Pick your graphics card and you get the verdict. We remember your card for the next game you check.
What the studio publishes. The tags update with the card you picked above.
A pair like "RX 6700 XT / RTX 2080" means either of the two: the bar is set by the lower one.
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The newest releases with measured FPS. Your card stays selected.
They render the game at a lower resolution and rebuild the image. It is the single biggest gain there is, and the only one that does not force you to lower graphics quality.
In Quality mode. The best-looking of the three. At 4K the gain is bigger; at 1080p, smaller and with more loss of sharpness.
The universal option. A step behind DLSS in image quality, mostly on moving foliage, but it works on cards where DLSS does not exist.
Performs best on Arc, where it uses dedicated units. It works on NVIDIA and AMD, but FSR is usually the better pick there.
The tables above are all without upscaling, so these gains add on top of them.
Upscaling is the only lever that gives you FPS without touching visual quality, and that is why it is the first one to try: before turning shadows down, switch DLSS or FSR to Quality mode. The rule is simple: the higher the resolution, the more it gives and the less you notice it. At 4K it can save your session; at 1080p it gains little and the image loses sharpness.
Almost everything above is free and done once: Resizable BAR and Smart Access Memory ship disabled on many boards and are free FPS. If you own an Arc, updating the driver is literally the best investment you can make without spending a cent.
Stutter in the first few minutes after updating the game or the drivers is normal. It sorts itself out.
Steam, Discord and GeForce Experience overlays cause micro-stutter.
The studio lists it as required. On a mechanical drive, stutter while areas load is not fixed by any setting.
With a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 / AMD Radeon R9 M375X or similar and 8 GB of RAM you are in. Minimum specs are exactly that: the setup where the game starts and is playable, usually at 1080p with quality turned down — not the one that gives you a comfortable experience. The full table is above.
The recommended specs ask for a NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 / AMD Radeon RX 5700 or similar. The minimum guarantees the game works; the recommended one, that it looks and moves the way the studio designed it, around 60 FPS at 1080p on high quality. If you land between the two, the game runs: you will have to turn a setting down.
Drop one quality step and any of those figures eases off.
The calculator places it between the two nearest measured cards and gives you the range it falls into on Starsand Island. You will not see an invented exact number: you will see between which values it sits and whether it is enough. If your card falls outside everything tested, we say so rather than making a figure up.
It depends on the game, and Starsand Island is no exception. 30 is the playable floor in a slow-paced game, and you can feel it is tight. 60 is the sensible target: the image responds and does not tire you out. Past 120 it only pays off with a monitor faster than 60 Hz. And steadiness matters more than the average: a constant 50 FPS plays better than swinging between 40 and 90.
The game asks for 8 GB of RAM. Being short on RAM does not lower your average FPS so much as it causes stutter while areas load.
Between 20% and 35% more, depending on mode and resolution, without touching graphics quality: it is the first lever to try, before turning shadows down. The higher the resolution, the more it gives and the less you notice it; at 1080p it gains little and the image loses some sharpness.
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