No Rest for the Wicked Low FPS Fix: Best Settings Guide

Best Settings for No Rest for the Wicked Performance

Optimizing this game requires a balance between preserving Moon Studios‘ artistic vision and maintaining a playable frame rate. The engine is heavy on global illumination and physics, meaning the “High” preset is often too demanding even for modern mid-range cards. The game uses a unique top-down perspective with dense geometry, which can choke the CPU if you aren’t careful.

Optimizing Graphics for High FPS in No Rest for the Wicked

Instead of relying on the default Quality Presets, we recommend a custom configuration. Start by setting the Quality Preset to “Performance” as a baseline, then manually tweak these specific options for better visual fidelity where it counts. We’ve tested these settings across the Sacrament and the initial beach landing to ensure consistency.

Recommended Render Scale and Dynamic Resolution

The single most impactful setting in No Rest for the Wicked is the Render Scale. The game’s dense atmosphere renders a lot of pixels for lighting and fog. Dropping this to 75% or 80% provides a massive boost to frame rate with surprisingly little loss in image quality, thanks to the game’s soft, painterly art style. The slightly softer image actually complements the oil-painting aesthetic, making this a “free” performance upgrade.

We also strongly recommend enabling Dynamic Resolution Scaling. Set the target framerate to 60 FPS. This allows the game to automatically lower resolution during intense combat sequences—exactly when you need smooth performance the most—and sharpen back up during exploration. This is crucial for maintaining responsiveness during boss fights where a single stutter can mean death.

Advanced Display Settings for Smooth Gameplay

Beyond the graphics tab, your display settings play a crucial role. Always run the game in Exclusive Fullscreen mode rather than Borderless Windowed. This prioritizes the game process for your GPU and reduces system latency. While Borderless is convenient for alt-tabbing, it forces the Windows Desktop Window Manager (DWM) to buffer frames, adding input lag.

If you experience screen tearing, enable V-Sync, but be aware it adds slight input lag. For an Action RPG where parry timing is critical, we recommend keeping V-Sync OFF and using a Frame Rate Cap (e.g., 60 or 90 FPS) via your GPU control panel instead. This keeps your frame times consistent without the floaty feeling of V-Sync.

Practical Test: Which Settings Impact FPS the Most?

To understand where your hardware is struggling, we tested various configurations in the Sacrament area, which is notoriously heavy on the CPU and GPU due to NPC density and complex geometry. We used a mid-range setup featuring an RTX 3060 and a Ryzen 5 5600X to simulate a typical user experience.

No Rest for the Wicked PC Optimization Results

Our testing revealed that shadows and fog are the primary performance killers. Moving Shadow Quality from “High” to “Medium” resulted in a 15% FPS increase on our test rig. The visual difference is negligible during combat, making this an easy win for optimization. The shadows in this game are soft by design, so the sharper edges of “High” settings are often lost in the motion of battle anyway.

Identifying Heavy Resource Hogs

The game engine utilizes complex global illumination techniques. This means that settings related to lighting, such as Volumetric Fog and Ambient Occlusion (often baked into Post Processing), are extremely taxing. If you are still seeing drops below 30 FPS, turn Volumetric Fog to “Low” immediately. The atmosphere remains moody, but your GPU load will drop significantly. We found that “Low” fog still retains the god-rays effect but removes the dense, screen-filling haze that tanks frame rates in swampy areas.

Common Mistakes That Kill Performance

Even with the best settings, certain external factors or misunderstandings can ruin your experience. Avoid these common pitfalls to ensure your game runs buttery smooth.

Installing on an HDD

This cannot be stressed enough: No Rest for the Wicked requires an SSD. The game streams assets aggressively as you move through the seamless world. Installing it on a mechanical Hard Disk Drive (HDD) will result in massive stuttering, texture pop-in, and even momentary freezes as the drive struggles to feed data to the engine. If you are on an HDD, no amount of graphical tweaking will fix the stutter.

Ignoring Thermal Throttling

Because the game pushes both CPU and GPU hard, it generates significant heat. If you are playing on a laptop or a case with poor airflow, your hardware might be throttling (slowing down) to protect itself. Monitor your temperatures; if you see your GPU hitting 85°C+ and your clock speeds dropping, you need to clean your fans or adjust your fan curves.

Overlooking Background Bloatware

This game is CPU-intensive. Having Chrome tabs, Discord streaming, or antivirus scans running in the background steals cycles that the game needs for physics and AI calculations. Before launching, open Task Manager and kill any non-essential processes. We’ve seen frame time consistency improve by simply closing a browser with 20 tabs open.

Troubleshooting No Rest for the Wicked Low FPS

Sometimes, tweaking settings isn’t enough. If you are experiencing stuttering despite low graphics settings, the issue might be related to how your system handles data streaming or shaders.

Fixing No Rest for the Wicked Stuttering and Drops

Stuttering often occurs due to shader compilation or asset streaming. Ensure the game is installed on an SSD (Solid State Drive). HDDs are too slow for the seamless world streaming this game attempts. If you are on an HDD, no amount of graphics lowering will fix the traversal stutters.

Resolving Input Lag and Latency Issues

Input lag can make combat feel “heavy” or unresponsive. To fix this, disable any overlay software like Discord, GeForce Experience, or Steam Overlay, as they can interfere with the game’s exclusive fullscreen priority. Additionally, if you have an NVIDIA card, ensure “Low Latency Mode” is set to “On” or “Ultra” in the NVIDIA Control Panel. This reduces the pre-rendered frame queue, making your mouse and controller inputs register instantly.

Correcting Driver and Software Conflicts

Outdated device drivers are a common culprit for poor performance in new releases. Use DDU (Display Driver Uninstaller) to perform a clean install of the latest Game Ready drivers. This removes any corrupt legacy files that might be causing frame pacing issues. Also, ensure your Windows Power Plan is set to “High Performance” to prevent your CPU from downclocking during gameplay.

Verifying Game Integrity

If you are experiencing crashes alongside low FPS, your game files might be corrupted. In Steam, right-click the game, go to Properties > Installed Files, and click “Verify integrity of game files.” This ensures that all textures and shaders are correctly installed and can prevent weird graphical glitches that tank performance.

Frustrated by Lag-Induced Deaths?

Nothing is worse than losing progress because your game froze mid-boss fight. While optimization helps, sometimes you just want to get back to where you were before a technical glitch ended your run.

Enhance Your Experience with XMODHUB

If you are tired of losing resources or health due to performance spikes, XMODHUB offers tools that can help smooth out the frustration. Their trainers allow you to recover lost health or resources, effectively mitigating the punishment of lag-induced deaths without requiring you to restart hours of progress.

Why Stability Matters for Action RPGs

In a precision-based game like this, stability is king. Using external tools to adjust game parameters can be a valid way to test different builds or explore areas without the fear of a frame drop ruining your timing. It allows you to focus on the mechanics and the world, rather than fighting against your hardware.

No Rest for the Wicked Performance FAQ