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How To Get Great FPS In Valheim (Experiment)

By techNOlogics

So I've been playing Valheim for a bit now and have messed with the graphics settings to try and get the best performance. I'm going to go through each setting and the possible FPS gain you can get, with this info you can pick for yourself what you want or just copy down settings. I am not testing on super high-end hardware so a lot of users should see similar results. This IS NOT fact it is more of an experiment.

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Created by

techNOlogics
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Category: Co-op, Game Modes, Gameplay Basics, Modding or Configuration, Multiplayer, Secrets

Languages: English

Posted

Updated

25 Mar, 2021 @ 6:13pm

14 Jun, 2022 @ 12:11pm

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Guide Index

Overview

Findings/Settings Part 1 (Control Groups and Explanation)

Findings/Settings Part 2 (Data)

Findings/Settings Part 3 (VSync)

*Before Commenting*

Comments

Findings/Settings Part 1 (Control Groups and Explanation)

Explanation

This is what my settings are at and what I will use to get a benchmark for every graphical setting change. Along with that, I'm running the game at 1920x1080 at 75hz. VSync is indeed off we will get to that later.

Control Group Settings

*Slider Options*
Vegetation Quality: High
Particle Lights: High
Draw Distance/Level of Detail: High
Shadow Quality: High

*On/Off Options*
Bloom: On
SSAO: On
Sun Shafts: On
Motion Blur: Off
Tessellation: On
Soft Particles: On
Depth of Field: On
Anti-Aliasing: On
Chromatic Aberration: On
VSync: Off

Findings/Settings Part 2 (Data)

Slider Options

(Mileage May Vary)

Vegetation Quality
Low: +15 FPS
Medium: +13 FPS
High: Control Variable

Particle Lights
Low: +12 FPS
Medium: +9 FPS
High: Control Variable

Draw Distance/Level of Detail
Low: +16 FPS
Medium: +14 FPS
High: Control Variable
Very High: -3 FPS

Shadow Quality
Low: +26 FPS
Medium: +21 FPS
High: Control Variable

On/Off Options

(Mileage May Vary)

Bloom
On: Control Variable
Off: +18 FPS

SSAO
On: Control Variable
Off: +14 FPS

Sun Shafts
On: Control Variable
Off: N/A - For some reason this changed so much and I could not get an avg. FPS

Motion Blur
On: None
Off: Control Variable

Tessellation
On: Control Variable
Off: None

Soft Particles
On: Control Variable
Off: None

Depth of Field
On: Control Variable
Off: +4 FPS

Anti-Aliasing
On: Control Variable
Off: +2 FPS

Chromatic Aberration
On: Control Variable
Off: +2 FPS

Findings/Settings Part 3 (VSync)

Why VSync Is Not Needed or When You Need It

Unless you are experiencing screen tearing and just can't handle it I would recommend not to use VSync. As with any game, it will kill your FPS. In short, VSync caps your FPS to your monitor's refresh rate (or half of that if your GPU can't keep up). So I'm running at 75hz so with VSync on I get either 75 FPS or around 37 FPS (in theory). For me, I don't notice or have much screen tearing at all so I have VSync turned off. If you notice screen tearing feel free to turn it on!

*Before Commenting*

Because I have had several people comment who didn't read the guide claiming things and I had to delete them...I thought I would explain with a Q & A.

This is an EXPERIMENT, your mileage may vary (as stated above) with your results.

Q: What does +5 FPS mean?
A: It means that the option gave you an extra 5 FPS compared to the control.

Q: Do you have VSync on?
A: No read above.

Q: What was your FPS control variable, why don't you disclose it?
A: I had an average of 50 FPS with the control group settings. I ran 10-20 minute tests for each option so the "resting FPS" would change due to the game. So before every test, I would take a new control variable to compare to the original control variable to see if there was any change. As well as doing this I ran every test multiple times.

Q: Are you using Vulkan?
A: No, I wrote a comment about my thoughts below. "This depends on your graphics card. Without getting too technical if you have an Nvidia GPU you'll get little to no FPS gain (or even loss of FPS in some of my tests) compared to what you would get with an AMD GPU. If you have an AMD GPU try it out you should get good results. Same with Nvidia, try it out, but the FPS gain will be less."

16 Comments

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G3VEDO- 26 May, 2021 @ 11:27am

I have a GTX 1080 and a i7-6700k and im only getting 60fps. From what it is saying the game is only using 30% of my cpu and 40% of my gpu,

badsneeze 24 Apr, 2021 @ 2:30pm

max settings 80 fps

miniL 12 Apr, 2021 @ 8:54am

Unfortunately the game doesn't seem to make use of systems as well as it should. On top of that there is a really huge issue with FPS dropping lower and lower the more you change the environment (pickaxe or hoe) in the area it needs to load. So currently making a large base is rough on the FPS as well.

Grimoire 12 Apr, 2021 @ 8:44am

all the people suffering from FPS loss, Valheim Is heavy on CPU sided performance. Better CPU more stable FPS. Recently upgraded to a ryzen 5 5600x and im stable 144fps with a 1660.

'tis I, Bilal 11 Apr, 2021 @ 5:26pm

@TTV_Leoric86 Funny thing is my cpu/gpu is not being used all that much, I can run stuff in the background too. Its like Valheim is not using the resources all that much, even though I made sure I set it to high performance on my nvidia settings. Its even stranger because a friend of mine with a 1650 is able to run it better than my 1660ti

'tis I, Bilal 11 Apr, 2021 @ 5:22pm

@techNologics Damn, I would love to have a constant 50 fps, its such a shame since the game is so strikingly beautiful. I'll tinker around with my settings a bit more and see what I can get.

makka 11 Apr, 2021 @ 3:36pm

Thanks for clarifying the base framerate in the guide (like I said, measurements using FPS & not ms are useless without it).

Leo 11 Apr, 2021 @ 1:35pm

@ectasticslime I'm am currently running a 2060 super. I am able to have Valheim open, stream, play music, watch videos etc etc and have no fps loss.

techNOlogics [author] 11 Apr, 2021 @ 9:42am

@ectasticslime I did all my tests on a 1660. At peak I would get around 90 FPS with an average of 50 with my current settings (control group).

'tis I, Bilal 11 Apr, 2021 @ 9:01am

May I ask what your graphics card is? I am running a 1660ti and the fps i get no matter the settings is always horrible. At max, I get about 50 fps, but most of the time it keeps spiking between 20 - 40. At this point I am wishing I could lock it at 30 fps, forget about 60 fps+. Dont get me wrong though, I love this game.

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