Ready or Not v1.4.3a (May 19, 2026) Best Settings Guide

The May 19, 2026 v1.4.3a patch for Ready or Not brought DLSS 4 multi-frame generation support for RTX 50-series cards and a shader compilation overhaul that cut initial load stutters by half. It also quietly changed the scaling behavior of Screen Space Reflections and Volumetric Fog — settings that now cost 15-20% more GPU time than they did in v1.3.x. If your frame rate tanked post-patch, those two culprits explain most of it.

This guide shows the exact settings that return the highest average FPS on eight tested GPU tiers, from the RTX 2060 to the RTX 4080, using measured benchmark data from GameGPU and user-reported outcomes at both 1080p and 1440p. You'll also find the quickest win-per-setting breakdown and a free hardware-specific playbook generator at the end that auto-builds the config for your exact GPU and monitor.

What Changed in v1.4.3a (May 19, 2026)

VOID Interactive's May patch was nominally a stability update — crash fixes for the new Drug Lab map and improved netcode for servers above 16 players. Under the hood, three rendering changes now dominate your frame-time budget: the new SSR path traces one additional bounce (sharper puddles, 18% heavier), Volumetric Fog switched to a higher voxel resolution (denser smoke grenades, 14% cost increase), and the shader pre-compile now front-loads more variants at launch instead of compiling mid-mission. That last change trades a 40-second longer first load for zero in-game stutters — a worthy swap, but it confused players who thought the game was frozen.

DLSS 4 multi-frame generation is exclusive to RTX 50-series owners and delivers a measured 2.6x frame multiplier over native rendering in Quality mode, according to early NVIDIA whitepapers. AMD FSR 4 support arrived simultaneously for RDNA 4 cards (RX 9070 XT and above), offering a 2.1x multiplier in Balanced mode. Both upscalers now work correctly with the game's temporal anti-aliasing, fixing the ghosting that plagued FSR 3.1 in the prior build. If you're on an RTX 40-series or RX 7900-series card, DLSS 3 and FSR 3.1 remain your best bets — just know the new fog and reflection settings will eat into your headroom.

Performance by GPU Tier (v1.4.3a, Measured Data)

GameGPU's May 2026 suite tested Ready or Not v1.4.3a across six GPUs at Epic preset (all settings maxed, no upscaling) to establish the new baseline. At 1080p Epic, the RTX 4080 delivered 147 FPS average, the RTX 4070 Ti hit 134 FPS, and the RX 7900 XT landed at 128 FPS. The older RTX 3080 managed 102 FPS, the RX 6800 XT reached 98 FPS, and the entry-level RTX 2060 scraped 60 FPS — just barely clearing the common 60 Hz target.

Stepping up to 1440p Epic, the RTX 4080 dropped to 104 FPS, the RTX 4070 Ti fell to 94 FPS, the RX 7900 XT clocked 89 FPS, and the RTX 3080 settled at 71 FPS. Those are raw numbers with zero compromise — real-world play demands lowering at least three settings (SSR, Volumetric Fog, and Shadows) to stay above 100 FPS on anything short of a flagship card. The gap between 1080p and 1440p widened post-patch: where v1.3.x saw a 30% frame drop moving from 1080p to 1440p, v1.4.3a now sees 35-40% because the heavier fog and reflections scale quadratically with pixel count.

Settings Breakdown: Cost vs. Visual Return

Six settings dominate the frame-time chart in v1.4.3a. Screen Space Reflections at Epic costs 18% of your GPU budget for wet-floor mirror shine and weapon reflections — dropping it to High reclaims 12% with minimal visual loss (you lose one SSR bounce, imperceptible unless you stare at puddles). Volumetric Fog at Epic eats 14% for smoke grenade density and light-shaft definition; Medium cuts that to 5% and still renders convincing smoke. Shadows at Epic (four cascades, 4096 resolution) takes 11%; High (three cascades, 2048 res) costs 6% and looks identical beyond 15 meters. Post-Process Quality governs motion blur intensity and lens flare complexity — Epic is 8%, Medium is 3%, and most competitive players disable motion blur entirely in the .ini anyway. Ambient Occlusion (SSAO) is 6% at Epic, 2% at Low, and the difference is subtle shadow darkening in room corners. Finally, View Distance controls AI pop-in and distant geometry LOD — Epic is 5%, High is 2%, and you only notice the gap on outdoor maps like the Farm or Gas Station.

The Upscaling Layer (DLSS 4 / FSR 4 / XeSS 2)

If you own an RTX 50-series GPU, DLSS 4 Quality mode at 1440p output renders internally at 960p and frame-generates two interpolated frames per real frame, yielding a 2.6x effective FPS boost with almost no perceptible blur — TechPowerUp's side-by-side stills showed sub-pixel differences only. For RTX 40-series, DLSS 3 Frame Generation still works and delivers a 1.8x multiplier in the same scenario, though it introduces 8-12ms of added latency (reflex helps). AMD's FSR 4 on RDNA 4 cards hits a 2.1x gain in Balanced mode (internal 835p to 1440p output) and looks sharper than FSR 3.1 did, with less ghosting on fast door-kicks. Intel XeSS 2 on Arc B-series lands between DLSS 3 and FSR 4 in quality, around 1.9x at balanced, and works well enough if you already own the card. All three upscalers now respect the game's temporal jitter, so shimmering on chain-link fences is gone.

1. Set your target output resolution (1080p or 1440p) in the Display menu.
2. Enable DLSS 4 / FSR 4 / XeSS 2 in the Graphics menu and choose Quality or Balanced mode — Performance mode is too soft for Ready or Not's long sightlines.
3. In the same menu, enable NVIDIA Reflex (if available) and set it to Boost mode to cut input lag by 10-15ms when frame generation is active.
4. Drop Screen Space Reflections to High, Volumetric Fog to Medium, and Shadows to High. Leave Textures at Epic unless you have 8GB VRAM.
5. Test in the Hotel or Gas Station map (both are heavier than the tutorial). Check 1% lows via the in-game FPS counter (press F11 twice to show 1% low) — if they dip below 60, lower Post-Process Quality to Medium.
6. If you still can't hold your target, consider dropping output resolution one notch (1440p → 1080p, or 1080p → 900p upscaled) rather than massacring visual quality further.

Competitive vs. Immersion Profiles

Ready or Not straddles the line between tactical mil-sim and esports-adjacent twitch shooter, so your settings depend on whether you prioritize reaction time or atmosphere. The competitive profile sacrifices fog, reflections, and motion blur to maximize clarity and minimize input lag — Screen Space Reflections Off, Volumetric Fog Low, Shadows Medium, Post-Process Low, Motion Blur disabled via .ini, Ambient Occlusion Off. This nets you 35-40% more FPS than Epic preset and cuts frame time variance by half, making 1% lows rock-solid. Visual cost: smoke grenades look like flat sprites, wet floors lose their sheen, and dark corners are less menacing. Tactical advantage: you spot suspects through doorways 50ms faster because there's no volumetric bloom obscuring the silhouette.

The immersion profile keeps SSR at High, Volumetric Fog at Medium or High, Shadows at High, and Post-Process at Medium — it retains 80% of Epic's visual punch while recovering 20-25% of the frame budget. This is the sweet spot for PvE players who want the cinematic breach-and-clear feel without frame drops during flashbang detonations. The only settings you truly sacrifice are View Distance (High is fine for indoor maps) and Ambient Occlusion (Medium instead of Epic). DLSS Quality or FSR Balanced mode is mandatory here unless you own an RTX 4080 or better.

Map-Specific Adjustments (v1.4.3a Tested)

Ready or Not's nine maps vary wildly in performance profile. The Hotel and Gas Station are the heaviest: Hotel's lobby atrium has 14 active light sources with dynamic shadows, and Gas Station's outdoor forecourt renders long view distances with volumetric fog from burning tire piles. Both maps demand an extra 15% GPU headroom compared to the median. If you're borderline stable elsewhere, drop Shadows to Medium and Volumetric Fog to Low on these two. Conversely, the Meth House and Fast Food Restaurant are the lightest — smaller play areas, fewer light sources, mostly baked lighting. You can bump Shadows back to High or enable higher View Distance here without penalty.

The new Drug Lab map (added in v1.4.3a) sits in the middle: its underground sections are cheap to render (low view distance, few lights), but the surface warehouse section with skylights and volumetric dust shafts can spike frame time by 6ms if Volumetric Fog is Epic. The community consensus after two weeks is to treat Drug Lab like Hotel — assume heavier settings, tune conservatively.

Hardware-Specific Recommendations (2026 GPUs)

For RTX 50-series owners, run 1440p native with DLSS 4 Quality, SSR High, Volumetric Fog Medium, Shadows High, and everything else Epic. You'll clear 140 FPS average on an RTX 5080 and 180+ on an RTX 5090, with 1% lows above 100. RTX 40-series (4070 Ti and up) should do the same but expect 100-120 FPS average with DLSS 3 Quality at 1440p. The RTX 4070 (non-Ti) needs one more compromise — drop View Distance to High to stay above 90 FPS in Hotel.

AMD RDNA 4 (RX 9070 XT) handles 1440p with FSR 4 Balanced, SSR High, Volumetric Fog Medium, Shadows High, and stays near 105 FPS average. RDNA 3 (RX 7900 XT / 7900 XTX) measured 89 FPS at 1440p Epic native, so with FSR 3.1 Quality and the settings above, expect 115 FPS average. The RX 7800 XT needs to drop to 1080p output or cut SSR to Medium to hold 100+ FPS. Previous-gen cards (RTX 3080, RX 6800 XT) are now mid-tier for this game at 1440p — run 1080p upscaled via DLSS/FSR Quality, or accept 70-80 FPS at 1440p native with mixed settings.

Intel Arc B580 sits between the RX 7600 and RTX 4060 in raw raster, so 1080p native with XeSS 2 Quality and medium preset across the board lands you at 75-85 FPS, which is playable. Arc B770 can push 1440p upscaled if you're willing to drop to 60-70 FPS in heavy scenes. Neither card has enough VRAM headroom for Epic textures at 1440p — stick to High textures (6.4 GB allocation).

Additional System-Level Optimizations

Ready or Not is moderately CPU-bound during AI-heavy breaches (four suspects plus eight officers all pathing simultaneously). Check per-core usage in Task Manager's Performance tab (right-click the graph, Change graph to Logical processors) — if one or two cores pin near 100% while your GPU sits at 70%, you're CPU-limited. The Ryzen 7 9800X3D and Intel Core Ultra 9 285K both deliver 10-15% higher 1% lows than previous-gen chips thanks to faster inter-core latency, which matters for AI tick rate. If you're on an older 6-core CPU (Ryzen 5 3600, Core i5-10400), consider capping your frame rate at 90 FPS to reduce CPU thread contention — chasing 120+ FPS on a weak CPU causes stutters.

RAM speed matters more than you'd expect. Benchmarks by der8auer showed a 12% average FPS gain moving from DDR5-4800 to DDR5-6000 on AM5 systems, because Ready or Not's AI pathfinding is memory-latency-sensitive. If you're on DDR4, you're leaving 8-10% on the table compared to DDR5-6000 CL30. VRAM allocation was covered earlier, but it's worth repeating: 8GB cards struggle at 1440p post-patch, and texture pop-in is a hard stutter, not a visual annoyance. Upgrade to 12GB minimum if you plan to stay at 1440p beyond 2026.

Finally, disable Windows Game Bar and Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling if you see frame-time spikes every 4-5 seconds. Ready or Not's .exe doesn't play nicely with HAGS on some systems — it causes the scheduler to ping-pong the game between GPU queues, inducing a 15ms hitch. Test both on and off; the majority of users report smoother lows with HAGS disabled for this title. Run a free hardware-specific playbook to get these tweaks auto-generated for your exact CPU, GPU, and RAM config — it takes 60 seconds and catches system-level bottlenecks your in-game settings can't fix.

Frequently asked questions