ARC Raiders feature-3
PC Performance Analyses

ARC Raiders Patch 1.7.0 Unlocks Previously Hidden Cinematic Graphics Settings

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ARC Raiders has been hailed as one of the most optimized Unreal Engine 5. As I’ve showcased, the game runs with 100FPS at Native 4K/Epic Settings with Ray Tracing on an NVIDIA RTX 5090. However, the reason it runs so well is because the devs have locked its Cinematic/Max Settings. But now, thanks to Patch 1.7.0, PC gamers can experience the game in its true glory.

As with most UE5 games, there was a way to unlock these Cinematic settings by editing the config files. So, if you’ve already done that, you know what you can expect from these new settings. If not, you are looking at around a 30% performance hit. I could not find a comparison video. However, you can find a video at the end that shows off these hidden Cinematic settings.

ARC Raiders is not the only game that had locked its Cinematic/Max Settings during its launch. Silent Hill f was another game that followed that example. Same goes for Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2.

And you know what? I don’t blame the devs for doing it. A lot of PC gamers have gotten dumb, thinking that their mid-tier GPUs can run Ray Tracing at Native 4K with 60FPS. No, you can’t. You can’t even run Lumen at Native 4K/60FPS, unless we’re talking about the most optimized game on PC. That, or if the devs intentionally reduce the quality of Lumen/Ray Tracing.

What’s also funny is how some people perceive older PC titles. You’ve seen a lot of those ridiculous “This X game is 10 years old and still looks great“. Well, newsflash, everyone. Those are the exact games that all those people criticized for running poorly on PC.

Crysis? “It’s a tech demo, and it’s not that great-looking.” Assassin’s Creed: Unity? “Look how bad it runs. Ridiculous.” Batman: Arkham Knight? “A performance nightmare even after its re-release“. Red Dead Redemption 2? “Why does it run so poorly on Max? It ran like a dream on PS4. It does not look that much better.” PhysX- accelerated games? “It’s a gimmick, but HOW DARE NVIDIA drop support for them?” The hypocrisy is ridiculous.

A recent example is the animations of Assassin’s Creed: Shadows. A lot of people released videos to criticize the animations of a Titan that were used for the “Attack on Titan x Assassin’s Creed” collab. And here is the funny thing. That Titan was 100% accurate.

You see, the devs designed that Titan based on the “Smiling Titan”. It has the same smile. It looks as ridiculous as it looked in the anime. This wasn’t incompetence. This was a fan service. However, a lot of content creators jumped on the hate-bandwagon to b!tch about them. All just for the clicks and the money. And even though they had no clue WHY that Titan looked the way it did. That’s how clueless some of them were. They did EXACTLY what they have criticized the media for. They completely misled people to push their agenda.

All in all, if ARC Raiders launched with its Cinematic Settings, PC gamers would be calling it a sh!tty optimized game. If Dying Light: The Beast launched with Ray Tracing, it would be called a sh!tty game. Instead, they launched without them. And, guess what? Most players include them in their “most optimized PC games” lists.

So, make sure to keep that in mind the next time a new UE5 game comes out. The fact that you can run it on the in-game Max Settings does not mean it’s the true Cinematic Settings. It’s what the devs have decided to include so that you cannot harm your ego.

If you are interested in all the fixes, tweaks, and changes of Patch 1.7.0, you can find its full patch notes here!

Arc Raiders. Unlocking Cinematic Settings, DLAA 4K | RTX 5090 | 9950X3D