What are the best Runescape Dragonwilds settings for PC and Steam Deck? For anyone who doesn’t like the trial and error of figuring out which specific graphics settings to use, Jagex has created the perfect menu. This is because there are only a few settings you can change in Runescape Dragonwilds, with the heavy lifting left to an auto-detect benchmark.
The Runescape Dragonwilds system requirements have already confirmed that you won’t need the best graphics card to start playing this new survival crafting game. However, even if you’re rocking an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090, you won’t get to pick which graphics settings the game applies.
Best Runescape Dragonwilds settings for PC
- Quality: High
- Frame Rate Limit: Dynamic
- Resolution: Monitor Native
- Upscaling Mode: Nvidia DLSS
- Upscaling Quality: Quality
- Frame Generation: On
- VSync: Off
The settings for Runescape Dragonwilds are extremely limited, with most of the work being done by an auto-detect setting that adjusts video options for you. You can set a generic quality option to anywhere between Very Low and Epic, but without more in-depth settings to adjust, it’s hard to understand what each tier involves.
This leaves the display options and upscaling settings to tinker with, and in truth, they have very little effect given the hardware we are using to test the game. Enabling Nvidia DLSS while using the High settings preset resulted in the best balance of visual quality and performance.
There isn’t a huge leap in the image quality if you look at each graphics preset side-by-side, but there is a noticeable difference between the highest and lowest quality. In the image above, the lighting is much more natural, the player character is more detailed and more realistically lit, and far details like the tree leaves are much clearer.
My only concern is the big gap in average frame rate and the 1% lows. Using the Epic preset, the average frame rate is 80fps with a 1% low of 32.2, but on the Very Low preset, the average is 146fps while the 1% low only increases to 36.6fps. This is quite noticeable in-game, as drops and stutters can be noticed as day turns to night, and during combat scenarios where there is more than one enemy engaged at the same time.
Given that Runescape Dragonwilds is still early access, there is plenty of time for performance issues to be addressed, and feedback Jagex receives from this period will hopefully help improve the game as a whole.
Best Runescape Dragonwilds settings for Steam Deck
- Quality: Very Low
- Frame Rate Limit: Dynamic
- Resolution: Display Native
- Upscaling Mode: AMD FSR
- Upscaling Quality: Quality
- Frame Generation: Off
- VSync: Off
With the above settings, Runescape Dragonwilds reaches a frame rate of 50fps, and is relatively stable. Combat can sometimes trigger a little bit of stuttering, but this is the case when testing on PC too, so it’s not an issue specific to these Steam Deck settings.
Runescape Dragonwilds runs surprisingly well on the Steam Deck, and it’s great to have more options for how to play outside of on a gaming PC or laptop. Having briefly tested the game out on the MSI Claw 8 AI+ and Ayaneo 3 too, it runs substantially better with a solid 60fps possible on the high graphics preset on both devices.
How we tested Runescape Dragonwilds
At PCGamesN, we use dedicated gaming rigs to test the best settings for performance and gameplay in the latest releases. The test rig used to play Runescape Dragonwilds includes the following components: Intel Core i7-11700F, Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 12GB, 32GB of DDR4 3,200MHz RAM in a dual-channel configuration, and MSI B560 motherboard. We also test using Windows 11 64-bit.
We always run our testing first at 1,920 x 1,080 to identify the best settings for this entry-level resolution, then again at 2,560 x 1,440 using the same setup to gauge the difference in performance. We use CapFrameX to capture frame data and compare testing sessions.
Does Runescape Dragonwilds need an SSD?
Runescape Dragonwilds does not require an SSD. Despite this, upgrading to one of the best gaming SSD options would really help keep game and map loading times in check.
How to monitor performance in Runescape Dragonwilds
If you want to keep an eye on performance in Runescape Dragonwilds, we have an easy method that works whether you’re using an Nvidia or AMD graphics card.
For Nvidia cards, ensure you have the Nvidia App installed and the in-game overlay enabled, and then hit ALT + R in-game to bring up your performance monitor. With AMD cards, you can enable performance monitoring via the Radeon overlay using the shortcut CTRL + SHIFT + O.
Alternatively, you can download free software such as CapFrameX or Nvidia FrameView, to get a cleaner, more simplified benchmarking tool that works with any graphics card.
With handheld gaming PCs, most will have a dedicated button to access a quick menu from which performance monitoring, sometimes called real-time monitoring, can be accessed.
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