Dying Light 2 PC Guide: Best Graphics Settings for Max FPS

Last Updated: October 20, 2025

Dying Light 2: Stay Human delivered on its promise as a visually stunning and ambitious sequel to the 2015 original. Its sprawling, vertical city and dense zombie hordes, powered by the C-Engine, can bring even the most powerful PC hardware to its knees. This enhanced fidelity, however, comes with a vast array of graphics settings that can be daunting to navigate. This re-mastered guide breaks down every crucial setting to help you achieve the optimal balance between breathtaking visuals and the smooth, high-frame-rate gameplay essential for parkour and combat.

Whether you're running a top-tier rig with a new RTX 40-series card or trying to squeeze playable frames from an older gaming PC, we have the definitive settings to get you running, jumping, and drop-kicking through Villedor.

The Foundation: Key Preliminary Settings

Before diving into the granular options, a few high-level choices will define your experience.

Render Mode

You’ll see options for DirectX 11, DirectX 12, and DirectX 12 Ultimate. For the vast majority of modern hardware, DirectX 12 is the way to go, as it offers better performance and is required for advanced features. DirectX 12 Ultimate is necessary to enable Ray Tracing, so select this if you have a compatible NVIDIA RTX or AMD RX 6000/7000 series GPU and want to enable those features.

Asynchronous Compute

This setting allows your GPU to process graphics and compute tasks simultaneously, improving efficiency. In almost all cases, you should leave this On for a noticeable performance uplift.

Upscaler Mode

This is the single most important setting for performance in Dying Light 2. Upscaling renders the game at a lower internal resolution and then uses sophisticated AI algorithms to intelligently scale it up to your target resolution, reclaiming massive amounts of performance.

DLSS (NVIDIA RTX only)

The gold standard. If you have an RTX card, use this. The Quality setting offers a near-native image with a significant FPS boost. Balanced is a great middle-ground for more demanding resolutions.

FSR (All GPUs)

AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution is a fantastic open-source alternative that works on nearly all modern GPUs. While slightly less sharp than DLSS, FSR 2.0 and above is a game-changer. Use Quality or Balanced.

XeSS (Intel GPUs primarily)

Intel's upscaler that also works on other brands. It's another solid option if DLSS isn't available to you.

Decoding the Most Impactful Graphics Settings

Here’s a breakdown of the settings that will have the biggest impact on your frame rate, from most to least demanding.

1. Ray Tracing (Massive Performance Impact): The most demanding feature in the game, Ray Tracing provides incredibly realistic lighting, shadows, and reflections. Enable these features only if you have a high-end RTX 3080 / RX 6800 XT or better, and be prepared to use DLSS/FSR on Performance mode.
   • RT Sun Shadows: Renders hyper-realistic, soft shadows from the sun. The most demanding of the bunch.
   • RT Ambient Occlusion: Creates more accurate contact shadows and depth where objects meet.
   • RT Reflections: Adds realistic reflections to water and glossy surfaces.
   • RT Flashlight: A cool but niche effect that makes your flashlight cast ray-traced shadows. Turn this off first if you need to reclaim frames.
2. Shadow Quality (Very High Impact): Even without Ray Tracing, the quality of standard shadows is a huge performance bottleneck. Setting this to Medium or even Low instead of High offers one of the biggest FPS gains with a surprisingly minimal impact on the overall visual quality during fast-paced gameplay.
3. Fog Quality (High Impact): Villedor is often filled with atmospheric fog and volumetric lighting. This setting controls its resolution and quality. Dropping this from High to Medium can significantly boost performance, especially during certain times of day or in specific weather conditions.
4. Contact Shadows (Medium Impact): This setting adds fine-detailed, localized shadows that ground objects in the world. While it looks great, setting this to Medium or disabling it can claw back a good number of frames without a major loss in image quality.
5. Anti-Aliasing (Low-to-Medium Impact): The default anti-aliasing does a good job of smoothing jagged edges. However, if you are using DLSS or FSR, those upscaling technologies have their own superior anti-aliasing solutions built-in, making this setting less critical. Set to Low if not using an upscaler, otherwise let the upscaler handle it.

Optimized Settings Recommendations for Every Build

Precise settings depend on your CPU, GPU, and target resolution, but these templates provide an excellent starting point.

The Quality Build (For High-End PCs: RTX 3080/4070, RX 6800 XT/7800 XT and up)

Targeting 1440p/4K at 60+ FPS.

• Render Mode: DirectX 12 Ultimate
• Upscaler Mode: DLSS/FSR set to Quality
• Ray Tracing: Enable RT Ambient Occlusion and RT Reflections for a big visual pop. Consider leaving RT Sun Shadows off for a major FPS save.
• Shadow Quality: High
• Fog Quality: High
• Contact Shadows: High
• Texture Quality: High (ensure you have 8GB+ of VRAM)
• Everything Else: High

The Performance Build (For Mid-Range PCs: RTX 3060/4060, RX 6700 XT/7700 XT)

Targeting 1080p/1440p at a stable 60+ FPS.

• Render Mode: DirectX 12
• Upscaler Mode: DLSS/FSR set to Balanced or Performance
• Ray Tracing: Off
• Shadow Quality: Medium
• Fog Quality: Medium
• Contact Shadows: Medium or Low
• Texture Quality: High (if 8GB VRAM), otherwise Medium
• Particles Quality: Medium

The Budget Build (For Entry-Level & Older PCs / Steam Deck)

Targeting 1080p at 40-60 FPS.

• Render Mode: DirectX 12
• Upscaler Mode: FSR set to Performance or Ultra Performance
• Ray Tracing: Off
• Shadow Quality: Low
• Fog Quality: Low
• Contact Shadows: Off
• Texture Quality: Low or Medium
• Everything Else: Low

Conclusion: Taming the Beast

Dying Light 2: Stay Human remains a demanding title, but its extensive graphics menu makes it highly scalable. Achieving optimal performance is a balancing act, but the formula is clear: leverage upscaling technology like DLSS or FSR aggressively, be realistic about Ray Tracing, and know that settings like Shadow and Fog Quality are your biggest enemies for frame rate. By understanding the impact of each setting and tailoring them to your hardware, you can ensure a fluid, responsive, and visually impressive journey through the post-apocalyptic world, making every leap and slash feel just right.