The Last of Us (PC): Ultimate Performance Guide - The Best Settings

Published: Mar. 25, 2023
Updated: Jun. 30, 2023

German English

The Last of Us Part 1 has been released on the PC and also demands a lot from high-end devices. We checked all settings for you and found the best graphics options so that you get the best of both worlds: High FPS and a nice looking game.

Update: In the meantime, the developers have released four updates. Especially the current 1.1.00 improves the performance immensely! Nevertheless, stuttering and bad frame times remain. To improve the frame times and stuttering, we have attached a corresponding section below.

This is how the benchmark was created: This time, we also took the environments of The Last of Us Part 1 into account. While the prologue and part of the game's start take place in a cramped city and very linear levels, you'll often find yourself in wider open spaces later on. The overgrown alleys of the big cities demand more performance, which is why we divided the test into two. As always, we tested the game on three different systems:

  • Gaming laptop:
    • RTX 2070
    • Ryzen 5 5600h
    • 16 gb RAM
  • Mid-range PC
    • RX 6700
    • Intel Core I7 9700k
    • 32 Gb Ram
  • High-end setup:
    • RTX 3080ti
    • Ryzen 9 5950x
    • 64 GB Ram

These graphics settings have the biggest impact on performance

All settings at lowest level in (3440x1440):

  • All Low - 99 - 102 FPS

Animation

  • Animation Quality High - 99 FPS

Geometry

  • Render Distance Ultra - 99 FPS
  • Dynamic Detail Level Ultra - 98 FPS
  • Detail Level Characters Ultra - 97 FPS
  • Environments Detail Level Ultra - 98 FPS

(Same with distance on Ultra)+

  • Detail level Dynamic Ultra - 91 FPS
  • Detail level Characters Ultra - 89 FPS
  • Detail level Environments Ultra - 91 FPS
  • All together 97 FPS

Textures

  • Texture Quality Dynamic Objects Ultra - 91
  • Texture quality of characters Ultra - 92
  • Texture quality of environment Ultra - 91
  • Texture quality of graphic effects Ultra - 98
  • Anisotropic filters x16 - 99
  • Textures Sampling Ultra - 97
  • All together 91 FPS

Lighting

  • Ambient shadow quality Full resolution - 94
  • Directional shadow resolution Ultra - 98
  • Directional shadow removal Ultra - 92
  • Image-based lighting ON - 97
  • Resolution of spot shadows Ultra - 99
  • Light spot shadow resolution Ultra - 98
  • Reflected lighting ON - 99
  • Screenspace shadow quality Ultra - 97
    • Dynam. Screen space shadow ON - 96
  • Contact Shadow Quality Ultra - 100
  • Screen Space Ambient Occlusion SSAO ON - 98
    • Ambient Occlusion Noise Reduction High - 98
    • SSDO ON - 98
    • Cone Tracking ON - 98
  • All together 80 FPS

Reflections

  • Screenspace Reflections Ultra - 100
  • Precision 100 - 99
  • Distance 100 - 99
  • High gloss 100 - 99
  • Quality of real-time reflections Ultra - 98
  • Real-time reflections Cloud shadows On - 99
  • All together 99 FPS

Shading

  • Screenspace Volume Scattering ON - 98
  • Refraction Quality Multilayer - 98
  • All Together 98 FPS

Graphic Effect

  • Volumetric effects quality Ultra - 94 FPS

City, Country, Performance - This is how much performance all settings eat up.

This is the result in the city: The lighting has the strongest influence, followed by textures. Here alone we lose a total of around 39 of the 45 FPS. This is where we start and set them as follows to get the maximum quality and as little visual loss as possible:

All settings to Ultra in the city result in 66 FPS on the high-end machine. Thus, we have a total loss of around 43 to 45 FPS. (Originally 102 FPS)

This is the result in nature: A similar situation applies to the scenario In Nature or in larger areas of The Last of Us Part 1. Here we notice that the same settings have the same effect on the performance. However, the render distance is now added to this. This set to Low provides an FPS increase of 8 to 11 FPS with all other settings set to Ultra.

All settings on Ultra in nature a result of 52 FPS on the high-end machine. So, all in all, we lose around 40 to 42 FPS. (Originally 94 FPS).

Performance on Ultra Settings

The best Graphics Settings you need to choose for The Last of Us Part 1

Lighting & shadows - Optimal settings

  • Resolution of the directional shadows: Set this option to High or Medium (depending on the start preset). From Ultra to High, we gained a whole 7 FPS and were able to increase the FPS from 64 to 71. On Medium, the frame rate even increases to 75. Interestingly, for us personally, the directional shadows look best on High.
  • Contact shadow quality: We tested this setting on Off and High. High gives us 3 to 4 FPS and off around 5 FPS.

Graphic Effects - Optimal Settings

  • Volumetric effects quality: You can safely push this setting to Medium and the quality of fog and light rays barely drops. We were able to gain a total of 12 FPS this way and jumped from 59 to 74.

Textures - Optimal settings

  • Here we recommend that you set all settings from Ultra to High. We would only leave the sampling on Ultra. Overall, we were able to save a good 10 FPS.

Other settings, because little things also make frames!

  • Quality of the real-time reflections: High
  • Resolution of light spot shadows: High
  • Motion blur + resolution: OFF

This is how many Frames you save with our settings

So we've found out which graphics settings have the biggest impact on performance in The Last of Us. Lighting, shadows and textures. Depending on the power of your PC, you should start with the High or Ultra preset. This is because most of the settings have hardly any effect on performance, but look damn good. We only put the screws where it's necessary. Overall, we were able to achieve these results with the following settings:

  • Notebook: 16 FPS
  • Mid-range: 17 FPS more
  • High-end PC: 23 FPS more
Notebook Mid-range High-End-PC
Ultra (avg. FPS) 37 FPS 43 FPS 58 FPS
Unsere Settings (avg. FPS) 53 FPS 60 FPS 71 FPS

Performance with our settings.

How to reduce Stuttering The Last of Us Part 1 - Improve Frame Times

Through our play through yesterday, we noticed some bad stuttering despite reaching an average FPS of 80 to 90. Many other players have this problem as well. This is caused by high frame times that are unstable as hell. So we are going to show you how you can improve the smoothness of The Last of Us Part 1 despite not having great FPS.

  1. You need to download (via msi.com) MSI Afterburner and Rivatuner (both come together)
  2. Now install and start both programs.
  3. In MSI Afterburner, go to the settings and then to “monitoring”.
  4. Scroll down until you reach “Frame Times”, click “Show in OSD” and choose the option to show graph and text.
  5. Now fire up The Last of Us Part 1 and run around for a little bit, maybe even fight. Keep your FPS and Frame Times in sight!
  6. Remember the lowest frames you noticed. Let’s assume your lowest was 72 FPS.
  7. Tab out and go into Rivatuner. There you’ll see the option “Frame Limit”.
  8. Set the Frame Limit 1 or 2 Frames below your lowest FPS. So in your imaginary case, set it to 71 or 70.
msi overlay to show your hardware stats.

Here you can find the settings for displaying in the game.

Do you have any questions or comments about our performance guide for The Last of Us Part 1 on PC? Feel free to leave us a comment or join the community on Discord & Social Media (via Linktr.ee).

Every tip mentioned in this guide has been practically tested by our team to ensure you receive reliable and accurate information.
The interest in digging deep into the gaming industry stems from the DayZ Mod for Arma 2 in 2012. Kevin started working in the gaming industry in 2016. First as a trainee at Survivethis, the biggest German Survival-Games-Site at that time. Only half a year later, he got accepted at Gamestar and later MeinMMO. Now, on Guided.news he implements all his Knowledge to deliver comprehensive news, guides, interviews and more unique topics.
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