---
title: "ARC Raiders FPS Boost: Fixing Unreal Engine 5 Stutter"
description: "ARC Raiders runs on Unreal Engine 5, which means shader stutter and expensive lighting. Here are the settings that fix both without making raiders harder to spot."
url: https://frozentweaks.com/guides/arc-raiders-fps-boost
author: Frost Live, Founder of Frozen Tweaks
published: 2026-08-29
updated: 2026-08-29
category: "Game Guides"
game: "ARC Raiders"
source: Frozen Tweaks (https://frozentweaks.com)
---

# ARC Raiders FPS Boost: Fixing Unreal Engine 5 Stutter

**Short answer:** For the best ARC Raiders performance, start from the Medium preset, turn Motion Blur, Depth of Field and ray tracing off, set upscaling to Quality or Balanced, and enable NVIDIA Reflex or AMD Anti-Lag. That configuration typically holds 60-90 FPS on mid-range hardware. Most remaining hitching is Unreal Engine 5 shader compilation and clears after a few minutes of play following a patch.

## At a glance

| | |
| --- | --- |
| Engine | Unreal Engine 5 |
| Typical mid-range result | 60-90 FPS on Medium with RT off |
| Biggest single win | Upscaling at Quality |
| Most common complaint | Shader compilation stutter after patches |
| Anti-cheat | Settings-level tuning only - never modify game files |

## Quick setup

1. **Start from the Medium preset** - It is a better baseline than Low for this game, and the individual overrides below do most of the work anyway.
2. **Turn off ray tracing, motion blur and depth of field** - Ray tracing is the most expensive option in the menu; the other two cost frames and actively hide threats.
3. **Set global illumination to its lowest option** - Real-time GI is the defining cost of Unreal Engine 5, and reducing it is worth more than every texture and mesh setting combined.
4. **Enable upscaling at Quality** - DLSS on NVIDIA, FSR on AMD, XeSS on Intel Arc. Step down to Balanced only if you are still short of your target.
5. **Enable Reflex or Anti-Lag and cap your frames** - Turn V-Sync off and set a cap about three below your refresh rate so you stay inside the variable-refresh window.
6. **Play two matches before judging the result** - Unreal Engine 5 compiles shaders on demand after every patch. The first session is never representative, and a lot of settings get blamed for it.

## Key takeaways

- Medium preset with ray tracing, motion blur and depth of field disabled is the right starting point on almost any mid-range system.
- Upscaling at Quality or Balanced is the single largest free frame gain - match the technology to your GPU vendor.
- Most of the hitching people report is Unreal Engine 5 shader compilation, not a settings problem. It clears itself.
- Extraction shooters punish frame-time inconsistency harder than most genres because engagements are unscripted and audio cues matter.
- Keep textures as high as VRAM allows. Exceeding VRAM in a UE5 title produces severe hitching rather than a lower average.

## What running on Unreal Engine 5 means for you

ARC Raiders is built on Unreal Engine 5, and that single fact predicts most of its performance behaviour. UE5 titles share a characteristic profile: expensive real-time lighting, heavy reliance on upscaling to reach playable frame rates, and shader compilation stutter that appears after every patch and driver update.

This matters because the fixes are different from a Source or Frostbite game. Lowering texture quality will not help much. Turning off the lighting features and letting the shader cache build will.

> **Before you change anything:** Play two full matches after any patch or driver update. UE5 compiles shaders on demand and the first session is never representative. A large share of 'ARC Raiders is broken' reports are a shader cache that had not finished building.

## Recommended graphics settings

**Starting point: Medium preset, then override these**
| Setting | Recommended | Why |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Ray tracing | Off | The most expensive option in the menu by a wide margin. In an extraction shooter where you need consistent frame times during unplanned fights, it is pure cost. |
| Motion Blur | Off | Smears fast camera movement and costs GPU time. There is no version of this that helps you spot a raider. |
| Depth of Field | Off | Blurs the background, which is where threats appear. Costs frames and actively harms awareness. |
| Upscaling (DLSS / FSR / XeSS) | Quality, or Balanced if you need more | The largest free gain available. Quality is nearly indistinguishable in motion; Balanced is a reasonable step if you are still short of your target. |
| Global illumination / Lumen | Lowest available setting | Real-time GI is the defining cost of UE5. Reducing it is worth more than every texture and mesh setting combined. |
| Shadow quality | Medium or Low | Large GPU saving. Keep it at Medium rather than Off if you rely on shadows to read light direction indoors. |
| Textures | As high as VRAM allows | Nearly free on frame rate if they fit. If you see repeated sharp hitching, you have exceeded VRAM - drop one step. |
| Effects / post-processing | Low | Explosion and particle effects are where frame rate collapses during the fights that decide a raid. |
| NVIDIA Reflex / AMD Anti-Lag 2 | On (+ Boost on NVIDIA) | Shortens the render queue. Meaningful latency reduction for a negligible frame cost. |
| V-Sync | Off, with a frame cap below refresh | V-Sync adds a full frame of delay. A cap inside the VRR window gives you tear-free output without it. |

## Telling shader stutter apart from a real problem

Not all hitching is the same, and the fixes do not overlap. Match your symptom to the right row before you start changing settings.

**Stutter symptoms and their causes**
| Setting | Recommended | Why |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Hitching in the first few minutes after a patch, then fine | Shader compilation | Normal UE5 behaviour. No fix required - it resolves as the cache builds. Do not change settings based on this session. |
| Repeated sharp hitches in the same locations | Asset streaming from slow storage | Move the game to an NVMe SSD. This is the most common cause of location-specific hitching in UE5 titles. |
| Hitching that worsens the longer you play | VRAM or memory pressure | Drop textures one step and close background applications. Check VRAM usage in your GPU overlay. |
| Regular hitch every few seconds regardless of location | Background process or overlay | Disable overlays, RGB software and capture utilities one at a time. Browser tabs with hardware acceleration are a frequent culprit. |
| Frame rate fine, input feels heavy | Latency, not stutter | Enable Reflex or Anti-Lag, turn V-Sync off, and cap frames below your refresh rate. |

**ARC Raiders profile in Pro** - Frozen Tweaks ships an ARC Raiders profile that handles the Windows, storage and latency side of this list and re-applies it after driver updates. [See the game profiles](https://frozentweaks.com/purchase)

## Frequently asked questions

### Why does ARC Raiders stutter so much?

Most of it is Unreal Engine 5 shader compilation, which happens on demand after every game patch, GPU driver update and Windows feature update. It produces heavy hitching for the first few minutes of play and then disappears entirely. If hitching survives past a full session, the likely causes are asset streaming from a mechanical drive, VRAM exhaustion, or a background overlay - in that order.

### What are the best ARC Raiders settings for FPS?

Start from the Medium preset, then turn off ray tracing, motion blur and depth of field, set global illumination to its lowest option, and enable upscaling at Quality (DLSS on NVIDIA, FSR on AMD, XeSS on Intel Arc). Keep textures as high as your VRAM allows and enable NVIDIA Reflex or AMD Anti-Lag. On mid-range hardware that configuration typically holds 60-90 FPS.

### Should I use DLSS or FSR in ARC Raiders?

Use whichever matches your GPU - DLSS on NVIDIA RTX cards, FSR on AMD Radeon, XeSS on Intel Arc. Set it to Quality first and only step down to Balanced if you are still short of your target frame rate. Never enable two upscalers at the same time; they fight each other and produce worse image quality than either alone.

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Written by Frost Live, founder of Frozen Tweaks. Canonical version: https://frozentweaks.com/guides/arc-raiders-fps-boost