Ultimate Indiana Jones and the Great Circle PC Performance Optimization Guide

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle demands more from your PC than any game before it, making performance optimization essential. This guide cuts through the complexity, providing targeted settings and fixes to transform stuttering slideshows into a smooth, cinematic adventure. You'll learn exactly which levers to pull for maximum frames without sacrificing visual quality.

Understanding the Game's Demanding Graphics Engine

Here's the deal: Indiana Jones and the Great Circle doesn't just support ray tracing - it requires it for every single visual preset. This is the first AAA game that's drawn a hard line in the sand, so your old GTX card won't even make it past the main menu.

The specs split into two camps: Standard (ray tracing on, but not maxed) and Full Ray Tracing (everything cranked). Let's break it down:

Preset	GPU (Standard)	GPU (Full RT)	Target Resolution/FPS	Notes
Minimum	RTX 2060 Super 8GB RX 6600 8GB Arc A580	RTX 2060 Super 8GB / RX 6600 8GB / Arc A580	1080p Low @ 60 FPS	Full RT needs DLSS + Frame Gen
Recommended	RTX 3080 Ti 12GB RX 7700 XT 12GB	RTX 4080 16GB	1440p High @ 60 FPS	Full RT needs DLSS + Frame Gen
Ultra	RTX 4080 16GB RX 7900 XT 20GB	RTX 4090 24GB	4K Ultra @ 60 FPS	Full RT needs DLSS + Frame Gen

That jump to Full Ray Tracing is pretty rough. Even at minimum specs, you're looking at an RTX 2060 Super, which means Nvidia's 30-series is already obsolete for the full experience. The 12GB VRAM isn't just for textures - it has to hold the entire ray tracing structure cache, which we'll get into in a bit.

Across all tiers, you'll need 16GB of system RAM (though 32GB is recommended), and the game demands an SSD - 120GB for standard installs, with an optional 45GB high-resolution texture pack (totaling 165GB).

Hardware Requirements Breakdown

[Included in the above text]

Why Ray Tracing is Mandatory

This is where it gets technical, but stick with me - understanding this explains why your GPU is working so hard. The game runs on a custom engine called MOTOR - a heavily modified version of id Tech that replaces traditional pre-baked lighting with real-time calculations using hardware ray tracing for every single pixel.

What does that mean? There's no fallback path - even on the lowest settings, the game performs a full-scene path-tracing pass each frame, so hardware RT cores aren't optional, they're mandatory for any lighting calculation at all. All those dynamic light sources - torch flicker, sun shafts, time-of-day changes - are calculated on the fly, which is why there are no pre-baked light maps anywhere.

The engine uses a single unified BVH (Bounding Volume Hierarchy) structure that gets updated every single frame with skinned characters, destructible props, and streaming terrain, and this structure is so massive it has to live in VRAM, which is why Full Ray Tracing mode is so demanding.

Because of this, the game requires your GPU to pass a DirectX 12 Ultimate check, and if your card isn't on the official DXR 1.1 hardware list, the game will launch but ray tracing features will be disabled - you'll get a VK_KHR_ray_query error, which officially kills the GTX era for this title.

The RTX 2060 Super is the minimum for Full Ray Tracing mode because it needs that 8GB of VRAM to handle the BVH structure cache, and it can lean on DLSS 3 frame generation to actually hit those 60 FPS targets. Without those Tensor cores, you'd be stuck in slideshow territory.

Essential Display and Global Settings

Before you touch any ray tracing or texture settings, you need to lock down these baseline display options - they'll make or break your experience.

Resolution and Refresh Rate Configuration

Native resolution gives you the sharpest image, but it'll absolutely hammer your GPU - on an RTX 4090, 4K only manages around 90 FPS, while dropping to 1440p typically achieves 120-140 FPS natively, or 150-200 FPS with DLSS 3 and Frame Generation, which means 1440p is the real sweet spot for most high-end rigs. The game's Dynamic Resolution Scaling is a smart 2-D ratio scaler that runs from 70% to 100% based on GPU frametime, so keeping it enabled with an 83% floor is your best bet for maintaining visual quality while giving yourself headroom for ray-traced effects.

If you're running a 120-144 Hz panel, you'll want to target 1440p with DLSS set to 'Balanced' - or native 1440p on something like an RTX 4080 to hit that 110-130 FPS sweet spot. But if you're locked to a 60 Hz display, just cap 4K at 60 FPS with DLSS 'Quality' to keep things tear-free. Watch your VRAM though - 4K Supreme settings can eat up to 15 GB, so if you're on an 8 GB card, you'll need to drop texture quality to 'Ultra' and set DRS floor to 75% to avoid silent downgrades and stuttering. Fullscreen exclusive still gives you the lowest latency, but borderless mode enables Windows 11's dynamic refresh rates on laptops and mini-LED panels, which is worth considering.

Critical Performance Toggles

First things first - turn V-Sync OFF in the game menu. Leaving it on will halve your FPS on sub-60 Hz panels and adds noticeable input lag, which is exactly what you don't want. Instead, lean on Nvidia Reflex Low Latency - it cuts system lag by 8-18 ms with basically zero FPS penalty, so there's no reason not to enable it. Only switch to 'On + Boost' if your GPU utilization is sitting below 90%.

Motion blur, chromatic aberration, and film grain collectively cost you 4-6% FPS (individually costing ~2.3%, ~1.1%, and ~0.8% respectively) at 1440p on an RTX 4070, which adds up fast. Disabling all three can improve your 1% lows by up to 11% and cleans up visual artifacts, so unless you love the cinematic look, just turn them off. For the absolute lowest latency with G-Sync, you need to set it up properly: enable G-Sync and V-Sync in the NVIDIA Control Panel, disable V-Sync in-game, turn on Reflex, then cap your FPS 3-5 frames below your monitor's refresh rate (so 141 FPS for a 144 Hz display). Here's the cool part - Reflex will automatically cap your FPS to a safe level below your refresh rate when enabled, like 224 FPS on a 240 Hz monitor, which keeps G-Sync active and prevents double buffering.

Core Graphics Quality Settings (Highest FPS Impact)

Ray Tracing Settings Optimization

Here is where you will make or break your performance, and the first thing you need to know is that ray-traced global illumination is not optional - it is the baseline lighting system. The good news is that it scales better than you might expect. Bumping it from Low to Ultra costs 20-25% FPS at 1080p, and here is the kicker: High RT GI saves roughly 8% performance over Ultra while looking nearly identical. So unless you are pixel-peeping in dark tombs, High is your sweet spot.

Now, the bad news. If you flip on full path tracing to get those juicy RT reflections and transmissive shadows, you are looking at a brutal 25-35% FPS penalty on top of your GI baseline. On an RTX 3080 at 1440p, that full package can slash your framerate by up to 55%. It is gorgeous, but you will feel it. RT reflections only exist in that full path tracing mode, so there is no middle ground - you are either in or you are out.

RT sun shadows are another story. They are optional, and the jump from High to Ultra costs an extra 5-10% FPS for what most players call a <5% visual improvement. Ultra just doubles the ray count, which means you are paying for diminishing returns. On an RTX 4070 at 1440p with DLSS Quality, that breaks down to -30% for Ultra RT GI, -9% more for Ultra sun shadows, and a whopping -78% if you add full path tracing. Add it all up and you have lost nearly half your frames.

Texture and Shadow Settings

This game is not compute-limited - it is VRAM-limited, and that changes everything. MachineGames silently recommends 12 GB of VRAM; if you are on an 8-10 GB card, you will hit stuttering the moment your VRAM saturates. The single most important setting for smooth frame times is Texture Pool Size, because micro-stutters spike exactly when VRAM runs dry. Dropping this pool is the primary fix, not lowering other quality sliders.

If you are stuck on 8 GB, there is a community config file floating around that unlocks the Medium texture pool while leaving everything else on Ultra. That gives you better textures than the stock Low setting without the hitching. It is a bit of a hack, but it works.

Beyond textures, Shadow Quality from Ultra to High nets you +9% FPS and saves about 250 MB of VRAM. You will only notice the quality loss in torch-lit tombs, and even then it is minor. Decal Rendering Distance from Ultra to High is another easy win: 3-6% FPS increase and saves approximately 200-300 MB of VRAM. Bullet holes and scuffs disappear sooner, but you will not catch that detail mid-combat anyway.

Lighting and Volumetric Effects

Volumetric Fog is the heavyweight here. Dropping from Ultra to High gains you 12 FPS, and going all the way to Low adds another 10 FPS on top of that. High still uses full-res voxel injection but cuts temporal samples by 40%, which means you keep most of the atmosphere without the cost. If you are desperate for frames, this is your first lever.

Global Illumination RT is the other big ticket item. On 1440p, RT High (2-bounce) costs 50-70% performance versus turning it off and falling back to SSR, while RT Medium (1-bounce) costs 18-25% performance versus lower RT settings. That is a huge gap, and Medium still looks miles better than the screen-space fallback. Combined with fog tweaks, you can claw back serious performance.

Water Quality is the weird one - it gains 17-24 FPS from Ultra to Low. Ultra enables full planar reflections and a 3-D wave spectrum, but it is surprisingly light on mid-tier cards. You can leave this on Ultra and barely notice the difference.

Here is the bottom line: on RTX 4070-class hardware at 1440p, dropping Volumetric Fog Ultra->Low, RT GI High->Off, and Water Ultra->Low together yields +50 FPS. That is not a typo. If you want ray tracing, stick with Medium GI and High fog. If you want smooth 60 FPS, you know what to switch off.

Visual Quality vs Performance: What to Prioritize

If you're staring at the settings menu and wondering what actually matters, you're not alone. The game throws a lot of options at you, but only a handful make or break your frame rate. Here's where to focus your energy.

High Impact Settings (Prioritize First)

These are your big levers. Pull them first and you'll see immediate results.

There is no user-facing setting to adjust ray-trace bounce count; instead, toggle between standard RT and full path-tracing. Global Illumination quality follows close behind - sliding from Ultra to High grabs another +14% FPS, which means slightly less bounce lighting in dark corners, but nothing that'll ruin the atmosphere.

Shadows are next. Shadow map resolution from 4096 to 2048 gives a clean +12% FPS boost, though the softer edges only pop if you're playing at 4K and standing still. The texture streaming pool (8 GB down to 6 GB) is another heavy hitter at 20-25% FPS, but be warned: 8 GB graphics cards might see one-second texture pop-in during rapid turns.

Object detail (LOD) also scales hard. Cutting from 5 to 3 yields +20% to +30% FPS while making background statues slightly less crisp. Volumetric fog resolution (100% to 70%) adds +8% FPS with only marginally thinner mist in smoky rooms. And if you disable the SSAO/RTAO hybrid to go RT-only, that results in an 11% performance decrease - contact shadows inside crates vanish, but it's barely noticeable in motion.

Bottom line: Switching from Ultra RT defaults to these tweaks can net you ~55% faster performance on an RTX 4070 at 1440p. That's the difference between a stuttery 45 FPS and a locked 60.

Medium Impact Settings (Balance Carefully)

Now we're in the 'personal preference' zone. These settings give solid visual returns for moderate cost, so you'll want to experiment based on what you actually notice while playing.

Shadow Quality from High to Medium trims 7-10% GPU time, but shadows lose their crisp penumbra edges - and honestly, you'll never spot that while whip-swinging through a collapsing temple. Reflection Quality (High to Medium) drops 6-9% on RTX 3060-class hardware, though the ray-traced pass still supplies the major scene reflections you care about.

Volumetrics Quality (Ultra to High) is especially juicy in torch-lit tombs, saving 8-12% with slightly less dense fog. Object Level-of-Detail (High to Medium) frees up about 5% GPU headroom, yet artifacts stay crisp in close-up - Indy's hat won't suddenly turn into a blob.

If you're VRAM-hungry, Texture Pool Size from 4 GB to 2 GB saves ~200 MB and 3-5% FPS on 8 GB cards at 1080p with almost zero visible downgrade. Decal Rendering Distance (100% to 65%) is a sneaky win: 65% uplift in crowded market scenes with zero gameplay impact.

Taken together, these balanced settings save ~6.5 ms of GPU time, leaving you a comfortable ~10 ms budget for a stable 60 FPS lock. Just remember that Shadows and Volumetrics scale with resolution³ due to 3-D voxel grids, so dropping one notch actually halves the ray-march steps - which is why they're so effective.

Low Impact Settings (Keep at High/Ultra)

These are your 'set it and forget it' options. They cost almost nothing but keep the image quality intact, so there's no reason to butcher them.

Texture Filter (Aniso 16×) uses 2-3% FPS even on older RTX 2060 Super cards - leave it on Ultra. Same goes for Material Quality and Sub-surface Scattering, combined cost is substantial, potentially reducing performance by nearly 50%. TAA High clocks in at <0.3 ms on mid-tier GPUs, so keep it on Ultra unless you love jaggies.

Motion Blur, Chromatic Aberration, and Film Grain are pure post-process fluff at <0.3 ms each. Turn them off only if you hate the aesthetic, not for speed.

Ray Tracing itself is mandatory for global illumination in id Tech 7; the pipeline is always active, so disabling the optional path tracing layer yields a 50-60% FPS gain. Don't bother.

The only real cheat code here is Dynamic Resolution Scaling. Setting it to 90% target can yield +12% FPS, with a 5-6% softer image during combat that's still sharper than native 1080p. It's a free lunch if you can stomach the slight blur.

Advanced Optimization Techniques

Upscaling Technology Guide (DLSS/FSR/XeSS)

Update 3 finally dropped, and now you can pit all three upscaling solutions against each other in the same build. That's huge for making an actual choice rather than just using whatever you're stuck with.

Let's cut to the numbers. At 1440p with full path tracing on an RTX 4090, DLSS 4 Quality nets you a 58% boost over native - 98 fps versus a sluggish 62 fps. XeSS 1.4 Quality lands in the middle at 93 fps, while FSR 3.1 Quality trails at 88 fps. The gap between DLSS and FSR has narrowed to about 10%, but DLSS still holds a clear lead.

Frame generation is where things get spicy. DLSS 4 Multi-Frame Generation rockets to 178 fps - that's 2.8x native performance - with only 18ms latency thanks to Reflex doing heavy lifting. FSR 3.1 Frame Generation hits 159 fps on the same 4090, but latency jumps to 26ms. On AMD hardware like the RX 7900 XTX, you're looking at 152 fps with 31ms latency.

The kicker? DLSS 4's 1% lows sit at 108 fps while FSR 3.1 drops to 72 fps, which means DLSS delivers noticeably smoother camera pans and fewer hitches. Both add minimal VRAM overhead - 350 MB for DLSS, 290 MB for FSR - so that's not a dealbreaker. Visually, DLSS shows almost zero ghosting, but FSR 3.1 suffers minor artifacts on fast-moving cloth and those annoying flickering lamplights.

Bottom line: If you've got an RTX card, DLSS 4 is the obvious choice. For everyone else, FSR and XeSS are perfectly viable, but you'll feel that smoothness gap.

Texture Streaming and Memory Management

Here's the brutal truth: the MOTOR engine demands you play by its VRAM rules or pay the price in stutters. It uses a configurable 'Texture Cache' setting that dynamically adjusts the maximum pool size, and the official guidance is to set your texture pool size to 'High' (≈70%) on GPUs with ≤12 GB of VRAM, or 90% for 16 GB+ GPUs. Overfill it, and the driver starts evicting pages to system RAM, which creates those irregular frame-time spikes that'll make you want to throw your mouse.

8GB GPU owners, listen up: Stick with Medium texture pool (around 5.5 GB at 1080p) even if it hurts your pride. You'll still get decent textures while keeping the game stable. There's even a Nexus Mod called '8Gb GPU video memory texture fix' that automates this for you - set it and forget it.

10GB cards can push Ultra at 1080p (≈8.8 GB), but you should dial back to High at 1440p (≈8.4 GB) to stay safe. 12GB+ GPUs can run Ultra or Max at both 1080p and 1440p without breaking a sweat, though ray-traced assets will tack on another 800 MB overhead.

If you're still rocking an HDD, drop that Ultra pool immediately. You'll get 2-3 second loading hitches as the drive struggles to pull up to 9 GB of compressed textures. Switching to High cuts the hitch to about 1 second, which is actually playable.

For the tinkerers, here are the manual .ini tweaks that actually work:

• CacheTextureSize: 1024 (Medium pool)
• StreamCacheSize: 256
• Vt_pageImageSizeUnique: 8192
• Vt_pageImageSizeDiffuse: 4096

Set these in your GameUserSettings.ini and you'll dodge the worst of the pop-in without nuking visual quality.

Anti-Aliasing and Sharpening Settings

This engine forces TAA at a fundamental level - you can't just toggle it off in the menu. You'll need to hex-edit or mess with console commands to kill it completely, which isn't worth the hassle for most folks.

Native resolution gives you the cleanest baseline, but dropping below 85% of native width/height introduces ugly ghosting on foliage and Indy's whip animations. If you want a crisper image without the TAA soup, you can force DLAA via config file, which costs you 18-25% performance at 4K on an RTX 4080 but looks miles cleaner.

Here's a sneaky trick: use the in-game console command 'r_lodScale' (e.g., set to 3) to increase the distance at which high-detail models are kept, which can yield a 5-12% performance uplift. In your GameUserSettings.ini, set Rendering.AntiAliasingQuality to 3 (Ultra) to keep the temporal filter kernel tight - drop below 3 and the image softens noticeably.

For the best combo, run DLSS or FSR 'Quality' mode with DLAA at 100% render scale to avoid those nasty dual-upscaling artifacts. And please, for the love of crisp visuals, disable Motion Blur and Film Grain - all they do is stack post-processing garbage on top of TAA and mask fine texture detail.

At 4K, stock TAA + 100% scale hits 82 fps but murders texture contrast by 12% compared to 200% resolution with DLAA. The sweet spot? DLAA + 100% scale matches reference quality within 1% for edge fidelity while delivering a playable 67 fps on an RTX 4090. You'll get the sharpness without the slideshow.

Hardware-Specific Optimization Profiles

Not all GPUs are created equal, and Indiana Jones is hungry for every frame you can feed it. Whether you're scraping by on a last-gen card or flexing a flagship, these profiles will get you the best experience without the guesswork.

1080p 60 FPS: RTX 2060 Super / RX 6600 Settings

If you're rocking an RTX 2060 Super or RX 6600, you're sitting right at the minimum spec for 60 FPS at 1080p, which means you can't afford to be picky with settings. The game lists this GPU for the Low preset, but 'Low' won't guarantee smooth gameplay on its own.

DLSS Quality mode is non-negotiable here - it delivers a roughly 35% FPS boost that pushes you over the 60 FPS line consistently. Without it, you'll be bouncing between 45-55 FPS in busy scenes, and that's just not stable enough.

For the graphics menu itself, you'll want Texture Quality Low, Shadows Low, Post-Process Low, and View Distance set to Medium. Ray tracing? Turn all of those options off completely - they'll tank your performance on this hardware. The upside is that VRAM usage stays under 6.5 GB even on 8 GB cards, so you won't get those nasty stutters from memory overload.

There are a couple of extra tricks you can pull. In the NVIDIA Control Panel, slide that performance slider to 'Performance' - it's good for an extra 3-4% FPS with no visible quality loss. Also, cap your FPS to 60 either in-game or through the control panel. This isn't just about stability; it prevents power spikes and coil whine that can make your GPU sound like it's dying.

1440p High Refresh: RTX 3080 / RX 6800 XT Settings

Stepping up to 1440p with an RTX 3080 or RX 6800 XT means you're hunting for triple-digit frame rates, not just 60. That's totally doable, but you'll need to balance quality with performance carefully.

DLSS Balanced is your best friend here - it recovers about 50-60% FPS on RTX 3080 (or 28-32% on RX 6800 XT using FSR 2) with barely any image quality cost. You can run Ultra textures without worry since the 3080's 10 GB VRAM handles 1440p easily, so don't compromise there.

Ray tracing is where you'll make your first cut. Set Ray-Traced Shadows to Medium, which drops GPU load by approximately 13% on RTX 3080 or 5% on RX 6800 XT compared to High while keeping that nice contact hardening effect. If you need more frames, drop the regular Shadows (non-RT) to Low for an extra 6-7 FPS, and bump Volumetrics down to Medium to save another 5 FPS.

Don't forget about CPU bottlenecks. In crowded areas like the Vatican markets, set Crowd Density to Medium - this stabilizes your frame rate when the CPU gets hammered. Finally, cap your frame rate to 100 in the NVIDIA control panel and flip Low-Latency Mode to 'On.' That combo shaves off about 10ms of input lag, which you'll definitely feel in combat.

4K Ultra: RTX 4080 / RX 7900 XTX Settings

If you've got an RTX 4080 or RX 7900 XTX, you're playing in 4K ultra territory, but even these beastly cards need help to stay above 60 FPS consistently.

DLSS Super Resolution set to Quality plus Frame Generation ON (FG x2) is the magic combo that gets you 142 FPS on RTX 4080 or 108 FPS on RX 7900 XTX even in heavy scenes. Frame Generation doubles your effective frame rate, and while some purists avoid it, the latency trade-off is minimal at 4K.

Now for the hard choices. Leave Path Tracing OFF if you want stable frame-times; this setting does not drop performance to 45 FPS; these cards achieve approximately 130 FPS at 1440p Supreme settings. However, do turn RT Reflections to Low - it costs about 25-35 FPS but adds massive mood to puddles and marble surfaces throughout the game.

Texture Pool Size should be set to High, not Ultra. High reserves approximately 7.4 GB, while Ultra can fragment VRAM and cause occasional frame pacing spikes that feel worse than a steady lower frame rate. Everything else? Crank it: View Distance Epic, Shadows High, Nanite/Virtual Shadows ON.

If you're on AMD and don't have DLSS, FSR 3.1 Balanced is your fallback. You'll see 60-65 FPS (upscaling alone) or 110-120 FPS with Frame Generation, but watch out for slight ghosting on hair - it's not deal-breaking, just noticeable if you're looking for it.

Performance Troubleshooting and Advanced Tips

Driver and Windows Optimization

Before you start messing with graphics sliders, you need to get your drivers and Windows sorted. First up: clean install the newest WHQL drivers - NVIDIA users want 566.36 WHQL or newer (572.42 recommended), while AMD folks should grab 24.3.1 as of January 2026. This isn't just about having the latest features; a clean install flushes old shader caches that can cause weird corruption, which means fewer random crashes.

Next, you'll want to force the game to use your dedicated GPU. Pop into the NVIDIA Control Panel or AMD Software, find TheGreatCircle.exe, and set it to High-performance NVIDIA processor or Discrete GPU. While you're in there, tweak a few more settings: enable 'Prefer max performance' on NVIDIA or disable 'Power Efficiency' on AMD, set texture filtering to 'High quality' or 'Standard', and definitely keep Shader Cache enabled.

Windows itself needs some love too, but this is where it gets tricky. Game Mode helps on 8- to 10-core CPUs, but you'll want to turn it OFF on 12-core and higher rigs because Windows can over-allocate cores and starve your GPU scheduling.

Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling is another setting that depends on your hardware: enable it for RTX 30-series, but leave it OFF for RDNA-2. Enable it on older Turing or RDNA-1 cards for optimal performance in this game.

And one last maintenance thing - clear those shader caches. You can do this through the control panels, but you'll also need to manually delete the PipelineCache files from %LOCALAPPDATA%\TheGreatCircle\PipelineCache.

Stuttering and VRAM Issues Fixes

If you're hitting stuttering or those nasty VRAM allocation errors, texture settings are your first suspect. Lower your Texture Pool Size to Low (2 GB) or Medium (4 GB), then dial back Shadow Quality, Reflection Quality, Volumetrics Quality, and Decal Rendering Distance. These are the biggest VRAM hogs, so cutting them gives you immediate breathing room.

Cache corruption is another common culprit. You'll want to clear both BVH and shader caches: in NVIDIA Control Panel go to Manage 3D Settings → Shader Cache Size → Clear disk cache; in AMD Software it's Graphics → Advanced → Reset Shader Cache. But don't stop there - also delete the [Your-Steam-Library]\SteamApps\common\Indiana Jones and the Great Circle\IndianaJones\DerivedDataCache (Steam) or C:\Program Files\ModifiableWindowsApps\IndianaJonesandtheGreatCircle\IndianaJones\DerivedDataCache (Xbox) folder to catch any stragglers that the control panels miss.

Sometimes the control panel doesn't automatically detect the game, which means you'll need to manually add TheGreatCircle-Win64-Shipping.exe and set Power Management to 'Prefer maximum performance'. This prevents your system from falling back to integrated graphics, which would be... well, let's just say you'd notice pretty quickly.

If you're still seeing VRAM errors after all that, try updating your GPU drivers through Device Manager - right-click your GPU, select 'Update driver', and 'Search automatically'. This can fix mis-reported free VRAM blocks that confuse the game. When nothing else works, the nuclear option is a clean reinstall: uninstall via Steam or the Xbox app, reboot, and reinstall. This removes corrupted texture packs that can balloon your working set and cause persistent allocation failures.

And don't forget background apps - they're silent killers. Disable Windows Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling if it's causing issues, cap your frame rate to 60 fps, and close Chromium-based apps like Discord and browsers. They love to gobble up VRAM in the background, which means less for the game.

Using the In-Game Benchmark Tool

You might be looking for a built-in benchmark tool to test your settings, but here's the thing: there isn't one. The Main Menu → Extras tab only contains videos, concept art, and credits - no performance options whatsoever, so don't waste your time hunting for it.

That means you'll need external tools for repeatable frame-rate data. Grab CapFrameX, PresentMon, or OCAT, then run a manual route like the Vatican courtyard fountain loop (about 55 seconds) for consistent samples. It's not as convenient as a built-in tool, but it gets the job done and gives you reliable numbers.

All the graphics toggles, including the mandatory Base Ray-Tracing and optional Full Path-Tracing, live under Settings → Graphics after you load or start a save. The good news is that the game's idTech Vulkan back-end pre-compiles the entire PSO cache at boot, which means shader compilation stutters are virtually nonexistent and traversal hitches are engineered out for stable frame pacing. So while testing takes more effort, the actual gameplay should be buttery smooth.

Optimizing The Great Circle is about smart trade-offs, not just turning everything to Low. By focusing on VRAM management, leveraging upscaling, and applying the right hardware-specific profile, you can achieve a stable, high-performance experience. Now, apply these settings, clear those caches, and enjoy the adventure without the technical headaches.