Best Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 Settings for PC (2026)

The best Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 settings for most PCs are the High preset with DLSS or FSR on Quality, then Shadows and Vegetation Detail lowered one step if you need more frames. If you have headroom, move to Ultra for multi-bounce global illumination, but leave the Experimental preset to RTX 4080 class cards and above. KCD2 is one of the best-behaved PC releases of recent years, so a few smart changes go a long way, and there is no shader stutter to fight.

Verdict at a glance

• Best overall setup: High preset, Global Illumination Ultra, Shadows High, Vegetation Detail High, Textures to match VRAM, DLSS or FSR Quality.
• Best value tweak: Turn on upscaling. Tier1Settings reports a 30 to 60 percent uplift, and PCOptimizedSettings measured 30 to 35 percent at Quality.
• Best for high-end GPUs: Experimental on most options with Vegetation Detail kept at Ultra, as PCOptimizedSettings recommends for 4K 60.
• Best for entry-level GPUs: Medium preset with Object and Vegetation Detail on High, Global Illumination High, upscaler Balanced.
• Biggest mistake to avoid: Selecting the Experimental preset on a mid-range card. PC Gamer measured roughly a 30 percent loss versus Ultra.

Why KCD2 is easier to run than it looks

Warhorse Studios built Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 on CryEngine, and the game’s lighting relies on SVOGI, a voxel-based global illumination system, rather than hardware ray tracing. TechPowerUp’s 35-GPU review notes there is no ray tracing at all; the Experimental profile simply pushes the existing settings further. That is a big reason the game scales so well across hardware.

Digital Foundry’s PC tech review was unusually positive. Forum summaries of the video describe no visible shader precompilation step and no traversal or shader stutter, with stable 60 FPS frame times on a Ryzen 5 3600 and RTX 4060. PC Gamer’s analysis headline sums it up: scalable frame rates, decent graphics and barely a stutter. Digital Foundry later included KCD2 among the best PC ports of 2025.

TechPowerUp found that 60 FPS at native 1080p needs only an RTX 3060 or RX 7600, while 4K 60 at native resolution requires an RTX 4080 or faster, with the RX 7900 XTX the only Radeon card to get there. Notebookcheck credited the need to run on the Xbox Series S for much of the game’s efficient design.

Official system requirements

Warhorse lists 100GB of storage and an SSD for the minimum tier. Note how high the CPU and RAM recommendations are compared with the GPU: towns are CPU-heavy, and Tier1Settings reports 20 to 35 percent lower frame rates in Kuttenberg and large settlements than in open countryside regardless of GPU.

Every graphics setting and what it costs

The Graphics menu uses Low, Medium, High, Ultra and Experimental steps on most options. PCOptimizedSettings measured each one on an RTX 4090 with a Core i9-12900K.

Shadows

The heaviest option in the menu. Tier1Settings estimates that dropping from High to Medium saves around 15 to 25 percent of GPU time on mid-range hardware at 1080p, more than any other single change. PCOptimizedSettings says most users will want Ultra if they can afford it, but Experimental shadows cost another 10 to 15 percent and nearly a gigabyte of VRAM for sharper silhouettes.

The catch: Medium shadows flicker more on distant foliage, so step down only if you need the frames.

Vegetation Detail

Bohemia’s forests are dense, and Vegetation Detail controls how much of it is drawn and how far. PCOptimizedSettings measured up to 20 percent cost and recommends keeping it at Ultra even on high-end systems where everything else goes Experimental. PC Gamer’s advice is to lower Shadows and Vegetation first when performance is close to acceptable.

Global Illumination

From Ultra upward, the game enables multi-bounce SVOGI. PCOptimizedSettings calls it a generational upgrade over traditional ambient occlusion, but it costs around 10 percent even on the fastest PCs. High matches the console setting. If you can spare the frames, Ultra GI is the best-looking upgrade in the menu, especially inside buildings and taverns.

Object and Character Detail

Both influence draw distance. Tier1Settings ranks Object and Character Detail just behind Shadows, Vegetation and GI for cost. Keep Object Detail on High or Ultra to reduce pop-in when riding; Character Detail only matters in crowded towns.

Textures

Textures barely affect frame rate until you exceed your VRAM. PCOptimizedSettings found maximum settings need around 12GB at 1080p and 1440p and 16GB at 4K. PCGamesN measured an RTX 4070 at 1080p where the High preset’s 1 percent lows fell to 39.7 FPS compared with 60 FPS on Medium, which it attributed to memory limits, so 8GB owners should drop Textures to Medium.

Volumetric Effects

Only 2 to 3 percent on average, but PCOptimizedSettings found it can lower 1 percent lows by about 10 percent. Forum summaries of Digital Foundry’s review mention lowering volumetrics on an RTX 4060 while keeping much of the rest high.

Upscaling and frame generation

KCD2 supports DLSS and FSR. At launch, PC Gamer and TechPowerUp noted there was no XeSS, no sharpening slider and no built-in frame generation. NVIDIA owners can force the newer DLSS 4 transformer model through the NVIDIA App’s DLSS Override, which TweakTown and Overclock3D covered at launch. If you want frame generation, the options are driver-level features such as NVIDIA Smooth Motion or AMD Fluid Motion Frames, or community mods such as OptiScaler. Mods are unofficial, so remove them before reporting bugs.

At 1080p on a strong card, Tier1Settings recommends native AA or DLAA instead of upscaling for the sharpest image, since the game is mildly CPU-bound there anyway.

CPU and memory: the hidden half of KCD2 performance

Most settings guides focus on the GPU, but Warhorse’s requirements tell a different story. The recommended 1440p High tier pairs a mid-range RTX 4070 with a Core i7-13700K or Ryzen 7 7800X3D and 32GB of RAM. Corsair called the GPU choice surprisingly modest next to that CPU and memory, and noted that in an open world that constantly streams assets, the amount of RAM makes a real difference. Dexerto described the game as very CPU-heavy.

In practice that means three things. First, if your GPU usage drops well below 95 percent in towns, no graphics setting will raise the frame rate much; Character Detail and Object Detail are the only menu options that ease CPU load meaningfully. Second, 16GB systems can work, but closing browsers and launchers before playing helps avoid hitches when entering Kuttenberg. Third, a frame cap you can hold in the busiest town gives smoother pacing than letting the frame rate swing between countryside and city.

Preset scaling

PCOptimizedSettings measured the presets at 4K with DLSS Quality on an RTX 4090:

PC Gamer found a similar picture, with Experimental costing around 30 percent compared with Ultra and up to 50 percent on some systems; only the RTX 4080 Super came close to 60 FPS on Experimental in its group, and not at 4K. Results are not always linear: PCGamesN recorded an RTX 4070 at 1080p averaging 56.6 FPS on Ultra with 27 FPS lows, yet 58 FPS with 43 FPS lows on Experimental, an oddity worth checking on your own system before writing Experimental off.

Best settings by GPU tier

Entry-level GPUs

Warhorse targets 1080p Medium at 60 FPS on an RTX 3060 or RX 6600 XT, and TechPowerUp confirmed the RTX 3060 reaches 60 FPS at native 1080p. PCOptimizedSettings’ low-end profile keeps Object and Vegetation Detail fairly high and uses Balanced DLSS, because those two options define how the world looks while riding.

Reasons to pick this profile: It keeps the world dense and stable in the countryside.

Reasons to skip it: If you play mainly in Kuttenberg, drop Character Detail and Object Detail a step as towns are CPU-heavy.

The catch: 6GB cards will need Textures on Low or Medium to avoid hitching.

Mid-range GPUs

The RTX 4070 and RX 7800 XT are Warhorse’s own 1440p High 60 FPS recommendation. PCOptimizedSettings’ mid-range profile caps Global Illumination at Ultra and chooses Ultra or Experimental shadows depending on the card.

Reasons to pick this profile: Ultra GI is the most noticeable visual upgrade, and mid-range cards can afford it with Quality upscaling.

Reasons to skip it: 8GB cards in this tier should run Textures on Medium per PCGamesN’s RTX 4070 findings at higher presets.

The catch: CPU limits in towns mean the frame rate will dip regardless of GPU settings.

High-end GPUs

PCOptimizedSettings recommends most settings on Experimental at 4K with Vegetation Detail kept at Ultra, which is where Experimental costs the most. A Steam owner report with an RTX 4090 at 4K with DLSS 4 Quality described 72 to 78 FPS on Experimental and 86 to 92 FPS on Ultra.

Reasons to pick this profile: The foliage density on Experimental is impressive, as PC Gamer noted.

Reasons to skip it: For a high-refresh 1440p monitor, Ultra with Quality upscaling is the better balance.

The catch: Experimental shadows eat nearly a gigabyte of extra VRAM for a modest improvement.

Practical setup tips

• Use borderless window. TechPowerUp notes that the “Fullscreen” option is actually borderless; there is no exclusive fullscreen mode, so do not expect a latency difference.
• Cap frame rate for towns. Because settlements run 20 to 35 percent slower, a cap that you can hold in Kuttenberg feels smoother than an uncapped frame rate that swings.
• Enable XMP or EXPO. In a CPU-heavy game, RAM running at its rated speed matters.
• Install on an SSD. Warhorse lists one even at minimum spec.
• Benchmark in the right place. Ride through a forest and then walk through Kuttenberg’s market; those two scenes stress the GPU and CPU respectively.

Steam Deck and handheld settings

TechPowerUp’s handheld review recommends FSR on Quality with the Low preset, then raising Object quality, Textures, Vegetation detail and Character detail to Medium on the Steam Deck. Stronger handhelds such as the ROG Ally X can take a step higher. A 30 or 40 FPS cap gives the most consistent experience on portable PCs.

Common mistakes

• Selecting the Experimental preset globally. Use Experimental selectively on cheap options like Lighting, Particles and Object Detail instead.
• Lowering Textures for frame rate. They cost nothing until VRAM runs out; lower Shadows or Vegetation instead.
• Blaming the GPU for town slowdowns. Kuttenberg is CPU-bound; lowering GPU settings will not fully fix it.
• Running mods without a backup. Frame generation and upscaler mods can break after a game patch.

How we compared

We compared these settings using Warhorse’s published requirements, the in-game menu, and independent measurements from TechPowerUp, PCOptimizedSettings, PC Gamer, PCGamesN, Tier1Settings and Notebookcheck, plus Digital Foundry’s PC review as summarised in community discussions and owner reports on Steam. We did not bench-test these settings ourselves. Most figures date from the February 2025 launch window.

Sources

• TechPowerUp: Kingdom Come Deliverance II Performance Benchmark Review, 35 GPUs; handheld performance review
• Digital Foundry: Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 PC tech review; best and worst PC ports of 2025
• PCOptimizedSettings: Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 PC Optimized Settings and Comparisons
• PC Gamer: Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 performance analysis
• PCGamesN: Best Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 settings
• Tier1Settings: Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 settings guide
• Notebookcheck: Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 technical coverage
• TweakTown and Overclock3D: DLSS 4 override coverage
• Warhorse Studios: official PC requirements, as compiled by Corsair, Micro Center and Game Rant

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best preset for Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2?

High is the best starting point for most PCs. Move to Ultra if you have headroom, mainly for multi-bounce global illumination, and avoid the full Experimental preset unless you own an RTX 4080 class card or faster.

Which settings give the most FPS in KCD2?

Shadows and Vegetation Detail. PCOptimizedSettings measured up to 24 and 20 percent costs respectively, and upscaling adds another 30 percent or more.

Does Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 have ray tracing?

No. TechPowerUp confirms there is no ray tracing. Lighting uses CryEngine’s voxel-based SVOGI global illumination, which turns on multi-bounce lighting from the Ultra setting.

Does KCD2 support frame generation?

Not natively at launch, per PC Gamer and TechPowerUp. You can use driver-level options such as NVIDIA Smooth Motion or AMD Fluid Motion Frames, or community mods.

How much VRAM does Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 need?

PCOptimizedSettings found maximum settings need about 12GB at 1080p and 1440p and 16GB at 4K. On 8GB cards, keep Textures on Medium.

Why does KCD2 run slower in Kuttenberg?

Towns are CPU-heavy. Tier1Settings reports 20 to 35 percent lower frame rates in large settlements regardless of GPU, which is why Warhorse recommends fast CPUs and 32GB of RAM.

Is Experimental worth it?

Selectively. Lighting, Particles and Object Detail on Experimental cost little, while Experimental Shadows and Vegetation are expensive for a modest gain.

Can I force DLSS 4 in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2?

Yes, on GeForce RTX cards. The game shipped with an older DLSS version, but the NVIDIA App’s DLSS Override lets you use the newer transformer model, which TweakTown and Overclock3D reported working from launch. It generally gives a sharper image in motion, especially on foliage, at a small performance cost compared with the older model. AMD owners on RX 9000 series cards should check whether the driver offers an FSR 4 upgrade for the game.

Does KCD2 have shader compilation stutter?

No. Digital Foundry’s PC review, as summarised by viewers, found no visible precompilation step and no shader or traversal stutter.