Those specs will only get you so far, but it’s worth remembering that we’re talking about running a 2023 game on hardware that’s nearly a decade old at this point.

If you’re looking to bump most of the settings all the way to max, you’ll need at least an Intel i7 8700K/AMD r5 3600 processor, Nvidia 2060 Super or AMD equivalent graphics card, and 16 gigs of RAM. Again, nothing too demanding. Ironically, the thing that may pose the biggest problem for some people is the storage type. Baldur’s Gate 3 requires an SSD in order to run properly. There is a little workaround to this, but more on that later on.

With the game having been available in Early Access for a couple of years prior to launch, you don’t have to worry about driver updates unless you’re running an Intel Arc GPU. Intel was the first manufacturer that decided to release a new driver specifically for Baldur’s Gate 3. Nvidia just released a dedicated driver as well even though the game already ran great on the previous version. AMD doesn’t have a driver just yet, but there’s a high chance they’re currently working on one. There are plenty of AMD users complaining on forums about driver issues relating to Baldur’s Gate 3, so keep an eye out for possible fixes in the near future.

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Vulkan Vs DirectX 11

Once you boot up the Baldur’s Gate 3 launcher, you’ll have to decide between using the Vulkan or DirectX 11 API. Vulkan was the default API during Early Access, but for the full release, Larian recommends going with DirectX 11. While Vulkan can provide a slight performance boost in some instances, it’s not as stable as DirectX 11 and can cause crashes, freezing, and other technical issues.

Switching between the two APIs is as easy as exiting the game and going back to the launcher. Don’t hesitate to test both of them to see which one works best for your system. If you’re running an AMD card, it might be worth testing Vulkan first, especially if you’re running into issues with the current driver. AMD is heavily involved in the development of Vulkan and the API tends to work better with their own hardware than Nvidia’s.

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Best Graphics Settings For Baldur’s Gate 3

Right off the bat, you’ll want to match BG3's refresh rate to that of your monitor if the game didn’t already automatically do it for you. Ideally, you’ll want to do the same for the resolution. The game does allow you to bump up the resolution to a value that’s higher than what your hardware supports natively, but you won’t see much of an improvement in quality without a proper monitor. Not just that, but a higher resolution means you’ll have fewer FPS. In our tests our FPS went from 144 down to 85 when running the game at 3840 x 2160 on an RTX 3080 and a 1080p monitor, so always go with native resolution or lower.

VSync can cause a variety of issues in certain games, especially if you’re trying to run it alongside similar technologies like Nvidia’s G-Sync. Luckily, you don’t have to worry about that in this case. Unless you’re experiencing noticeable screen tearing, you can safely leave VSync off. If you’re on high-end hardware but don’t have a G-Sync monitor, you can enable it and set it to Triple Buffering.

General

Onto the fun stuff now. We recommend skipping the Preset selector and doing everything manually, not just because you'll get better results, but also because it will help you understand what each setting does and how it affects the look and performance of the game. Alternatively, you can begin by selecting a Present and then start tweaking from there. Check out the video below for a side-by-side comparison between the Low and Ultra Presets.

Starting with the General tab, Model Quality and Texture Quality are the two settings you’ll want to bump up as much as possible since they have the biggest impact on visual fidelity. Start off at High Model Quality and Ultra Texture Quality and try lowering other settings if you’re looking to improve performance before touching those two again.

Texture Filtering is another setting that can have a somewhat noticeable impact on the quality and there’s a lot of room for experimentation with this one. Changing the setting from Anisotropic x16 to Anisotropic x8 essentially makes no difference, but bringing it all the way down to Trilinear will make the game look less crisp, though not by a huge amount. Still, if you’re trying to squeeze a couple of extra FPS, we do recommend sticking with either Trilinear or Anisotropic x2 since you probably won’t notice the change in fidelity unless you’re zoomed in.

The rest of the settings in the General tab can be lowered if needed, but you’re unlikely to see any difference in performance either way unless you’re running on older hardware. Speaking of, you’ll want to test the Slow HDD Mode before moving on to the next tab. While Larian strongly recommends running Baldur’s Gate 3 off an SSD, you can get away with using an HDD by checking this option. The caveat is that the game will eat up more RAM and VRAM with this option enabled. Unless you have a decent GPU and a good amount of RAM, turning on this option might end up doing more harm than good.

Lighting

Moving on to the Lighting tab, there are only three options here, so we can go over this one quickly. Baldur’s Gate 3 is an isometric game, so you won’t miss out on much by turning down Cloud Quality to gain one or two extra FPS. Shadow Quality is a bit more important. You can turn it to Low without noticing a huge difference when it comes to static shadows, but dynamic ones will turn into an eyesore and will cause an annoying flickering effect. We recommend setting Shadow Quality to Medium, at least.

Fog Quality is the Lighting setting that will have the biggest impact on performance, but fog isn’t something you’ll need to constantly worry about. We recommend leaving this one on High in most situations and lowering it only if you notice major frame drops in places with an excessive amount of fog. The setting won’t have an impact either way in places without fog, so don’t expect it to do anything outside of very specific scenarios.

Post Process

It's time to finally get into the nitty-gritty. First off, you’ve got an upscaling choice between Nvidia DLSS and AMD FSR 1.0. Naturally, this choice will depend on your hardware. This technology renders frames at a lower resolution before upscaling them to your monitor’s native resolution, thus improving both quality and performance at the same time. While that may sound like something that would benefit older harder, it’s actually only available for newish GPUs. In the case of DLSS, you can’t even use it without an RTX card.

Whether you should enable upscaling or not depends not just on your GPU, but also your monitor. Upscaling is designed for 1440p monitors and above. You can still use it with lower res monitors, but your mileage may vary. More often than not, things will look a bit blurrier than with upscaling turned off, however, you may still notice a significant FPS boost. If you’re going to use it, experiment with the various modes to see what works best for you. AMD users can also play around with the Fidelity FX Sharpening mode, though it’s probably best to keep the slider at a low-to-medium level to avoid weird artifacts.

DLSS and Anti-Aliasing are mutually exclusive, so you’ll need to choose one or the other. For 1080p monitors and lower stick with Anti-Aliasing regardless of your GPU. TAA is a good middle ground if you’re worried about performance, but DLAA will make things look a tad nicer in exchange for a chunk of your FPS. If you’re on AMD, you can use both FSR and Anti-Aliasing, but you won’t get access to DLAA since that option is exclusive to Nvidia cards.

Ambient Occlusion is a tough call. Turning the setting on will make a pretty big difference in dimly lit areas, however, the difference is barely noticeable in bright areas. If you don’t mind losing a couple of FPS, we definitely recommend turning it on considering you’ll be spending a fair amount of time in dungeons while playing Baldur’s Gate 3.

Depth of Field is mostly a matter of preference, but we recommend turning it off if you’re not a big fan of the blur effect. If you do, you don’t have to worry about the Depth of Field Quality setting. If you don’t, make sure to keep that at Quarter Denoise.

The remaining three settings should be turned on if you’re looking to make Baldur’s Gate 3 look as pretty as possible. Each of them will eat up a couple of FPS on older hardware, but the sacrifice is worthwhile. The only setting you may want to consider turning off is Bloom. Not necessarily because it will impact your performance all that much, but mostly because the effect can be a bit too bright and distracting in certain areas.

Recommended Graphics Settings

For a quick summary of our recommended settings, check out the table below. These settings are ideal for above-average, though not necessarily top-of-the-line hardware. If you’re living on the bleeding edge of technology, you should definitely crank everything up to max. If you’re still rocking that venerable old hardware, on the other hand, feel free to lower some of the more demanding settings. Not sure how Larian managed to pull it off, but Baldur’s Gate 3 looks great either way.

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