Best settings to start with
Keen Games has not published official "best settings". The order below is what players on the Steam forum confirm most often since the 1.0 launch. Change one thing at a time and check what it does on your PC.
- Update your graphics drivers. This is the developers' first piece of advice in the official known issues thread (October 16, 2026).
- Turn off in-game VSync. Players report that in 1.0 VSync causes drops from 60 to 40 FPS and stuttering. If you need sync (for example because of tearing), several players enable it in the driver instead of the game.
- Set a frame cap in your driver (NVIDIA Control Panel or the AMD app) for Enshrouded, for example 60 FPS or your monitor's refresh rate. According to players, the game has no frame limiter of its own. For several people the cap alone removed micro-stutters and lowered temperatures.
- Pick an upscaler: DLSS Quality (NVIDIA RTX), FSR or XeSS if you are short on frames. Details in the table below.
- Lower shadows first. According to the developers they are one of the most expensive parts of the image. One player with an RTX 4070 Super at 1440p set Point Light Shadows and Fog to "performance", the rest to "quality", and gets around 140 FPS.
- Turn off overlays (Steam, Discord, AMD, NVIDIA) if it still stutters. Helpers in the support channel see many reports of overlays badly hurting performance, especially on AMD cards.
- Keep the game on an SSD. Steam lists "SSD recommended".
Player results vary a lot on similar hardware. Someone with a Ryzen 5 7600 and RTX 4070 Super gets under 60 FPS at 1440p, while someone with a similar setup gets about 140. Test in the open world, not in a cave: the game runs noticeably faster there.
What hits your PC the hardest
Enshrouded runs on Keen Games' own Holistic engine, with a fully modifiable world and a long view distance. In the 1.0 performance video, the studio's Technical Director and engine team name the biggest costs:
| Element | What the developers say |
|---|---|
| Sun shadows | "notoriously expensive", cascaded shadow maps were "a major performance bottleneck" |
| Point light shadows (torches, lamps in your base) | "another bottleneck", 100–200 lights around the player depending on settings; in 1.0 their impact is "drastically reduced" |
| Global illumination (ray tracing) | 2 to 8 times faster in 1.0, most of all in forests and thick bamboo |
| Water simulation and entity system | optimized in 1.0, water uses less memory |
That is why shadows are the first setting worth lowering. The 1.0 changelog adds less memory use, lower CPU load, shorter shader compilation after a game or driver update, and new presets for automatic GPU detection.
DLSS, DLAA, FSR or XeSS
PCGamingWiki lists DLSS 3.5, FSR 3 and XeSS 2 in the game. The 1.0 changelog does not mention newer versions.
| Mode | How it works | When to pick it |
|---|---|---|
| DLAA | native resolution, best anti-aliasing | strong GPU with frames to spare |
| DLSS Quality | lower internal resolution, upscaled | you are short on frames on an RTX card |
| FSR / XeSS | upscaling for AMD and Intel cards | you don't have an RTX card |
Player numbers from the "DLAA or DLSS Quality?" thread: a Ryzen 7 9800X3D with an RTX 5080 at 1440p on max settings gets about 80 FPS with DLSS Quality and about 60 with DLAA. Another player gets 160–180 FPS with DLSS Quality and 120–140 with DLAA. Note: if your CPU is the bottleneck, DLSS Quality won't add frames, it will only make the image worse.
Sources disagree on image quality: some players at 4K see no difference between DLAA and DLSS Quality, others see a clear one.
Is there frame generation
No. Version 1.0 has no native DLSS Frame Generation or FSR Frame Generation. The "No Framegen" and "Frame Generation on release" threads on the Steam forum have about 50 posts each, and the 1.0 changelog says nothing about it. Keen Games has not announced adding the feature.
Players use workarounds:
- NVIDIA Smooth Motion in the NVIDIA app,
- Lossless Scaling (a paid program),
- the "Enshrouded DLSS Frame Generation" mod from Nexus Mods (2X–6X, needs an RTX 40 or 50 card, version from October 15, 2026).
The mod is an unofficial add-on to the game files. You install it at your own risk, and it may stop working after the next patch. More about mods: Enshrouded mods. Players also point out that frame generation adds latency and works best when you already get about 60 FPS without it.
Stutters every 20–30 seconds after 1.0
Since launch many players have reported regular hitches: the game freezes for 0.5–2 seconds roughly every 20–30 seconds. It happens even on high-end systems (RTX 4080, RTX 4090), on M.2 drives and at 720p on the lowest settings. According to those reporting it, this did not happen before 1.0. Some suspect game saving, but that is unconfirmed.
What the developers say: the official known issues thread advises updating drivers and turning off settings that exceed your PC's capabilities. Players reply that this does not help. Hotfixes 1.0.0.1 and 1.0.0.2 do not mention the problem.
What players try while waiting for a patch:
- Turn off in-game VSync and set a frame cap in the driver.
- Turn off overlays.
- Move the game to your fastest SSD (for one player this cut the freezes roughly in half).
- Delete Steam's shader cache for the game (
steamapps\shadercache\1203620); it helps, but according to reports only for a while. - Report the problem to Keen Games support (the form on enshrouded.zendesk.com), as the Community Lead asks.
System requirements for 1.0
The Steam requirements have not changed (as of October 17, 2026):
| Component | Minimum | Recommended |
|---|---|---|
| OS | Windows 10 64-bit | Windows 10 64-bit |
| CPU | Intel Core i5-6400 / AMD Ryzen 5 1500X | Intel i7-8700 / AMD Ryzen 7 2700X |
| RAM | 16 GB | 16 GB |
| GPU | GTX 1060 / RX 580 (6 GB VRAM) / Arc A380 | RTX 2070 Super / RX 6700 XT (6 GB VRAM) / Arc A770 |
| Storage | 60 GB | 60 GB, SSD recommended |
One player measured about 11.5 GB of VRAM in use at 4K with DLAA on max, about 1 GB more than in Early Access. Full overview of version 1.0: Enshrouded 1.0: release, price and changes.
Steam Deck
Steam now rates Enshrouded "Verified" (as of October 17, 2026; on October 15 it was still "Unsupported"). The developers wrote on October 14 that they had resubmitted the game for certification. According to Valve's tests the default settings run well, while external controllers are not supported as the primary controller.
Keen Games recommends the default settings on the Deck. Known issues according to support:
- on first launch a black screen can last a minute or two (shaders are being prepared),
- after closing the on-screen keyboard the game may lose focus: tap the screen.
Known issues after 1.0 and workarounds
| Problem | Status on October 17, 2026 | Workaround |
|---|---|---|
| Toggle sprint doesn't work on keyboard | no fix and no developer reply | edit user_settings.json (below) |
| You have to loot corpses twice | no fix; reported mainly by players joining someone else's world or server | wait 1–2 seconds before pressing E |
| You can't edit your world | world settings fixed in 1.0.0.2 | subscribe to anything in Adventure Sharing |
| Sound (reverb, ducking) | known developer issue | master volume at 100%, adjust the rest in Windows |
| Dense grey fog on Nvidia cards | fixed in 1.0.0.2 | update the game |
| HDR: no calibration screen, oversaturated colors | reported by players | turn off HDR or adjust your monitor |
| Outdated driver message despite current drivers | reported by players | none |
The automatic loot pickup added in 1.0 deliberately skips enemy corpses and containers. Holding the interact button only collects scattered items.
How to get toggle sprint back
The 1.0 update reset custom key bindings, and the settings file now lives in a different place. Players restore toggle sprint like this:
- In the game, open the key binding settings and switch the control scheme from the default ("Preset A") to "Custom". Without this the file has no sprint section.
- With the game still running, open
Steam\userdata\<your ID>\1203620\remote\user_settings.json(make a backup). - Find
"id": "Sprint"and at the end of that section change"toggle": falseto"toggle": true. According to one player, sprint appears twice in the file. - Save the file, quit the game and let Steam Cloud sync the settings. After relaunching, "[Toggle]" appears next to sprint.
Patches since launch
| Patch | Date | What matters for performance |
|---|---|---|
| 1.0.0.1 (1267041) | October 15, 2026 | random crashes, crashes caused by some devices connected to the PC, indoor brightness |
| 1.0.0.2 (1269579) | October 16, 2026 | grey fog on Nvidia (Hollow Halls), crashes when fast traveling and landing with the glider, water crashes and crashes with a full backpack |
As of the evening of October 17, 2026 there was no further patch. The developers said before launch that they will keep working on performance after 1.0.
Frequently asked questions
DLAA or DLSS Quality in Enshrouded?
DLAA if you have frames to spare: it gives the best image at native resolution. DLSS Quality if you are short on FPS: in player reports it adds about 20–40 frames.
Does Enshrouded have frame generation?
No. Version 1.0 has no native frame generation. Players use NVIDIA Smooth Motion, Lossless Scaling or an unofficial mod.
Why does the game stutter every 30 seconds?
Keen Games has not given a cause, and two patches have not fixed it. Start by turning off VSync, capping frames in the driver and disabling overlays.
Does Enshrouded work on Steam Deck?
Yes, it is rated "Verified" (October 17, 2026). The developers recommend the default settings.
Does this apply to PS5?
This guide is about PC. We cover the console version in Enshrouded on PS5 and Xbox. How to host a world and what to do when you can't connect is in our co-op guide, and your first steps in the game are in the beginner's guide.
