Crimson Desert PC Requirements and Best Settings for FPS

Crimson Desert is one of the best-looking open-world games on PC, but it is also demanding. Pearl Abyss lists a 150GB SSD-only install, 16GB RAM and DirectX 12 for every tier. Here are the official requirements and the settings that give the best FPS.

• Minimum: GTX 1060 or RX 5500 XT, Ryzen 5 2600X or i5-8500, 16GB RAM, upscaled 1080p at 30 FPS
• Recommended: RTX 2080 or RX 6700 XT, Ryzen 5 5600 or i5-11600K, 1080p 60 FPS or 4K 30 FPS
• Storage: 150GB, SSD required
• Biggest FPS gain: drop Lighting Quality from Max

What are the Crimson Desert PC requirements?

Pearl Abyss published tiered specs on March 10, 2026, as reported by GameSpot and Prima Games. Note that some earlier pages listed 100GB or 135GB; the official notice later said 150GB.

Can a GTX 1060 run Crimson Desert?

Officially yes, at the Minimum preset with upscaling to 1080p and 30 FPS. IGN noted the minimum GPU is ten years old, and advised sticking with the Minimum preset on weak hardware.

Which setting hurts FPS the most?

Digital Foundry found Lighting Quality has the biggest GPU impact, especially at Max, which is required for ML-based ray reconstruction and regeneration. That can cost up to 30 percent, and dropping a preset from Max roughly doubles performance in their test. They chose Ultra, which gains about eight percent over Cinematic and looks much the same.

What are the best settings for high FPS?

• Lighting Quality: Ultra instead of Max
• Ray Reconstruction: off unless your base FPS is already comfortable
• Volumetric Fog: Low (Digital Foundry recommendation)
• Model Quality: Ultra is the sweet spot
• Upscaling: DLSS, FSR 3/4 supported; frame generation is PC-only per Pearl Abyss

GameWatcher tested an RTX 4070 Ti at 1440p with DLSS Balanced: about 86 FPS at any preset, and turning on Ray Reconstruction dropped it to 59 FPS. Corsair found DLSS 4.0 more stable than 4.5 in its testing.

Is Crimson Desert worth upgrading for?

If you are on a GTX 1060 class card, an SSD and a GPU upgrade will matter more than a faster CPU. Mid-range cards from the RTX 3070 or RTX 4060 tier should do well at 1080p and 1440p with upscaling, though we did not find official numbers for those. Check our Charting the Unknown DLC guide for the latest expansion.

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