Days Gone Low FPS: Fixes That Work

If you’re getting low FPS in Days Gone, the fix usually involves adjusting a few specific settings rather than upgrading your hardware. The most common culprits are the game’s built-in resolution scaling, VSync, and a known issue with the “Lighting Quality” setting that can tank performance on many GPUs. Below are the proven fixes, along with the background on why this game is so demanding.

Why Days Gone Is So Demanding

Days Gone was originally a PlayStation 4 exclusive, but the PC port released in 2021 brought with it a massive open world, dynamic weather, and hordes of enemies that can number in the hundreds. These hordes are the single biggest performance killer: the game has to animate, pathfind, and render dozens of individual enemies at once, which stresses both the CPU and GPU far more than typical open-world games. The game also uses a deferred rendering pipeline with heavy use of screen-space reflections and global illumination, which adds a significant load even when you’re just riding through a forest.

On top of that, the PC port has a few known inefficiencies. The most notorious is that the game’s “Lighting Quality” setting, when set to “High” or “Ultra,” uses a technique that is disproportionately expensive on many graphics cards, especially AMD GPUs. Another is that the game’s internal resolution scaling can sometimes activate even when you think it’s off, rendering the game at a higher resolution than your display and silently cutting your frame rate in half.

First Steps: The Quick Wins

Before you dive into the more technical fixes, try these three things. They solve the majority of low-FPS complaints with minimal effort.

• Update your GPU drivers. The game’s launch had several driver-specific bugs, and both NVIDIA and AMD have released optimizations since. A clean install of the latest driver (using “Clean Install” or “Factory Reset” in the installer) can resolve stutter and low FPS that no in-game setting will fix.
• Turn off VSync. The in-game VSync implementation is known to cause frame pacing issues and can cap your FPS at 30 or 60 even if your hardware can do more. Turn it off in-game, and if you have a G-Sync or FreeSync monitor, enable VSync in the NVIDIA Control Panel or AMD Adrenalin instead.
• Set the game to fullscreen, not borderless. Borderless windowed mode can reduce FPS by 5-10% on some systems due to the way Windows handles the compositing. Press Alt+Enter in-game to toggle to exclusive fullscreen.

The Lighting Quality Fix

This is the single most impactful setting in the game. Set Lighting Quality to Medium or Low. The difference between Medium and High is visually subtle in most scenes—it mainly affects the quality of shadows cast by dynamic lights and the accuracy of indirect light bounces. But the performance cost is enormous: on many mid-range GPUs, dropping from High to Medium can increase FPS by 20-30% with almost no visible difference during normal gameplay.

Why? The game uses a form of screen-space global illumination that is computed at a fraction of your render resolution. On High and Ultra, that fraction is higher, and the computation is done for every pixel on screen. When you have a horde of 300 enemies, each with their own dynamic light sources (molotovs, explosions, bike headlights), the cost multiplies. If you’re seeing FPS drops specifically when facing a horde or when a fire is on screen, this is the setting to change.

Resolution Scaling: The Hidden FPS Killer

In the game’s Display settings, there is an option called Resolution Scaling. It’s set to “Off” by default, but some users have reported that it can silently re-enable itself after a patch or when you change other settings. When it’s on, the game renders at a percentage of your native resolution—but the percentage is applied to the internal resolution, not the output. So if you’re playing at 1440p and the scaling is set to 150%, the game is rendering at 2160p and then downsampling. That will cut your FPS in half.

Check this setting first. If it’s anything other than “Off,” set it to “Off” and see if your FPS recovers. A related setting is Dynamic Resolution Scaling, which is meant to lower resolution automatically when FPS drops. If you have this on, the game can blur the image and still not maintain a stable frame rate. Turn it off and instead manually set your resolution to a fixed value.

Other Settings That Matter

Here’s a quick rundown of the other settings that have a measurable impact on FPS, from most to least impactful:

• Shadow Quality: High shadows are expensive, especially in forested areas. Set to Medium. The difference is visible only when you’re actively looking for it.
• Cloud Quality: This one is surprisingly heavy. The volumetric clouds can cost 5-10 FPS on their own. Set to Medium.
• Texture Quality: This affects VRAM usage, not raw FPS, unless you run out of VRAM. Keep it at High if you have 6GB or more; set to Medium if you have 4GB.
• Geometry Quality: This controls the density of objects like grass and rocks. Medium is a good balance; High adds a lot of extra geometry that you rarely notice while riding.
• Anti-Aliasing: The game’s TAA option is fine. If you’re desperate for FPS, turn it off and use the “FXAA” option instead—it’s much cheaper but will look slightly jagged.

CPU Bottlenecks and Hordes

If you have a powerful GPU but still see FPS drops when a horde appears, the problem is your CPU. The game’s AI for each enemy in a horde is simulated on a single thread, and when you have 300 enemies, that thread can max out. The game is not well-optimized for multi-core CPUs; it favors high single-core clock speed over core count.

There’s no in-game setting that fixes this. But you can reduce the load by lowering the Draw Distance setting—this reduces the number of enemies the game has to simulate at once. Also, close any background applications that use CPU (like a browser with many tabs). If you have an Intel CPU with Hyper-Threading, you can try disabling it in your BIOS for this game—some users report a 10-15% FPS gain, though it will hurt performance in other games, so it’s not a permanent solution.

When to Upgrade vs. When to Tweak

If you’ve tried the above and still can’t get a playable frame rate, you need to consider whether your hardware is simply below the game’s minimum requirements. The game’s official minimum GPU is a GTX 780 or R9 290, but those are for 720p at 30 FPS. For a stable 60 FPS at 1080p, you realistically need at least a GTX 1060 or RX 580. At 1440p, a GTX 1080 or RX 5700 is the floor.

If you have a GPU that meets those requirements but you’re still getting under 30 FPS, it’s likely a software issue. If you have a GPU that’s below those requirements, no amount of tweaking will get you to 60 FPS—you’ll need to lower the resolution to 720p and accept 30 FPS, or upgrade your hardware. The game is simply too heavy for older budget cards.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Why does my FPS drop to 20 when I look at a horde?
A: Hordes are the most demanding part of the game. Each enemy has its own AI, and the game has to render hundreds of individual models at once. Lowering Lighting Quality and Draw Distance are the most effective settings to mitigate this. If you’re still dropping, your CPU is likely the bottleneck.

Q: Is Days Gone better on PC or PS5?
A: On PC, you can get higher frame rates and better graphics if you have the hardware, but the PS5 version runs at a locked 60 FPS with very few drops. If you have a mid-range PC (GTX 1660 or better), the PC version is fine. If you have a lower-end PC, the PS5 version is more consistent.

Q: Does the game have a memory leak?
A: Some players have reported that FPS degrades over time during a long session. This is often caused by the game not releasing VRAM properly. The workaround is to restart the game every 2-3 hours. There’s no official fix, but updating your GPU drivers can help.

Q: Will lowering resolution to 720p give me 60 FPS?
A: If your GPU is very weak, yes. But if you have a mid-range GPU, you’ll get a bigger FPS boost from lowering Lighting Quality and Shadow Quality than from dropping the resolution. The game’s art style is quite dark, so low resolution makes it look significantly worse.

Q: Why does the game stutter even when FPS shows 60?
A: This is a frame pacing issue, not a raw FPS issue. Turn off VSync in-game and enable it in your GPU driver. Also, make sure the game is installed on an SSD—the game streams textures constantly, and a slow HDD can cause hitches even at high FPS.

Q: Can I use FSR or DLSS to get more FPS?
A: Yes. The game supports both AMD FSR and NVIDIA DLSS. If you have an NVIDIA RTX card, enable DLSS at Quality or Balanced mode—it can give a 20-30% FPS boost with almost no visual loss. If you have an AMD card or an older NVIDIA card, FSR works well too, though it’s slightly less sharp.

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in d | Distance | km | 10 | 0 | 100000
out pace | Average pace | min/km | t / d | 2
out speed | Average speed | km/h | d / (t / 60) | 2