Last of Us Part 1 Best Settings [PC]

The Last of Us Part 1 is one of the most anticipated PlayStation exclusives to ever be released on PC after God of War 2018. However, unlike God of War, the Last of Us was released in a pretty poor condition with several game-breaking bugs, texture rendering issues, and overall poor performance.

Needless to say, this is one of the worst ports of a Playstation game to every hit PC, which is quite a shame considering how much hype was behind it. So, we’ll be attempting to optimize this port from being unplayable to playable with our Last of Us Part 1 best settings guide on PC. 

Last of Us Part 1 Best In-Game Settings

The Last of Us Part 1 features a boatload of graphics and video settings that we can mess around with to tune the experience according to our preference. I’ve tested different combinations of settings and found the combination below to get the best performance without sacrificing much quality. Just follow along, and you’ll be good to go. 

Summary Of Display Settings

Display Settings

• Mode: Borderless Window (No fullscreen mode available)
• Aspect Ratio: Auto (Automatically selects the best ratio)
• Resolution: Native Display’s Resolution (Use native resolution for clarity; lower resolutions gain FPS but reduce quality)

  

• Ultrawide Pillarboxes: Default (Essential for ultrawide monitors)
• VSync: Off (Causes input lag; turn on if screen tearing occurs)
• Framerate Cap: Unlocked (Add a cap if GPU averages >60 FPS to save power and avoid high temps)

Scaling Mode

• Nvidia DLSS Super Resolution (for Nvidia RTX GPUs)
• AMD FSR 2 (for AMD GPUs or Nvidia GTX series)

  

Quality

• Mode: Balanced (Lower modes degrade visual quality)
• Sharpening: 50 (Adjust according to preference)

Field of View

• Preference: Custom (Higher FOV decreases performance)

Effects

• Camera Shake: 10 (Adds immersion)
• Motion Blur: Off (Poor implementation)
• Chromatic Aberration: 10 (Adds filmic quality)
• Film Grain: 0 (Reduces visibility)
• Gore: Default (Adds realism, turn off if sensitive)

Graphics Preset

• Custom

  

Setting	Option
Graphics Preset	Custom
Animation Quality	Medium
Draw Distance	Medium
Dynamic Objects Level of Detail	Low
Character’s Level of Detail	Medium
Environment Level of Detail	Low
Dynamic Objects Texture Quality	Medium
Character’s Texture Quality	Low
Environment Texture Quality	Low
Visual Effects Texture Quality	Medium
Texture Filtering	8X
Texture Sampling Quality	High
Ambient Shadow Quality	Quarter Resolution
Directional Shadow Resolution	Low
Directional Shadow Distance	Low
Image-Based Lighting	On
Spotlights Shadow Resolution	High
Point Lights Shadows Resolution	Medium
Bounced Lighting	Off
Screen Space Shadows Quality	High
Dynamic Screen Space Shadows	On
Contact Shadows Quality	Ultra
Screen Space Ambient Occlusion	On
Ambient Occlusion Denoise Quality	High
Screen Space Direction Occlusion	On
Screen Space Cone Tracing	On
Screen Space Reflections	On
Screen Space Reflections Accuracy	100
Screen Space Reflections Distance	100
Glossy Reflections Quality	100
Real-Time Reflections Quality	Off
Real-Time Clouds Shadow Reflections	Off
Screen Space Sub-Surface Scattering	On
Refraction Quality	Multilayered Refractions
Depth of Field	Off
Motion Blur	Off
Bloom Resolution	Off
Volumetric Quality	Low
Lens Flare	Off

Animation Quality

• Medium (Best balance of performance and quality)

Draw Distance

• Medium (Fewer texture pop-ins, decent performance)

  

Dynamic Objects Level of Detail

• Low (Best performance, objects may look worse)

Character’s Level of Detail

• Medium (Balanced detail for characters and NPCs)

Environment Level of Detail

• Low (Best for current optimization state)

Dynamic Objects Texture Quality

• Medium (Good detail with performance boost)

  

Character’s Texture Quality

• Low (Best for crowded areas)

Environment Texture Quality

• Low (Adjust based on VRAM availability)

  

Visual Effects Texture Quality

• Medium

Texture Filtering

• 8X (Negligible difference from 16X, better FPS)

  

Texture Sampling Quality

• High (Good detail without performance loss)

Shadows

• Ambient Shadow Quality: Quarter Resolution (4% FPS boost)
• Directional Shadow Resolution: Low (12-15% FPS gain)
• Directional Shadow Distance: Low (Reduces performance cost)
• Image-Based Lighting: On (Slight performance hit, worth it)

  

• Spotlights Shadow Resolution: High (Minimal FPS loss)
• Point Lights Shadows Resolution: Medium (More taxing than spotlights)
• Bounced Lighting: Off (Taxing, minimal visual difference)

  

• Screen Space Shadows Quality: High (1-2% FPS cost, improves graphics)

  

• Dynamic Screen Space Shadows: On (No significant change)

  

Contact Shadows Quality

• Ultra (No performance cost)

Ambient Occlusion

• Screen Space Ambient Occlusion: On (1-2% performance cost, adds depth)

  

• Ambient Occlusion Denoise Quality: High

  

• Screen Space Direction Occlusion: On
• Screen Space Cone Tracing: On

Reflections

• Screen Space Reflections: On (Enables SSR fine-tuning)

  

  

• Accuracy: 100 (1-2 FPS cost, improves quality)
• Distance: 100
• Glossy Reflections Quality: 100
• Real-Time Reflections Quality: Off (15% FPS gain)

  

• Real-Time Clouds Shadow Reflections: Off (Minimal impact, better performance)

Sub-Surface Scattering

• Screen Space Sub-Surface Scattering: On (2-3% cost, improves skin quality)

  

Refraction Quality

• Multilayered Refractions (1-2% cost, better translucent surfaces)

Post-Processing Effects

• Depth of Field, Motion Blur, Bloom Resolution: Off (Improves performance)

Volumetric Quality

• Low (Better performance, worse with upscaler)

Lens Flare

• Off (4-5% FPS improvement)

Did You Gain Performance with These Settings?

These are the best Last of Us Part 1 settings you should use on your PC to improve performance. Although the game’s condition is not that great at the moment, the devs have assured us that they’ll investigate these issues and come up with a fix for them in their tweet. We’ll also update this article with more fixes and tweaks as new patches hit PC. But for now, optimizing the game settings is all you need to do right now, and I hope this port gets fixed. 

Want to improve performance for Last of Us part 1? Check out the guides below:

• Best Nvidia Settings
• Best AMD Settings
• Best Windows Settings and Optimization Guide