The popularity of Palworld is undoubtedly due to how easy it is to run, even on aging hardware. Sadly, however, the game provides no native ray tracing options to those with capable graphics cards, leaving potential upticks on visual quality on the table. Not content to leave their pals devoid of shiny rays, modders have taken matters into their own hands.
Regardless of whether you’ve bought one of the best graphics cards or something decidedly more affordable over the past three years, you’ve likely picked up one capable of ray tracing. However, the viability of turning on these effects in Palworld without running into problems will greatly vary depending on your GPU’s capabilities.
In their seemingly first ever mod, R3MINDOFFICIAL has provided the means to unlock ray traced effects in Palworld. Turning them on results in improved reflections and global illumination, making the world you and your pals inhabit altogether more shiny.
Unlike other countless faux ray tracing mods you may have seen, this is the real deal, as it calls upon technology baked into Unreal Engine 5, namely Lumen. That said, the quality of the implementation is variable, as this isn’t something that’s been curated by the developer.
There’s also the question of performance, on which R3MINDOFFICIAL doesn’t comment on directly. Ray tracing in all its forms can have massive impacts on frame rates, so it’s important to know the limits of your GPU before enabling it, as well as using it alongside features like Nvidia DLSS, if possible.
To their credit, however, R3MINDOFFICIAL has provided separate files that cater to different VRAM capacities, namely 8GB, 12GB, and 24GB on NexusMods. So, be sure to apply the one most appropriate for your graphics card if you plan on trying the mod for yourself.
If you’re looking for the best Palworld settings, we’ve got you covered. PCGamesN also has plenty of guides to help you get the most out of the game, including tips on how to beat Palworld bosses, explainers on Palworld dungeons, and more.