Best Palworld settings for PC

As update 6.0 lands and the Tides of Terraria content arrives, it's time to revisit the best Palworld settings for PC and Steam Deck to make sure you're still getting the best visuals and frame rate from this Pokémon-like RPG.

The Palworld system requirements already paint a picture of a game that won't cause problems for most modern gaming PCs. Palworld has come a long way since its early access launch, both in terms of PC performance and content, but finding the best settings for your hardware can still be a little tricky, and this is where we can help.

• Max FPS - No Limit
• VSync - On
• Motion Blur - Off
• DLSS - Quality
• View Distance - Epic
• Grass Details - Epic
• Shadows - Epic
• Effects Quality - Epic
• Texture Quality - High
• Field of View - 90

The above settings resulted in an average frame rate of 152 fps with 1% lows of 81fps. This is all while finding the perfect balance between frame rate and visual fidelity. The progressive gains when moving down through the various qualities provided diminishing returns, meaning the frame gain wasn't worth the visual quality losses.

Given that Palworld isn't an FPS game, there is an argument that frame benefits are a bit pointless past 60fps, but as with all our testing, we're trying to get the best balance of frames and visuals before coming to a verdict.

The trial and error process of getting the best Palworld settings was surprisingly simple, mainly due to only select graphical options being available to change. This should benefit gaming PCs that are older, so you can tailor performance, but it isn't so overwhelming if you're unsure which settings are having an impact.

Best Palworld graphics settings for Steam Deck

• Max FPS - No Limit
• Vsync - On
• Motion Blur - Off
• Anti-Aliasing - TSR
• View Distance - Medium
• Grass Details - Medium
• Shadows - Medium
• Effects Quality - Medium
• Texture Quality - Medium
• Field of View - 90

Palworld isn't a demanding game, but it isn't yet optimized for the Steam Deck, meaning your best performance will come on medium settings, with a few adjustments made for comfort.

The above settings should net you a solid 35-40fps, depending on what is happening on screen. This feels okay when playing, but there are definitely moments where performance still drops and becomes unstable. Pushing for high settings will drop your frame rate to around 20-25fps, which I don't recommend.

I did try limiting the frame rate to try and negate any drops, but this didn't work, which is why you are better off leaving it on 'No Limit'.

Going the opposite direction and dropping all the settings to low does boost fps as high as 50, but the graphical offset is ugly, and the texture and item pop-in is hard to overlook.

AMD FSR is not featured in Palworld, so there is no upscaling tech to help with performance. Nvidia's DLSS is featured for those on PC with a team green RTX GPU.

Palworld graphics presets

• Very Low
• Low
• Medium
• High
• Epic

There are five total graphics presets available in Palworld, with each offering a reasonable change in the visual fidelity. As you can see in the image below, the difference between Epic and Very Low is huge, with fuzzy edges, loss of detail at a distance, foliage/grass quality, and lighting all being far superior in the Epic preset.

It's worth noting that the frame rate limit isn't tied to your graphics preset or options, meaning you will need to make sure it's adjusted separately.

How we tested Palworld

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 Palworld 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 Palworld need an SSD?

You should be playing Palworld on the best SSD that is compatible with your gaming PC. An SSD is listed as required in the system requirements, but that's not quite as simple as it sounds.

While our testing rig does include an SSD, and this is how we boot all games, we can say that installing and running Palworld on an HDD was possible.

How to monitor performance in Palworld

If you want to keep an eye on how your gaming laptop or PC is handling Palworld, which doesn't have in-built performance tracking, there is an easy method that works whether you're using an Nvidia or AMD graphics card.

For Nvidia cards, ensure you have GeForce Experience 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.

Alternatives include Frameview, for a cleaner, more simplified benchmarking option that works with any graphics card. There is also CapFrameX for a more detailed look at how individual games are performing, with the ability to compare performance across games to see how your gaming rig is performing generally.

For more Palworld help, we have a guide to the best Palworld weapons and a guide to all Palworld resources and how to find them.

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