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Start with the High preset, use your monitor’s native resolution, enable the GPU-appropriate upscaler in Quality mode, and cap the game at a frame rate your system can hold in the busiest farm and town scenes. For most systems, that means High foliage and effects, Medium shadows, High view distance, and a 60 FPS cap. Lower shadows before textures, and do not use frame generation to disguise a weak underlying frame rate.
Because open-world farming RPGs vary by engine, patch, resolution, and hardware, there is no universal per-slider FPS number. The settings below are a reliable starting profile, followed by a method for finding the actual bottleneck on your PC.
| # | Preview | Product | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
|
Farming Simulator 22 - PS4 - PlayStation 4 | $29.00 | Buy on Amazon |
| 2 |
|
Farming Simulator 20 (Nintendo Switch) | $37.27 | Buy on Amazon |
| 3 |
|
Farming Simulator 22 - PS5 - PlayStation 5 | $26.99 | Buy on Amazon |
A dependable starting profile
Use the following as a baseline rather than treating Ultra as the default. Dovetail Games’ optimized profile for a comparable open-world simulation uses High foliage, Medium shadows, High effects, High sky, Ultra fog, High post-processing, High view distance, Ultra textures, Quality upscaling, DirectX 12, and a 60 FPS cap. Dovetail reports an approximately 11% performance increase versus Ultra in GPU-bound scenes (Support Center update, September 10, 2026).
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1Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches2Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors3Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute| Setting | Starting value | Why it is here |
|---|---|---|
| Preset | High | Retains most visual detail without the disproportionate cost of Ultra. |
| Resolution | Monitor native resolution | Preserves UI and image sharpness; use an upscaler before lowering output resolution. |
| Foliage | High | Keeps crop rows, grass, and tree coverage convincing in normal play. |
| Shadows | Medium | Usually the most effective visual compromise for a GPU-limited scene. |
| Effects | High | Maintains weather and particle quality while avoiding the highest cost. |
| Sky | High | Balances cloud detail and GPU load. |
| Fog | Ultra | Fog quality can be retained in the cited optimized profile. |
| Post-processing | High | Preserves the intended presentation without an Ultra penalty. |
| View distance | High | Protects horizon visibility while limiting distant-object work. |
| Textures | High or Ultra | Texture quality mainly consumes VRAM; it is a weaker FPS lever when memory is sufficient. |
| Upscaling | Quality | Reduces internal rendering work while keeping the monitor output at native resolution. |
| API | DirectX 12, if offered | Matches the cited optimized profile; verify stability on your specific system. |
| Frame cap | 60 FPS to start | A stable cap is preferable to a high peak that collapses in busy areas. |
If your game does not expose one of these options, leave it at the preset value and move to the next control. Menu labels and their visual effects differ between engines and patches.
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Set the target before changing quality
Choose a sustainable frame rate
Decide what “smooth” means for your display and play style. Dovetail’s examples use 30 FPS for minimum-tier hardware and 60 FPS for recommended-tier hardware. A 30 FPS lock can feel consistent for a slower, controller-oriented game; 60 FPS gives more responsive camera movement and input. Do not select a target based on a short benchmark walk through an empty field. Test a dense crop area, a tree-heavy edge of the map, a town, and a weather effect.
Match the cap to the monitor
For a 120 Hz display, sensible caps include 30, 60, 90, or 120 FPS. Choose the highest value your system can hold with consistent frame times. If the game offers only arbitrary values, set the cap slightly below the usual average so brief rendering spikes do not cause repeated oscillation. Dovetail recommends a cap divisible by the refresh rate where possible.
Keep output resolution native
Native output resolution keeps text, menus, and the reconstructed image aligned with the panel. If the GPU cannot sustain the target, enable upscaling at native output before dropping the display resolution. Lowering internal resolution increases performance but can produce blur, shimmer, or breakup; lowering the monitor output resolution can make the entire interface look soft.
Find out whether the GPU or CPU is limiting performance
Changing graphics quality helps only when the graphics processor is the constraint. Use an in-game performance graph or a hardware overlay to watch GPU usage, CPU usage by core, VRAM, RAM, and frame time while standing in the same demanding location.
- GPU-bound: GPU usage remains near its limit, GPU frame time is longer than CPU frame time, and lowering resolution or shadows raises FPS. Reduce shadows, reflections, global illumination, effects, or upscaling mode.
- CPU-bound: One or more CPU cores are saturated while overall GPU usage is well below its limit. Lowering texture or shadow quality may barely change FPS. Look for crowd, simulation, traffic, animal, or world-density controls instead.
- VRAM-bound: Frame time spikes coincide with a full video-memory allocation, texture streaming, or visible asset swaps. Keep the native resolution, lower textures one step, and close other GPU-accelerated applications.
- Storage or streaming-bound: Hitching occurs when entering a new farm, town, or biome rather than during a steady view. Install the game on the fastest available SSD and leave free space on that drive.
Record the 1% lows or frame-time consistency, not only the headline average. A profile that reports a high average but repeatedly falls during harvesting, storms, or town entrances will feel less stable than a lower, locked target.
Lower settings in the order that preserves the farm’s look
1. Shadows
Set shadows to Medium first. Dynamic shadows from buildings, trees, vehicles, and characters require substantial rendering work, especially when the sun casts long farm-scale shadows. Medium often keeps contact and time-of-day cues while removing the expensive highest-resolution shadow maps. Move to Low only if the GPU remains the bottleneck after upscaling and other lighting changes.
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2. Reflections and global illumination
If the menu separates reflections or global illumination, reduce them after shadows. Water troughs, wet ground, windows, and polished interiors can trigger costly lighting passes. Lower settings are most useful when GPU usage spikes during rain, near water, or inside highly lit buildings. Check the same scene in dry daylight and bad weather before deciding that the setting is responsible for every hitch.
3. Foliage density and view distance
Dense fields, grass, hedges, and tree lines are common open-world stress points. Lower foliage one step when the frame rate falls in crop-heavy or forested areas. Reduce view distance when distant geometry, object streaming, or horizon clutter is the problem. Keep view distance higher if seeing landmarks, roads, or field boundaries across the map is important to how you play; sacrificing it can make the world feel artificially short even when the frame rate improves.
4. Effects and sky quality
Weather, dust, harvest particles, smoke, and other effects can be expensive in combination. High is a sensible compromise, but reduce effects when storms, sprinklers, or large particle events create the slowdown. Sky quality affects cloud rendering and atmospheric layers; lower it only if the GPU is still overloaded after shadows and lighting have been addressed.
5. Textures
Keep textures at High or Ultra when your VRAM is sufficient. Texture resolution changes surface detail more than it changes the number of frames the GPU can render. Lower textures to reduce VRAM pressure, streaming stalls, or hitching—not as the first response to a normal GPU frame-rate deficit. A lower texture setting cannot fix a CPU-limited town simulation.
6. Simulation and crowd controls for CPU limits
Some games expose animal counts, pedestrian density, traffic, or simulation distance. These controls are more relevant than GPU quality when a farm or town is CPU-bound. Lower one simulation control at a time and compare frame time in the same busy location. If no such option exists, a lower, stable cap is usually preferable to degrading every visual setting without gaining meaningful FPS.
Use the right upscaler and mode
An upscaler renders fewer internal pixels and reconstructs them at the monitor’s output resolution. Obsidian Entertainment Support describes the process as drawing the game at a lower internal resolution and using advanced techniques to enlarge the image while preserving sharpness (updated October 29, 2025).
Rank #3
- 400+ machines, new categories, 100+ agricultural brands family-friendly, relaxed multiplayer mode for 1-16 players New crops & machinery: grapes, olives and sorghum
- seasonal cycles add new gameplay mechanics production Chains add new economic Layer two brand-new maps + updated Alpine map
- vastly improved customization performance Boost on all systems latest Technology: DirectX 12, taa, amd fidelityfx Super resolution etc
- More than 400 machines and tools from over 100 real agricultural brands like John Deere, claas, case IH, new Holland, Fendt, Massey Ferguson, valtra and many more are included to sow and harvest crops like wheat, corn, potatoes and cotton
- Take on the role of a modern farmer and creative build your farm in three diverse American and European environments. Farming Simulator 22 offers a huge variety of farming operations focusing on agriculture, animal husbandry and forestry
| GPU family | First option to try | Adjustment path | Main trade-off |
|---|---|---|---|
| Supported NVIDIA RTX hardware | DLSS | Quality, then Balanced if required | Lower modes increase performance but can soften fine foliage or introduce reconstruction artifacts. |
| AMD or broadly compatible hardware | FSR | Quality, then Balanced or Performance only as needed | More aggressive modes can show shimmer, breakup, or blur. |
| Intel Arc hardware | XeSS | Quality, then a lower mode if the target is still missed | Image stability depends on the game’s implementation and scene. |
Keep the display output at native resolution and begin with Quality. Move to Balanced only when the measured GPU frame time remains too high, then use Performance as a last resort. Examine thin crop stems, fences, tree leaves, and moving water while switching modes; these reveal temporal shimmer and breakup sooner than a static wall. If the game’s upscaler looks worse than native rendering at the same frame rate, a lower conventional setting or a lower cap may be the better compromise.
Frame generation: smooth presentation, not a faster simulation
Frame generation inserts generated frames between frames rendered natively by the GPU. Dovetail describes it as interpolating generated frames between native frames (Support Center update, September 10, 2026). The result can look smoother, but generated frames do not make the underlying simulation, input sampling, or CPU work run twice as fast.
Enable frame generation only after the base frame rate is roughly above 45 FPS, as Obsidian recommends. At a weak base rate, generated images have less reliable motion information and the added queueing can make controls feel delayed. Artifacts become less noticeable as the base rate rises, which is why a stable 60 FPS native or upscaled result is preferable to a nominally high generated number built on an unstable 30 FPS.
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- Turn on the game’s latency-reduction option when available.
- Check fast camera pans, animated characters, thin fence posts, crop rows, and UI elements for warping.
- Disable frame generation if input delay or interpolation artifacts are more distracting than the extra smoothness.
Synchronize the output and control heat
V-Sync
Use V-Sync when you see visible tearing. It synchronizes completed frames with the display refresh cycle, but can add latency or create larger pacing steps when the system cannot maintain the refresh rate.
Variable refresh rate
If the monitor supports G-Sync or FreeSync, adaptive synchronization can provide tear-free output with lower latency over a variable frame-rate range. Keep the game’s cap near the display refresh rate and slightly below the rate your system normally reaches. This prevents the GPU from rendering unnecessary frames and reduces heat and frame-time swings.
Why a cap helps
Obsidian states that “a frame cap prevents your GPU from overworking and stabilizes frame pacing” (updated October 29, 2025). A cap also makes fan noise more predictable. If 60 FPS is reliable but 90 FPS appears only in empty fields, use 60 rather than allowing the game to oscillate between the two.
Fix stutter that graphics sliders cannot solve
- Confirm requirements: Verify that the PC meets the game’s minimum or recommended requirements before tuning quality.
- Update the graphics driver: Use the vendor’s current driver, and choose a clean-install option when the installer provides one.
- Close background applications: Browsers, launchers, recording tools, and other programs can consume RAM, CPU time, or GPU acceleration.
- Check the bottleneck: Confirm GPU-bound versus CPU-bound behavior before lowering visual settings. In CPU-limited farm or town scenes, adjust simulation or density controls instead.
- Disable overlays temporarily: Turn off Steam, Discord, GPU, and capture overlays to test whether they are causing hitching or frame-time spikes.
- Use fast storage: Install the game on the fastest available SSD. Obsidian recommends a fast NVMe drive where possible and discourages mechanical hard drives for this workload.
- Leave headroom: Keep roughly 10–20 GB free on the game drive, matching Obsidian’s support guidance, so updates, shader caches, and streaming operations have working space.
- Retest the same route: Walk or drive through the same farm, town, and weather conditions after each change. Otherwise, a different scene can make a setting appear to have helped when the workload simply changed.
Practical profiles for common situations
| Situation | Profile | What to watch |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum-tier PC | Target 30 FPS; High preset as a starting point, Medium shadows, Quality upscaling if available, lower foliage or view distance only after testing | Stable frame time in towns and weather is more important than a high peak in empty fields. |
| Recommended-tier PC | Target 60 FPS; High preset, Medium shadows, High foliage and view distance, Quality upscaling, native output | 1% lows during dense farms, storms, and streaming transitions. |
| High-refresh monitor | Try 90 or 120 FPS only if the system holds it; otherwise cap at 60 or 90 | Heat, noise, and frame-time consistency. Use a cap divisible by the refresh rate where possible. |
| GPU-limited 1440p or 4K | Keep native output; move upscaling from Quality to Balanced, then lower shadows and reflections | Foliage shimmer, thin geometry, and reconstruction breakup. |
| CPU-limited farm or town | Keep reasonable GPU quality; lower simulation, crowd, animal, or density controls if present and cap below the unstable peak | Per-core CPU load and frame-time spikes rather than total GPU utilization. |
| VRAM pressure | Lower textures one step, close GPU-accelerated background apps, and retain the target resolution | Texture pop-in, hitching during travel, and a full VRAM allocation. |
A repeatable tuning procedure
- Set native output resolution, the High preset, Quality upscaling, and a 60 FPS cap.
- Visit a dense field, a tree-lined route, a town, and a weather-heavy scene. Record average FPS and 1% lows or frame-time behavior.
- Identify whether the GPU, CPU, VRAM, or storage is responsible for the worst result.
- If GPU-bound, lower shadows to Medium, then reflections or global illumination, then foliage or view distance. Test after each change.
- If the GPU still misses the target, change upscaling from Quality to Balanced. Use Performance only when the softer image is acceptable.
- If CPU-bound, leave GPU quality alone and use simulation or density controls. If none exist, choose a lower cap that remains stable.
- Enable frame generation only when the native or upscaled base rate is already about 45 FPS or higher, then check latency and artifacts.
- Enable V-Sync or adaptive synchronization as appropriate and set a cap near the monitor’s refresh rate.
- Retest the same route after driver, overlay, storage, or background-application changes.
What the evidence can and cannot tell you
The cited optimized profile establishes a useful direction and an approximately 11% improvement over Ultra in GPU-bound scenes, but it is not a universal benchmark for every farming RPG. No farming-RPG-specific benchmark table establishes a fixed FPS delta for each individual slider. Your resolution, graphics card, processor, VRAM, patch, engine, weather, and save-game population can change the result. Treat the profile as a controlled starting point, measure the scenes you actually play, and spend visual quality only where the measured bottleneck demands it.
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