Best Elden Ring Nightreign settings for PC and Steam Deck

What are the best Elden Ring Nightreign settings for PC and Steam Deck? We're ready to step back into the world of Elden Ring, and this brutally hard Souls-like is simple enough to run on gaming PCs and handhelds alike, thanks to one rather limiting feature.

The Elden Ring Nightreign system requirements surprised us, with very little changing from the release of Elden Ring back in 2022. This means you won't need the best GPU to get great performance, but an awkward 60fps frame cap prevents you from achieving super high frame rates at launch anyway.

• Texture Quality: High
• Antialiasing Quality: High
• SSAO: High
• Depth of Field: High
• Motion Blur: High
• Shadow Quality: High
• Lighting Quality: High
• Effects Quality: High
• Volumetric Lighting Quality: High
• Reflection Quality: High
• Water Surface Quality: High
• Shader Quality: High
• Global Illumination Quality: High
• Grass Quality: High

Using the above settings on our RTX 4070 testing rig (full specs below under How We Test), we hit the frame cap with 60fps on average, and 50fps as the 1% low. These are ideal results given the cap, and the only time I noticed even a minor drop in frame rate was when a menu would appear on screen.

The graphical and video settings are basic, as can be seen from the list above. There's also no Nvidia DLSS, AMD FSR, or Intel XeSS settings available either, so your gaming PC is going to need to be able to tackle Nightreign without the help of upscaling.

With graphical settings scaling from low to maximum, there isn't actually a huge immediate difference between the highest and lowest settings.

As you can see in the image below, the main differences are the blurring of objects at a distance in the low settings, and a sharpness to character outlines in the max settings. Elsewhere, grass density and quality are noticeably worse at the low settings, but otherwise, this profile still looks great, which should make it an easy decision to downgrade your settings if you're not hitting the 60fps cap.

Best Elden Ring Nightreign settings for Steam Deck

• Texture Quality: Low
• Antialiasing Quality: High
• SSAO: Low
• Depth of Field: Low
• Motion Blur: Low
• Shadow Quality: Low
• Lighting Quality: Low
• Effects Quality: Low
• Volumetric Lighting Quality: Low
• Reflection Quality: Low
• Water Surface Quality: Low
• Shader Quality: Low
• Global Illumination Quality: Low
• Grass Quality: Low

Unlike Elden Ring, Nightreign is not yet Verified for Steam Deck, instead holding a Playable rating. This is because the game requires some graphical tweaks, and in-game text may be hard to read.

Using the above settings, we averaged 35fps with frequent spikes into the low 40s while sometimes dropping below 30fps. There is a general stability issue with the game right now on the Steam Deck, and this is largely due to a lack of V-Sync. You can limit the frame rate via SteamOS, which offers some reprieve, but it's not ideal as Nightreign is showing signs of a game that can perform well above 30fps in some areas, so it would be a shame to limit it.

There is also a quirk with the anti-aliasing option, whereby having it set too low creates a blurriness that is sometimes incredibly detrimental to the overall image quality; however, when setting it too high, the image is almost too sharp, creating a very clear outline around objects in the open world. In my testing, I found it was better to deal with the sharper image than the blurry one, but this will come down to personal preference, so I recommend trying both.

Right now, the Steam Deck version of Elden Ring Nightreign is fine, but there is room for it to improve with future updates, perhaps even securing a Verified rating.

How we tested Elden Ring Nightreign

At PCGamesN, we use dedicated gaming rigs to test the best settings for performance and gameplay in the latest releases. The test rig used to play Elden Ring Nightreign includes the following components: Intel Core i7-11700F, Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 12GB, 32GB of DDR4 3,200MHz RAM in a dual-channel configuration, and an MSI B560 motherboard. We also test using Windows 11 64-bit.

We always run our testing first at 1,920 x 1,080 to identify the best settings for this entry-level resolution, then again at 2,560 x 1,440 using the same setup to gauge the difference in performance. We use CapFrameX to capture frame data and compare testing sessions.

Does Elden Ring Nightreign need an SSD?

Elden Ring Nightreign does not require an SSD, just like the original game. Upgrading to one of the best gaming SSD options, however, will really help keep game loading times in check.

How to monitor performance in Elden Ring Nightreign

If you want to keep an eye on performance in Elden Ring Nightreign, we have an easy method that works whether you're using an Nvidia or AMD graphics card.

For Nvidia cards, ensure you have the Nvidia App installed and the in-game overlay enabled, and then hit ALT + R in-game to bring up your performance monitor. With AMD cards, you can enable performance monitoring via the Radeon overlay using the shortcut CTRL + SHIFT + O.

Alternatively, you can download free software such as CapFrameX or Nvidia FrameView, to get a cleaner, more simplified benchmarking tool that works with any graphics card.

With handheld gaming PCs, most will have a dedicated button to access a quick menu from which performance monitoring, sometimes called real-time monitoring, can be accessed.

For more Elden Ring content, check out our Elden Ring Nightreign classes guide or our Elden Ring Nightreign skins guide for a breakdown of everything you'll find in the game. Likewise, if you're unsure about relics, check out our Elden Ring Nightreign relics explainer for a rundown of this key feature.

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