Last Epoch, a new ARPG, is finally transitioning from Early Access to its full release tomorrow, February 21st. In this genre, the performance of your PC can become secondary once you start battling hordes of enemies and witnessing those loot explosions. You will inevitably encounter some lag spikes or other stuttering issues. This guide will help you avoid these problems and achieve the best visual settings while also ensuring maximum FPS. Keep in mind, these settings might change with the final release of update 1.0 or through future updates. We will update this article with any new changes.
Table of Contents
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Best Settings For Visuals with Max FPS in Last Epoch
Before we reveal the best settings, first you need to understand what each setting does and adjust them according to your preferences and your PC's capabilities.
Quality Settings
The overall visual quality, especially the ground and rock textures, is greatly affected by the quality settings. Through comparison, we've found that very low and low settings result in blurry textures. Medium settings, however, provide the perfect balance of sharpness without any significant difference when moving up to ultra. So, for texture quality, medium is the way to go.
Shadow Quality
Shadow quality enhances the sharpness and intensity of shadows cast by the player and the environment. The most notable improvement is seen when switching from low to medium. Very high settings add more depth and clearer outlines, but ultra settings don't seem to offer any visible improvement over very high.
Anti-Aliasing
Anti-aliasing helps smooth out the jagged edges on objects. FXAA makes minimal changes, SMAA smoothens things out slightly, and TAA offers the best smoothing while maintaining environmental clarity. However, TAA might soften the character's appearance too much for some. This choice comes down to personal preference.
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Reflections
Reflections mainly affect water surfaces, which you'll encounter infrequently. The significant improvement is from very low to low, with medium adding more ripples. High settings and above introduce more detailed light reflection on waves, but the difference isn't drastic, making low a solid choice for most players.
Ambient Occlusion
This setting adds shadows to objects that are closer together. Low strikes a good balance, providing a decent visual impact without overdoing it.
Volumetric Lighting
Volumetric lighting simulates fog and dust. For clearer visuals, it's best kept at very low. Low and medium introduce fog with sun-cast lighting, while high and very high add more sun rays for more realistic fog effects. Ultra, however, doesn't seem to add any benefit.
Screen Space Reflections
These simulate light reflecting off wet surfaces and are less taxing on performance compared to full reflection simulations. There's little difference between very low, low, and medium settings. High offers slight improvements, but there's no noticeable difference between high and very high. If reflections are enabled, setting this to very low is advisable for minimal performance impact.
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Terrain Quality
Terrain quality affects the geometric detail of rocks, boulders, and other terrain features but doesn't influence their texture quality. This setting is hardly noticeable and is more relevant if the overall quality settings are higher.
Personal Settings for Optimal Performance
Here are my best settings, but keep in mind I have a very high-end PC. Check out our Last Epoch System Requirements article here to see where your PC stands - Last Epoch System Requirements: Minimum and Recommended PC Specs.
- Quality Settings: Medium to high for overall visual clarity.
- Shadow Quality: Medium to very high for the best shadow detail.
- Anti-Aliasing: SMAA if jagged edges are bothersome, otherwise none.
- Reflections: Low to medium for adequate water reflections without looking out of place.
- Ambient Occlusion: Low for a subtle depth effect.
- Screen Space Reflections: Low if reflections are used; otherwise, high.
- Terrain Quality: Very low, as changes in terrain detail are minimal in the areas tested.
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And that concludes our guide on the best settings for optimal visuals and maximum FPS in Last Epoch. Based on the guidelines provided above, choose the ones that best fit your PC and preferences. For more Last Epoch news and guides, check out the rest of our website.
