How to Increase FPS in The First Descendant

First Descendant is quite demanding on PC hardware, so it can be difficult for players to run the game smoothly. There are FPS drops, crashes, and errors in the game, but they can be easily fixed with just a few steps. However, some problems stem from optimization issues, so some may require external fixes. Nonetheless, there are a few steps you can take to increase FPS and improve the performance of First Descendant.

How to increase FPS in The First Descendant

The first descendant of Shaders Graphics

Disabling Instant Replay on Nvidia’s GeForce Experience

If you don’t have Nvidia’s GeForce Experience installed or activated, you can ignore this tip. When I started playing The First Descendant, I was experiencing frequent FPS drops. Lowering the settings helped, but the main thing that helped me reduce FPS drops was turning off Nvidia’s GeForce Experience Instant Replay feature.

The Instant Replay feature lets you record video while you play games, and if you enable this feature, you can capture the last 5 or 10 minutes of gameplay with the press of a button. However, the FPS drop isn’t worth it, and once you turn this feature off, your FPS actually goes up.

Lower graphics settings

General Graphics Settings First Descendant

Users with less VRAM or weaker GPUs may experience FPS drops due to high graphics settings. Lowering these to at least low or medium should resolve the issue. You can always check the GPU with an external application, but you can also open Task Manager and look for the GPU category under Processes. If the GPU usage reaches 80-90%, you will need to lower the graphics to reduce the stress on the GPU.

Close other applications to improve memory

With Task Manager and The First Descendant open, you can check Task Manager’s memory usage to see if it’s over 90%. You can close other memory-hogging applications to avoid FPS drops. You may even experience game or PC crashes if memory usage is over 100%.

Close all unnecessary applications, especially those that also use the GPU, such as playing videos in the background.

Move the installed first descendant folder to the SSD

To increase the loading speed of the game, you can put The First Descendant installation folder into a SSD. This will increase the speed of loading screens and setting up shaders and assets in the game. The faster the loading speed, the higher the FPS.

Lower the resolution setting

Resolution setting for the first descendant

If other methods don’t work, you can always switch to windowed mode and lower the resolution in the display mode. The game will feel weirder since you’re lowering the screen size, but this should be a last effort to increase FPS. It’s a trade-off between lower FPS and a smoother gaming experience on a smaller screen. If worst comes to worst, you can always upgrade some hardware.

There are many issues that can cause these FPS drops, but you also have to differentiate one problem from another. If you use a controller with a third-party application, you may encounter different problems. If you are experiencing some DirectX12 errors, you should check out this guide.

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