Subnautica 2 Best Settings for Max FPS and Performance

If your frame rates are tanking or the game feels sluggish while exploring, you are likely dealing with over-taxed GPU settings. Subnautica 2 has some beautiful visual features that, when cranked to max, will crush even capable hardware.

Why performance drops

Most stuttering in Subnautica 2 is caused by heavy GPU demand from real-time global illumination, volumetric clouds, and high-fidelity reflections. Lowering these compute-heavy settings while keeping textures high will balance visual clarity with smooth performance.

Steps

1. 01
   Open the game settings menu and navigate to the Graphics tab
2. 02
   Set Motion Blur to Off to reduce input latency and visual smearing
3. 03
   Locate the Upscaling option and set it to DLSS if you have an Nvidia card, or TSR for AMD and Intel hardware
4. 04
   Set Upscale Quality to Performance to prioritize frame rates
5. 05
   Change Global Illumination to Low to significantly reduce GPU load
6. 06
   Set Shadows, View Distance, Shading, Effects, and Landscape to Medium for the best balance
7. 07
   Keep Textures set to High if you have at least 6GB of VRAM
8. 08
   Set Foliage, Reflections, Post Processing, and Clouds to Low to minimize unnecessary GPU compute cost
9. 09
   Apply your changes and restart the game session to verify the FPS increase