Best Last of Us Part 1 settings on PC and Steam Deck

Any time a console game makes its way to PC, there can be a bit of overconfidence that good performance is a given. This is only the case if you're using the best Last of Us settings for your gaming PC, laptop, or handheld. We've put Naughty God's iconic adventure to the test and have a comprehensive look at which settings you should be using.

Before you throw your money at Naughty Dog, check out The Last of Us system requirements. Doing so will help you check whether your gaming PC is up to the task, as you'll need one of the best graphics card options on the market to match PS5 performance. That said, you won't need an Nvidia RTX 4080 to simply run the game, and our best settings suggestions will aid you in your quest to boost fps at higher resolutions.

• Animation quality: High
• Draw distance: Medium
• Dynamic object level of detail: High
• Character level of detail: High
• Environment level of detail: High
• Dynamic object texture quality: High
• Character texture quality: High
• Environment texture quality: High
• Visual effects texture quality: High
• Texture filtering: Anisotropic 4x
• Texture sampling quality: High
• Ambient shadows quality: Full resolution
• Directional shadow quality: Medium
• Directional shadow resolution: Medium
• Directional shadow distance: Medium
• Image-based lighting: On
• Spotlight shadow resolution: High
• Point light shadow resolution: Medium
• Bounced lighting: On
• Screen space shadow quality: High
• Dynamic screen space shadows: On
• Contact shadow quality: High
• Screen space ambient occlusion: On
• Ambient occlusion denoise quality: Low
• Screen space direction occlusion: On
• Screen space cone tracing: On
• Screen space reflections: On

Using the above settings on our Nvidia RTX 4070 testing rig (full specs under How We Test), we are able to achieve a frame rate of 111fps, with 1% lows of 80fps. This is a super solid return for a single-player game, with realistically anything that bags you a 1% low of 60fps+ being ideal, so long as the image quality isn't hampered by aggressive upscaling.

Nvidia DLSS

These days, it feels like AI upscalers are almost mandatory, as they'll enable you to reach higher frame rates without too many caveats. If you're rocking a GeForce RTX graphics card, you'll be able to turn the Nvidia DLSS option on within the 'display' options menu, and it'll make a hell of a difference. We're taking a 40% frame rate hike while using 'balanced' mode, so we reckon it's worth switching it on.

It's worth noting that DLSS isn't perfect, and it won't always dynamically switch resolutions fast enough for you not to notice. You'll probably spot an occasional poster on a wall that's blurry or a texture that lacks oomph. Nevertheless, if it gets you over the 60fps line without making everything look like a PS3 demake, we'd say use it.

Draw distance

In an open-world game, we wouldn't recommend compromising on draw distance, but the same doesn't necessarily apply to The Last of Us. Many areas of the game are spent within confined spaces, both outside and indoors, so you might not notice much difference switching down to low.

Shadow quality

As you can probably tell from our best settings list above, The Last of Us shadow settings are split up into multiple options. Playing around with quality, resolution, and distance options is going to help provide a few extra frames, but we'd suggest keeping things on at least medium. Toggling down to low did provide up to 15fps on top of our baseline frame rate, but it also removed some of the pazazz from the PC port's visuals.

Texture quality

The Last of Us boasts wonderfully detailed textures that really pop, and compromising fidelity for the sake of frame rate feels like committing a cardinal PC sin. Weirdly, we didn't actually see much performance benefit tied to lower settings, but if you've splashed out on a card like the one in our Nvidia RTX 4090 review, we wouldn't blame you for embracing ultra settings.

Character quality

We'd argue that The Last of Us characters are what makes the apocalyptic drama special, and you'll spend a lot of time looking at the backs of Joel and Ellie's heads. For that reason, it only feels right to keep associated settings at medium and above, as dialling back will strip away any immersive definition.

Best Last of Us Part 1 settings for Steam Deck

Certain settings for The Last of Us Part 1 are locked on the Steam Deck, this has been done to obtain a Verified rating. Realistically, there is no need to adjust these settings on a device like the Steam Deck anyway, so it's for the best that the menus are structured like this.

While we've seen plenty of tinkering done to The Last of Us Part 1's settings to gain faster frame rates of up to 60fps, this is almost always done at the expense of image quality; therefore, we recommend sticking with the auto graphics profile, with AMD FRS 3.1 set to quality.

The Last of Us Part 1 presets

• Very Low
• Low
• Medium
• High
• Ultra
• Auto

Naughty Dog's settings menu is dense, so opting for a Last of Us Part 1 preset is a great way to clear a path to better performance. The page features a resource meter that'll visually fill you in on how much VRAM your graphics card boasts versus the amount being gobbled up by fancy visuals, so we'd suggest picking an option that doesn't turn the bar red.

Our Last of Us benchmarks indicate that switching your preset from ultra to high will provide a substantial frame rate boost. While the RTX 3070 could churn out a measly 16fps average using the highest options, we managed to increase that to 21 by stepping things down. Theoretically, that's a 31% performance increase, and while it's still not ideal, it helps us get an inch closer to that 60fps sweet spot.

By comparison, our RTX 4070 tests saw the ultra preset return a frame rate of  97fps with a 1% low of 62 at 1080p, switching this down to high saw it jump up to 119fps with the 1% low increasing to 87fps.

Of course, opting for a medium preset will facilitate even better frame rates, as it gifted us 10fps on top of that previous uplift. If you're not as much of a frame rate fuss pot, or just not used to the super satisfying frame rate heights associated with PC gaming, you might be content with playing the game at anything over 30fps. However, unless you're playing on something like the Steam Deck, we'd encourage you to make some extra tweaks to squeeze more frames out of the stubborn PC port.

Cranking The Last of Us preset option to low will cut back on VRAM usage and provide the biggest performance boost, but it's an assault on the eyes. Sure, we've tested games that look just fine with low settings enabled, but we encountered various visual quirks when playing with the lowest settings enabled, like texture popping and murky graphics. If you're playing at 1440p or 4K, we'd avoid stooping this low in terms of presets, as you'd be arguably better off playing the PS4 version.

How we tested The Last of Us Part 1

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 The Last of Us Part 1 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 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 The Last of Us Part 1 need an SSD?

The Last of Us Part 1 does not require an SSD, regardless of whether you're aiming for the minimum or recommended system requirements; however, it is recommended.

Upgrading to one of the best gaming SSD options will help keep game loading times in check and help you get the chunky 100GB game file downloaded much quicker.

How to monitor performance in The Last of Us Part 1

If you want to keep an eye on performance in The Last of Us Part 1, 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.

You can follow us on Google News for daily PC games news, reviews, and guides. We've also got a vibrant community Discord server, where you can chat about this story with members of the team and fellow readers.