Star Wars Zero Company, a new tactical game set during the Clone Wars, is facing performance challenges on PC, with players reporting crashes and significant frame drops. These issues have been observed even on high-end hardware, including systems with an RTX 5090 graphics card. While the game draws parallels to the XCOM series and offers a compelling Star Wars setting, its current stability has led to a frustrating experience for some.

Performance Bottlenecks and Settings Adjustments

The game appears to be CPU-bound in many instances, even on powerful desktop configurations. For example, on a Lenovo Legion Go 2, CPU usage would reach 50-60% while the GPU remained at 70-80%, indicating underutilization of the graphics card. Even a high-end desktop with a Ryzen 7 9850X3D and an RTX 5090 has shown CPU usage spikes up to 50% at the start of missions. Technologies like Nvidia Reflex and AMD FSR Anti-Lag can offer some improvement by reducing latency, but the primary limitation often lies with the processor.

Given that Zero Company is built on Unreal Engine 5, optimizing its performance can be complex. Adjusting specific graphics settings can help mitigate some of these issues. For players experiencing CPU bottlenecks, lowering settings such as 'Hidden Objects Detail' and 'Effect Quality' is recommended.

Key Graphics Settings to Consider

Windowing Mode: Fullscreen is suggested for single-monitor setups for maximum performance, while Borderless Window is better for multi-monitor users or those who frequently alt-tab. Windowed mode offers standard window behavior.

Anti-Aliasing and Upscaling: Using upscaling technologies like AMD's FSR, Nvidia's DLSS, or Intel's XeSS is highly recommended for all players to enhance performance. The choice of upscaling technology should generally align with the user's GPU manufacturer.

Upscaling Quality: The quality setting for upscaling should be matched to the display's native resolution. A common guideline is to use 'Performance' for 4K, 'Balanced' for 1440p, and 'Quality' for 1080p.

Frame Generation: This feature, which uses AI to create intermediate frames, can significantly increase frame rates. While it introduces latency, this is less critical in a turn-based game like Zero Company.

Nvidia Reflex/AMD Anti-Lag/XeSS LL: Enabling these features is advised as they reduce latency by synchronizing frame rendering with CPU delivery to the GPU.

Shadow Quality: For those struggling with GPU performance, reducing shadow quality is often the first step. Even at lower settings, shadows in Zero Company are described as reasonably decent.

Global Illumination and Reflections: These settings, particularly when ray tracing is involved at higher levels (High and Ultra), heavily impact GPU performance. Lowering them to Medium or Low can yield significant gains, especially on less powerful hardware. On mid-range PCs, Medium is suggested for Global Illumination, while Reflections can also be set to Medium. For handheld devices, Low is recommended for both.

Textures: This setting impacts VRAM usage. Players with 10GB or more of VRAM can likely set this to Ultra, while those with less than 8GB should consider Medium or Low settings after monitoring VRAM usage.

Effect Quality: This impacts the detail of visual effects like explosions and lasers. As it can strain the CPU, it is a prime candidate for reduction if CPU bottlenecks are present.

Shading Quality: Similar to textures, this affects the detail of world objects and can impact VRAM. Lowering it is advisable if VRAM is limited.

View Distance: Due to the generally small size of the game's arenas, this setting is largely aesthetic and can be reduced with minimal impact on gameplay, especially on mid-range systems.

Hidden Objects Detail: This setting affects the detail of objects that are not currently visible. It places a load on the CPU, so reducing it is beneficial for CPU-limited systems.

Environment Geometry Detail: This toggle affects the geometry of models. While newer GPUs may not see a significant performance benefit from turning it off, older PCs (more than five years old) might experience improvements.

The game's developers are expected to release patches to improve stability over time, but for now, careful adjustment of these settings may be necessary for a smoother experience, particularly on lower-to-mid-range hardware.