Gray Zone Warfare has launched in early access on Steam just as the top dog in extraction shooters, Escape from Tarkov, is suffering from a self-inflicted wound. However, players have complained that this upstart shooter’s performance is too dodgy to recommend at launch. Fortunately, the developers have provided a few tips and tricks to get the smoothest frame rates possible with your hardware.
The first thing the Gray Zone Warfare developers recommend doing is an obvious one: pick the server with the lowest latency. However, if you’re facing long queue times, they also suggest picking the Lamang Recovery Initiative faction – that one is the least-populated for the time being, which means you may get into servers quicker if you’re aligned with that faction. However, note that you will have to stick with that faction at least until the next reset.
As far as performance for the new FPS game goes, you’ll want the latest drivers provided by your GPU manufacturer. You can find those for Nvidia, AMD, and Intel at those links.
Madfinger Games also recommends a few specific settings configurations depending on your graphics card make and model. If you own an Nvidia 30xx series GPU, they suggest using FSR with frame generation on and super resolution (found under anti-aliasing – upscaling method) set to either performance or balanced. If you own a 40xx series Nvidia GPU, use DLSS, and turn on hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling in your Windows display settings. Frame generation will then be enabled in-game.
For AMD cards, Madfinger recommends using FSR, enabling frame generation, and adjusting super resolution settings to find the ideal balance between performance and image quality.
As you may have guessed, Intel cards will benefit most from the XeSS upscaling method. All of these settings can be found under options – graphics – anti-aliasing in Gray Zone Warfare’s menu.
The developers also note that you may experience frame “stuttering” as you explore the island, and this will be particularly noticeable when you enter an area for the first time. While they don’t explain why, it’s likely that Gray Zone Warfare is building its shader cache based on your location, and that’s what causes the performance issues the first time you visit a location. Once the shader cache is established, you shouldn’t see (as much) frame stutters.
Long-time Tarkov streamer Pestily has been playing Gray Zone Warfare, and for streaming purposes, he’s set every possible graphics setting to the lowest level available. That’s more or less been how most of the serious Tarkov streamers have approached graphics menus for the past several years as well.
If you’re thinking of jumping into early access, be sure to check the Gray Zone Warfare system requirements first. You also might be interested in our list of the best multiplayer games for PC.
You can also follow us on Google News for daily PC games news, reviews, and guides, or grab our PCGN deals tracker to net yourself some bargains.