Sons of The Forest is a very well-optimized open-world survival adventure. Nevertheless, many systems experience stutters, performance losses or even crashes. In this article, we’ll show you which settings are the biggest performance guzzlers and how you can get the perfect balance between visuals and FPS.
Are there severe performance problems? No, Sons of The Forest does not chronically suffer from optimization or performance issues. At least not in general, because there are isolated players who report repetitive crashes, to which we have provided assistance. Also, some fans complain of stutters, micro stutter and lags. If you also suffer from this, then this article about the best settings in Sons Of The Forest is just right for you.
These are the best settings in Sons of The Forest – Max FPS, max quality
When does the FPS break down? In our measurements, Sons of The Forest especially shows great hardware hunger when we are at high positions. The map is gigantic with around 9.00 km², we determined the size of the island ourselves. The wide open — or forested — area then causes problems when visibility is high. But even in the dense forest, the FPS go down. Here are the settings with the biggest impact on performance:
Performance Killers in Sons of The Forest
View Distance Settings
| Settings | Level | Frames |
| View Distance | Ultra | 79 |
| View Distance | Low | 87 |
| 8 FPS difference |
Micro Shadow Settings
| Settings | Level | Frames |
| Micro Shadow | Ultra | 80 |
| Micro Shadow | Low | 89 |
| 9 FPS difference |
Contact Shadow Settings
| Settings | Level | Frames |
| Contact Shadow | Ultra | 78 |
| Contact Shadow | Low | 91 |
| 13 FPS difference |
Contact Shadow and Micro Shadow combined
| Settings | Level | Frames |
| Contact Shadow & Micro Shadow | Ultra | 72 |
| Contact Shadow & Micro Shadow | Niedrig | 97 |
| 25 FPS Differenz |
As you can see, the shadows and the visibility devour most of the images. We can easily recommend setting the visibility to medium; we could hardly notice a real difference. Especially in the forest or underground, you won’t notice any degradation anyway.
Contact shadows and micro shadows, on the other hand, hurt if you turn them off. Both settings provide a more realistic image. Plants cast shadows on their surroundings. The undergrowth darkens the ground below with its shadows. Between the foliage, you can see clear shadows. Turned off like this, the beautiful graphics of Sons of The Forest lose some of their appeal.
What are the best settings for the remaining options?
Here, it strongly depends on the performance of your computer: We tested with the following system:
- CPU: Ryzen 7 5950x
- GPU: RTX 3080ti
- RAM: 64 GB DDR4
- SSD: Samsung Evo 980
But also:
- CPU: Intel I5 8600k
- GPU: RTX 2070 Super
- RAM: 16 Gb DDR4
- SSD: Samsung Evo 970
In the first system, all other settings combined just made a difference of a measly 8 to 10 FPS. It was more noticeable on the second system. When we switched the setting on the 2070 Super from Preset Low to Ultra, 20 to 23 FPS on average were lost.
Worth Reading: Sons of The Forest: Full Map – Accurate Map Size, Spawns & Locations
What does that mean? In fact, Sons of The Forest is so well-optimized that it is difficult to find other settings that have a big impact besides some obvious performance hogs. And then there is also DLSS for all Nvidia cards. If you activate this, you gain additional performance.
Our tip: Use the presets, start with Ultra, and deactivate the performance guzzlers. Problems? Select the next preset, High, and turn off the guzzlers again. Still not the desired result? If you are just scraping your desired FPS for Sons of The Forest, then try out some more settings. The next best setting to mess around with in our tests was the grass and general shadow option. Still not getting it? Then try the next preset.
How about drivers? Sorry to list this, but do you have your graphics drivers up to date? Both Nvidia (download) and AMD (download) released a new driver version on February 08. Also, check if your hardware meets the minimum requirements!
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How to stop micro-stutters in Sons of The Forest
Not only the general performance or crashes cause problems. Most annoying are the micro-stutters, which make the image appear simply unfluid – but the FPS are great, aren’t they? Yes, many PC gamers know this problem! The so-called frame times just don’t fit, and this is how you fix it:
- Download MSI Afterburner and Rivatuner (via msi.com).
- Install and start both programs now.
- In MSI Afterburner, go to the settings and then to “Monitoring”.
- Scroll down until you get to “Frame Times”, click on “Show in OSD” and select the option to show graphics and text.
- Now start Forspoken and walk around a bit, also fight. Keep an eye on your FPS and Frame Times!
- Make a note of the lowest frames you’ve noticed. Let’s say your lowest frame was 72 FPS.
- Tab out of the game and go to Rivatuner. There you will see the option “Frame Limit”. Set the frame limit 1 or 2 frames below your lowest FPS. So in your imaginary case set it to 71 or 70.
