Quick Links
More than a decade later, and withGTA 6near the horizon, its highly successful predecessor,GTA 5, has received yet another coat of paint — this time on PC. The latest version enhances the game with ray tracing technology, a feature previously exclusive to the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.
With these graphical improvements come higher system requirements, making the game more demanding than before. If you’replanning to revisitGTA 5, you may need to adjust the graphics settings to find the optimal balance between the upgraded visuals and performance.
Best Video Settings For GTA 5
You won’t see asignificant framerate boostwith these settings, but choosing the right ones is still crucial. A single poorly selected setting can leave your game looking like a blurry mess or running with severe lag.
Recommended Setting
Ignore Suggested Limits
This setting determines whether the game can exceed your GPU’s VRAM limit. Going over the limit can cause severe stability issues, so it’s best to keep it off.
Off
Screen Type
This setting controls whether the game uses your entire monitor screen or only a portion of it. Borderless Fullscreen makes Alt+Tabbing quicker and more convenient.
Borderless Fullscreen
Resolution
This setting determines the final resolution of the game. Choosing anything below Native will cause blurriness.
Native
Refresh Rate
This setting determines the refresh rate of the monitor. Only available if Screen Type is selected to Fullscreen.
Frame Limit
This setting applies a custom framerate cap to the game. Choosing a cap below your average FPS can help smooth out the frametime graph. Only enable this if you consistently achieve more than 60 FPS.
Personal Choice
VSync
This setting synchronizes the game’s framerate with your monitor’s refresh rate, reducing screen tearing at the cost of added input lag. Enable it if you have a 144Hz or higher monitor.
On
NVIDIA Reflex
This setting enables NVIDIA Reflex technology to reduce input lag. However, it can sometimes cause framerate spikes, so it’s best to keep it off.
Best Ray Tracing and Frame Scaling Settings For GTA 5
These are some of the most importantgraphical settings in the enhanced version ofGTA 5, as they include all ray-tracing features and upscaling technology. While these settings can make the game look stunning, they also come with a significant performance cost. Maxing out all ray tracing options will severely impact your framerate, so use the recommended settings below instead.
Enable Ray Tracing
This setting enables ray-tracing features in the enhanced version of GTA 5.
Ray Traced Shadows
Creates soft shadows from sunlight and moonlight. Determines the quality of RT shadows. Increasing this setting applies shadows to more objects.
High
Ray Traced Reflections
This setting controls the quality of RT reflections and the distance at which objects appear in reflections.
Ray Traced Global Illumination
This setting adds RT global illumination. Higher settings increase the distance at which global illumination is applied.
Off (High if you have extra performance)
Ray Traced Ambient Occlusion
This setting adds RT ambient occlusion. Increasing this setting extends the distance at which ambient occlusion is applied.
Ray Traced Scene BVH Quality
Adjusts the quality of objects included in the RT scene. Higher settings enhance all RT features by adding more objects into reflections, shadows, and lighting.
Frame Scaling
Determines which upscaling technology to use. Nvidia RTX users should select DLSS, while others should opt for FSR 3.
AMD FSR 3 (DLSS for RTX GPU)
AMD FSR 3 Quality
Controls the quality of the upscaling technology. For 1440p, avoid going below Balanced. Choose Native AA if you prefer no upscaling but still want the scaler’s anti-aliasing method.
Native AA (Quality/Balanced for 1440p)
Anti-Aliasing
Selects the type of anti-aliasing used. If upscaling is disabled, the game will default to TAA.
FSR 3 AA (DLSS for RTX GPU)
Sharpness
Adjusts the strength of the sharpness filter. This is a personal preference, but a setting of 3/4 is often recommended.
75%
Best Graphics Settings For GTA 5
You should be able to optimize the ray tracing and upscaling settings enough to push your performance above the highly sought-after 60 FPS mark. However, if you’re still not satisfied and want to achieve an even higher framerate,such as 120 FPS, adjust the following settings.
Shader Quality
This setting controls the quality of various rendering features, including lighting, shadows, and particles.
Very High
Texture Quality
This setting determines the quality of textures and affects the level of detail (LOD) on various objects.
Anisotropic Filtering
This setting adjusts the quality of textures when viewed at an angle.
X16
Particles Quality
This setting controls the quality and quantity of particle effects, as well as their visibility at a distance.
Tessellation
This setting affects the quality of certain surfaces, such as trees.
Water Quality
This setting adjusts the quality of water effects, including reflections, refraction, and physics.
Normal
Grass Quality
This setting controls the density and draw distance of foliage. On Ultra, grass also receives shadows.
Lighting Quality
This setting adjusts the quality of lighting from the sun, moon, and local light sources.
Shadow Quality
This setting controls the quality of shadows and which objects can cast them.
Soft Shadows
This setting adjusts the quality of soft shadows. This option is unavailable if RT Shadows are enabled.
This setting enables long shadows during sunrise and sunset.
Extended Shadow Distance
This setting extends the draw distance of shadows beyond the default settings.
0
Post FX
This setting controls the quality of various post-processing effects, including bloom, motion blur, and depth of field.
In-Game Depth of Field Effects
This setting adjusts the quality of the depth of field effect.
Motion Blur Strength
This setting determines the strength of the motion blur effect. Recommended only if running below 60 FPS.
Ambient Occlusion
This setting determines the ambient occlusion technique used. This option is unavailable if RT AO is enabled.
HBAO
Population Density
This setting controls the population density of NPCs and vehicles in the open world.
5
Population Variety
This setting adjusts the variety of NPCs and vehicles in the open world.
Distance Scaling
This setting determines the level of detail (LOD) for distant objects.
Extended Distance Scaling
This setting enhances LOD for distant objects beyond the recommended limits.
