Star Wars Outlaws review – Simple Gameplay, Grand Experience

Star Wars Outlaws PC Optimization Guide

Star Wars Outlaws is a visually stunning game that pushes the limits of current-gen hardware, especially on PC. To get the most out of the game without sacrificing performance, it’s essential to optimize your settings. This guide will help you strike the perfect balance between visual fidelity and smooth gameplay, particularly if you’re not running the latest high-end hardware.

Why Optimization Matters

While Star Wars Outlaws looks incredible on consoles, the PC version offers a vast array of settings that allow players to tailor the game’s visuals to their hardware. However, the game’s demands can be heavy, especially with its extensive use of ray tracing. Proper optimization ensures you get the best possible experience without overloading your system, which is particularly crucial for those using mid-range hardware.

Star Wars Outlaws PC Optimized Settings

Here are the recommended settings to achieve the best balance between performance and visuals:

  • Environment Reflection Quality: High
  • Fog Blur: On
  • Microdetail Quality: High
  • Particle Quality: Medium
  • Scatter Density: High
  • Shadow Quality: High
  • Shadow Proxies: On
  • Spotlight Shadows: Max
  • Spotlight Shadow Quality: Ultra
  • Deformable Terrain Quality: Ultra
  • Lens and Cinematic Effects: Ultra
  • Extra Streaming Distance: 100
  • Object Detail: 100
  • Destruction Quality: High
  • Spotlight Projection Resolution: 512
  • Terrain Tesselation: Ultra
  • Raytraced Contact Shadows: High
  • Raytraced Diffuse Reflections: Ultra
  • Raytraced Diffuse Reflection Resolution: Medium
  • Raytraced Specular Reflections: High
  • Raytraced Specular Reflection Resolution: High
  • BVH Quality: High
  • Volumetric Fog: Medium
  • Volumetric Clouds: High
  • Nvidia RTX Direct Lighting: Off
  • Ray Reconstruction: Off
  • Upscaler: DLSS/FSR on Quality Mode

These settings will help balance the game’s demanding visuals with smooth performance, ensuring a better overall experience.

Understanding the Impact of Ray Tracing

Ray tracing adds incredible realism to Star Wars Outlaws, but it’s also one of the most resource-intensive features. For players using first-gen RT-enabled cards like the Nvidia RTX 20 series, you may need to dial down some settings to maintain a stable frame rate. If you’re using an Nvidia Geforce RTX 40 series GPU, enabling Frame Generation can help regain lost performance, though it may introduce some minor frame skipping during traversal.

Star Wars Outlaws PC Benchmarks

To give you an idea of what to expect, here are benchmarks using the following setup:

  • CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X
  • GPU: Nvidia RTX 4080
  • RAM: 32GB DDR4 3200 MHz
  • Storage: WD SN850 M.2 SSD

Benchmark Results (at 1440p)

  • Max preset, DLSS Quality, Frame Gen + RTX Direct Illumination: 75 FPS
  • Max preset, DLAA, Frame Gen + RTX Direct Illumination: 52 FPS
  • Max preset, DLSS Quality, RTX Direct Illumination: 42 FPS
  • Max preset, DLSS Quality, RTX Direct Illumination Off: 53 FPS
  • Max preset, DLSS Quality, RTX Direct Illumination Off, Ray Reconstruction Off: 65 FPS
  • Ultra preset, DLAA, RT at “High” preset: 65 FPS
  • Ultra preset, DLAA, RT at “Low” preset: 75 FPS
  • Optimized Settings with Frame Gen: 120 FPS
  • Optimized Settings without Frame Gen: 62 FPS
  • Optimized Settings, Frame Gen + RTX Direct Illumination: 82 FPS

These benchmarks illustrate how the optimized settings can offer a significant performance uplift—up to 60%—while maintaining impressive visuals.

Final Thoughts: Tailoring Your Experience

Optimizing Star Wars Outlaws on PC is crucial for enjoying the game to its fullest without compromising performance. While high-end systems will benefit from maxed-out settings, mid-range setups can still deliver an exceptional experience with the right tweaks. Once your settings are dialed in, you can focus on the game’s real challenges, like making tough decisions in the story or hunting for achievements.

For console gamers, the game also offers several graphics options on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, ensuring everyone can tailor their experience regardless of platform.

Want More Tips?

If you’re enjoying the rebellious life, check out our other guides. If you’re on the fence whether to get the game, go check out our review here.

Check out our ever-growing list of gaming guides for Star Wars: Outlaws: