Best Valheim Settings for FPS After the 1.0 Update

The best Valheim settings for FPS in the 1.0 update are a shorter Draw Distance, SSAO on Low, Tessellation off, Distant Shadows off, fewer Active Point Lights with Point Light Shadows off, Vegetation on Low, and a frame rate limit you can hold — every one of them named as a performance option in Iron Gate’s own patch notes. This guide is written as of 13 November 2026 (patch 1.0.21) and covers the settings 1.0 and the 0.221.10 graphics rework added, which most older Valheim guides predate.

If your frame rate is fine in the open world but falls apart at home, that is a different problem: base lag is mostly CPU-bound object count, covered in Valheim low FPS and base lag fix. Settings help there, but only so much.

What changed in Valheim’s graphics settings (0.221.10 and 1.0)

Valheim’s settings menu changed twice in 2026. Both sets of changes are in Iron Gate’s Steam patch notes:

Patch	Date	Setting change	What Iron Gate says
0.221.10	2 Feb 2026	Render scale slider replaced by a 3D resolution limit dropdown	Fixed resolutions, “improves use case as performance target”
0.221.10	2 Feb 2026	New Upscaling method setting, with a Pixelated option	—
0.221.10	2 Feb 2026	New Low SSAO quality (the old one is now High)	Similar look, “significantly lower performance impact”
0.221.10	2 Feb 2026	Frame rate limiter now works together with V-Sync	Picks the lowest submultiple of your refresh rate at or above the limit
1.0	9 Sep 2026	New Draw Distance setting	Shortens or lengthens the simulation distance; shorter improves performance
1.0.14	17 Sep 2026	Tessellation-off path optimized	Better GPU performance with tessellation disabled
1.0.16	25 Sep 2026	Tessellation disabled in the Low preset	—

1.0 also shipped engine-side optimizations you get without touching anything: a chunked save system, a fixed minimap memory leak, lower texture and audio memory use, and a navmesh change Iron Gate says “should slightly improve frame pacing on weaker systems”.

The best Valheim settings for FPS (table)

Open Settings → Graphics. Start from the preset closest to your PC, then change these:

Setting	FPS setting	Why it matters
Draw Distance	Lower than default; raise it only if you have CPU headroom	Controls simulation distance in 1.0, so it saves CPU as well as GPU
SSAO	Low	Iron Gate’s Low SSAO looks close to High at a much lower cost
Tessellation	Off	Off is now cheaper on the GPU (1.0.14) and is the Low-preset default (1.0.16)
Distant shadows	Off	Iron Gate added the toggle in 0.214.2 and said turning it off may increase performance significantly on older graphics cards
Shadow quality	Medium	Near shadows still help you read terrain and enemies
Active point lights	Lower	Every torch, fire and lamp in view is a point light; bases are full of them
Active point light shadows	Off (or the lowest value)	Shadow-casting lights are the expensive ones
Vegetation	Low	Since 0.217.14 Low keeps a small amount of grass instead of none
3D resolution limit	Your native resolution, or one step down on a weak GPU	Caps the 3D render resolution; the HUD stays sharp
Upscaling method	Default; Pixelated only if you like the retro look	Only matters when the 3D resolution limit is below your output resolution
Anti-aliasing	On (TAA)	Valheim has used TAA instead of FXAA since 0.220.3; the cost is small
Sun shafts, Soft particles, Bloom, Depth of field	Off if you need frames	Post-processing and effects, cheap individually, add up on older GPUs
V-Sync / Frame rate limit	V-Sync off and a frame cap, or V-Sync on with the limiter	See the frame-cap section below

Texture quality mostly costs VRAM rather than frame rate. Leave it high unless your graphics card has 4 GB or less.

Draw Distance: the 1.0 setting that matters most

Draw Distance in Valheim 1.0 sets the game’s simulation distance, so lowering it cuts CPU work as well as rendering work. That makes it different from a typical view-distance slider. Iron Gate’s 1.0 notes describe the trade directly: a shorter distance “improves performance”, a longer one “may cause worse performance but can offer epic visuals on high end set ups”.

Lower it first if:

• your frame rate drops in or near a large base, where the CPU is the limit;
• you host a world for friends and the host PC is struggling (the host simulates the world for everyone, see survival game dedicated server performance);
• your GPU usage sits well below 100% while FPS is low, which points at the CPU.

Lights and shadows: where bases eat frames

Active point lights and point light shadows are the most base-sensitive graphics settings in Valheim, because every torch, hearth, brazier and lamp you place is a point light. Iron Gate added both settings in the Hearth & Home update, and the 0.221.10 notes treat the point-light count as a platform performance budget, raising it only on stronger consoles.

A lit-up base with point light shadows on can cost more than the whole open world. Turn point light shadows off first, then lower the active point light count until the base holds your target frame rate. Distant shadows (mountain shadows far away) are separate; switching them off saves GPU time without changing anything near you.

The reason bases scale so badly is explained in why base building tanks FPS in survival games.

3D resolution limit and upscaling

The 3D resolution limit caps the resolution the world is rendered at, while menus and the HUD stay at your output resolution. It replaced the old render-scale slider in 0.221.10 and is the cleanest way to trade sharpness for frames on a GPU-limited PC: pick one step below native and see whether the image still looks acceptable.

The Upscaling method setting decides how that lower-resolution image is scaled up. Iron Gate’s notes add a Pixelated option, a deliberate retro look rather than a quality mode. Valheim’s patch notes do not mention DLSS, FSR or XeSS support, so don’t expect those in its menu; for how the vendor upscalers compare in games that have them, see DLSS vs FSR vs XeSS.

Frame cap and V-Sync

Since patch 0.221.10, Valheim’s frame rate limiter works together with V-Sync: the game picks the lowest submultiple of your monitor’s refresh rate that is at or above your chosen limit. On a 144 Hz monitor with a 60 FPS limit, for example, V-Sync locks to 72 FPS (144 ÷ 2).

For the smoothest result on a variable refresh rate (G-SYNC or FreeSync) monitor, turn V-Sync off in the game and cap a few frames below your refresh rate. On a fixed-refresh monitor, V-Sync on with the limiter avoids tearing. The trade-offs are covered in V-Sync on or off for gaming and the best FPS cap for low latency.

DirectX 11 or Vulkan

Valheim runs on DirectX 11 by default on Windows, and that is the safer choice. Vulkan has been available since patch 0.146.8 through the -force-vulkan launch option (Steam → Valheim → Properties → Launch Options), which Iron Gate first suggested might fix some driver-related crashes. In February 2026 (patch 0.221.12) Iron Gate warned that Vulkan “might currently cause Valheim to be unstable and/or crash”, and none of the later notes say otherwise. Try it only if DirectX 11 gives you a problem, and remove the launch option if the game becomes unstable.

Valheim system requirements (Steam, 1.0)

	Minimum	Recommended
OS	Windows 10 or later, 64-bit	Windows 10 or later, 64-bit
CPU	2.6 GHz quad core or similar	i5 3 GHz or Ryzen 5 3 GHz
RAM	8 GB	16 GB
GPU	GeForce GTX 950 or Radeon HD 7970	GeForce GTX 1060 or Radeon RX 580
DirectX	11	11
Storage	1 GB	1 GB

The low storage figure is real: Valheim is small. The CPU line is the one to watch, because bases and Draw Distance load the CPU.

If FPS still drops after a long session

Frame rate that starts fine and degrades over hours is usually memory, streaming or save growth rather than a setting. 1.0 fixed a minimap memory leak and cut texture and audio memory, so update first; then work through why FPS drops after hours of gameplay.

The short version

• Lower Draw Distance first (it is simulation distance in 1.0).
• SSAO Low, Tessellation off, Distant shadows off.
• Cut active point lights and turn point light shadows off for big bases.
• Vegetation Low, post-processing off if you need more.
• Use the 3D resolution limit one step below native on a weak GPU.
• Stay on DirectX 11 unless you have a reason to try Vulkan.

Related guides

• Valheim low FPS and base lag fix
• Why base building tanks FPS in survival games
• Survival game dedicated server performance
• Why FPS drops after hours of gameplay
• Best Enshrouded settings for FPS
• Best Palworld settings for FPS