Path of Exile 2 best settings for max FPS

Path of Exile 2 is out, at least as an early access title, sporting new graphics and tech to bring the long-standing ARPG into the current generation.

However, all this extra tech and stellar looks came at a cost, with many players suffering from performance issues and low FPS. So, here are our recommended settings to max out your frames in Path of Exile 2.

Best graphics settings in PoE 2

Path of Exile 2 is a demanding game. According to its Steam page, you will need at least an RTX 2060 or RX 5600XT paired with an i5-10500 or Ryzen 5 3700X to run it at a satisfactory framerate. While the so-called minimum requirements do list some quite archaic hardware from today’s perspective, they will not have the horsepower needed to run Path of Exile 2 properly, especially not when you’re surrounded by a hundred enemies with a hundred different effects and spells and particles flying across the screen.

However, the in-game settings are quite good and can help you squeeze a ton of FPS out of the game, no matter the hardware that you’re using.

So, if you wish to balance looks and performance, you should go for the following settings:

• Texture quality: Medium
• Texture filtering: 8x Anisotropic Filtering
• Lighting: Shadows and Global Illumination
• Shadow plus GI quality: High
• Sun Shadow quality: Medium or High
• Number of lights: Medium
• Water detail level: High (can reduce to low in areas with lots of water)

This will make the game look serviceable while giving you a nice bump in FPS. If you wish to maintain these settings but get more FPS out of the game, consider setting the Upscale Mode to NIS and choosing whichever resolution scale works for you. Ticking the Dynamic Resolution option can also help, though don’t go for both at the same time. Avoid using FSR at all costs. It is poorly implemented and an old version, so we’ll have to wait for the developers to put in some extra work on that front throughout the early access.

If you don’t care much about visuals but want FPS, here are the settings you should choose:

• Texture quality: Medium
• Texture filtering: 4x Anisotropic Filtering
• Lighting: Shadows and Global Illumination
• Shadow plus GI quality: Low
• Sun Shadow quality: Low
• Number of lights: Low
• Upscale Mode: NIS (59 percent)
• Water detail level: High (can reduce to low in areas with lots of water)

This will make the game look worse than the first one, but the FPS gain will be substantial. You can even go as low as 56 percent or even lower on the NIS, depending on your resolution. Ticking on the Dynamic Resolution setting is also recommended if you dislike how NIS works and looks, though I believe the latter is superior and better-looking, with the difference in frames being insubstantial.