The best Control PC settings are DLSS Quality, volumetric lighting on Medium, screen-space reflections on High, and ray tracing disabled unless your GPU has serious headroom. That combination preserves the Oldest House’s moody lighting while delivering a much steadier frame rate. If you have an RTX card, enable ray tracing selectively and use DLSS; if you’re on a GTX or Radeon GPU, turn RT off, lower volumetrics first, and protect your minimum FPS rather than chasing a pretty screenshot.
Remedy’s supernatural shooter still has one of the most demanding rendering pipelines on PC. Exploding office furniture, destructible walls, transparent surfaces, volumetric haze, particles, and telekinetic debris can all hit the GPU at once. A system that reports 90 FPS while Jesse Faden stands in an empty hallway may suddenly fall into the 50s when Launch throws a concrete slab through a group of Hiss Guards.
This guide covers the Ultimate Edition and the PC version’s DirectX 11 and DirectX 12 modes. Before tuning, check the official Steam listing for Control Ultimate Edition, update your graphics driver, and make sure the game is installed on an SSD if possible. For broader crash and frame-time troubleshooting, Steamoz’s guide to PC crashes and FPS recovery has useful Windows-side fixes that also apply here.
The best Control PC preset for most players
Start with the profile below, then adjust it around your monitor’s resolution and refresh rate. It is built around consistent frame pacing rather than a benchmark peak. Control feels dramatically better at a locked 60 FPS than it does swinging between 48 and 85 FPS, especially when you’re aiming while levitating or using Evade during a crowded encounter.
| Setting | Recommended Value | FPS Impact | Visual Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Display Mode | Fullscreen | Low | Usually offers the cleanest latency and exclusive-resolution behavior. |
| Resolution | Native | Very High | Keep native resolution when using DLSS; reduce only as a last resort. |
| Texture Resolution | High | Low to Medium | High-quality surfaces cost VRAM more than raw shader performance. |
| Texture Filtering | 16x | Low | Keeps floor and wall textures sharp at oblique angles. |
| Shadow Resolution | High | Medium | Medium is a good fallback on GPUs with limited headroom. |
| Volumetric Lighting | Medium | High | One of the best settings to lower during combat-related drops. |
| Screen Space Reflections | High | Medium | High keeps wet floors and polished interiors convincing. |
| Global Reflections | On | Medium | Turning it off can flatten reflective surfaces across the Bureau. |
| Motion Blur | Off | Negligible | Sharper camera movement and easier target tracking. |
| Film Grain | Off | Negligible | Cleaner image, particularly with temporal upscaling. |
| Ray Tracing | Off | Very High | Disable first if you need a stable 60 FPS. |
| DLSS | Quality at 1440p, Balanced at 4K | Very High gain | Usually the best performance-to-image-quality option on RTX cards. |
Texture Resolution deserves a little nuance. Control’s high-resolution assets can consume a meaningful amount of VRAM, but dropping textures rarely fixes a GPU-limited combat scene unless your card is swapping data. On an 8GB card, High is generally the sensible target at 1080p or 1440p. At 4K, Medium can prevent hitching on cards with 6GB or less, although the surfaces in Executive and Research will look softer.
Texture Filtering is practically free on modern hardware, so leave it at 16x. The same goes for Film Grain and Motion Blur: they don’t rescue performance in any meaningful way. Disable both if you want Jesse’s telekinetic projectiles, black-and-white Threshold shifts, and fast camera turns to stay crisp.
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View on Steammoz Store →Ray tracing and DLSS explained for Control
Control was one of the showcase titles for real-time ray tracing, and the effects are easy to spot in the Oldest House. Ray-traced reflections appear on glass, glossy floors, and polished office surfaces; ray-traced transparent reflections improve windows and screens; and ray-traced indirect diffuse lighting gives some rooms a richer bounce of light. The catch is that these effects stack on top of an already expensive rasterized scene.
The game exposes several RT controls rather than a single quality switch. Ray-Traced Reflections are usually the most noticeable option, while Ray-Traced Transparent Reflections and Ray-Traced Indirect Diffuse Lighting add atmosphere at a much steeper performance cost. If you want the RT look without sacrificing responsiveness, enable reflections first and leave the other two disabled.
| Ray-Tracing Option | Image Improvement | Typical Performance Cost | Recommended Use |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ray-Traced Reflections | Clear reflections in glass, floors, and glossy objects | High | Enable selectively on RTX 3070-class hardware or better. |
| Ray-Traced Transparent Reflections | More accurate reflections through transparent surfaces | Very High | Use for screenshots or a locked 30/40 FPS profile. |
| Ray-Traced Indirect Diffuse Lighting | More natural bounced light and room shading | Very High | Disable for competitive-feeling combat and high refresh rates. |
| All RT Options | Best lighting and reflection quality | Extreme | Reserved for high-end GPUs with DLSS and spare headroom. |
DLSS changes the equation because it renders internally at a lower resolution and reconstructs the output with NVIDIA’s machine-learning upscaler. At 1440p, DLSS Quality is the sweet spot: it improves performance substantially while retaining fine signage and concrete texture detail. At 4K, Balanced is often the practical choice, while Performance should be reserved for 4K displays where a stable frame rate matters more than tiny image details.
Don’t automatically choose DLSS Performance at 1080p. The lower internal resolution can make thin cables, text, and distant geometry shimmer. If you’re playing at 1080p, use DLSS Quality or turn it off and lower volumetric lighting instead. AMD and Intel GPU owners should use the game’s available spatial or temporal upscaling option if present in their build, but native resolution with RT disabled is usually the cleaner target on mid-range Radeon hardware.
Control’s official Remedy game page remains a useful reference for the title’s technical features. Just remember that promotional screenshots are designed to show RT at its best, not to represent the frame rate you’ll see during The Anchor, Mold fights, or the Ashtray Maze.
Best settings for 60 FPS, 120 FPS, and 4K
Your target refresh rate should decide how aggressive the settings are. A 60 FPS cap with stable frame times is ideal for most systems. Control’s input and camera movement feel responsive at 60, and the cap prevents the GPU from running flat-out in quieter scenes only to collapse during physics-heavy combat. On a 120Hz or 144Hz monitor, a locked 90 or 100 FPS profile can feel excellent, but you’ll need to sacrifice ray tracing and trim the expensive lighting settings.
| Target Profile | GPU Class | Core Settings | Expected Approach |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1080p / 60 FPS | GTX 1660 Super, RX 5600 XT | High textures, Medium volumetrics, RT off, native or Quality upscaling | Prioritize a consistent minimum above 60 in ordinary combat. |
| 1440p / 60 FPS | RTX 2060 Super, RX 6700 XT | High textures, Medium volumetrics, RT off, DLSS Quality where available | Excellent balance of clarity and stable telekinetic combat. |
| 1440p / 90-120 FPS | RTX 4070, RX 7800 XT | High textures, Low-Medium volumetrics, RT off, Quality upscaling | Reduce shadows and reflections if the 1% lows dip. |
| 4K / 60 FPS | RTX 3080, RTX 4070 Super, RX 7900 XT | High textures, Medium volumetrics, DLSS Balanced, RT off or Reflections only | Upscaling is strongly recommended for combat-heavy areas. |
| 4K / RT showcase | RTX 4080-class or higher | DLSS Quality or Balanced, RT Reflections, other RT options tested individually | Expect demanding scenes and use a 60 FPS cap. |
| Hardware Situation | Resolution | Settings to Lower First | Settings to Protect |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4GB VRAM GPU | 1080p | Textures, volumetrics, global reflections | Texture filtering, geometry detail, native output if possible |
| 6GB VRAM mid-range GPU | 1080p or 1440p upscaled | Volumetrics, shadows, all ray tracing | High textures, screen-space reflections |
| 8GB VRAM modern GPU | 1440p | Ray tracing and Ultra shadows for higher FPS | High textures and DLSS Quality |
| 12GB-plus high-end GPU | 1440p or 4K | Only RT features that hurt your 1% lows | High textures, volumetric lighting at Medium or High |
On a laptop, the power profile matters as much as the menu. Play while plugged in, select the manufacturer’s performance mode, and check that the game is using the discrete GPU rather than integrated graphics. Keep temperatures under control with a raised rear edge or cooling stand. Laptop GPUs can downclock after several minutes, creating a performance decline that looks like a graphics-setting problem.
For an older CPU, reduce background applications and avoid uncapped frame rates. Control’s physics simulation can become a CPU-side burden when a room fills with floating objects, even if GPU usage drops. A sensible cap gives the processor breathing room and often makes combat feel smoother than an unstable 70 FPS average.
A clean optimization checklist for Control
Use this order when tuning rather than changing ten options at once. First, choose your resolution and target frame rate. Second, disable ray tracing and establish a baseline. Third, enable DLSS Quality if you have an RTX GPU. Fourth, lower volumetric lighting and shadows until the 1% lows stop collapsing. Only then experiment with RT Reflections, because it’s easier to understand the trade-off when the underlying raster performance is stable.
- Update and restart. Install a current graphics driver, reboot, and close unnecessary overlays.
- Set the display correctly. Select your monitor’s native resolution, confirm the correct refresh rate in Windows, and use fullscreen while testing.
- Choose a cap. Start at 60 FPS. If the game can hold it comfortably, move toward 90 or 120 rather than leaving the frame rate unlimited.
- Build the baseline. Use High textures, Medium volumetrics, High screen-space reflections, Motion Blur off, Film Grain off, and RT off.
- Add upscaling. Use DLSS Quality at 1440p and try Balanced at 4K if 60 FPS remains out of reach.
- Test real combat. Use Launch, Evade, and Shield in a busy room; don’t benchmark only in an empty hallway.
- Check frametimes. If average FPS looks fine but movement feels rough, lower volumetrics, reflections, or RT before reducing resolution.
The best-looking profile isn’t necessarily the one with every slider at maximum. Control’s cinematic power comes from its stark architecture, red-lit corridors, brutalist geometry, and explosive physics. Those elements survive a Medium volumetric setting far better than they survive stutter. If you’re still fighting inconsistent performance after applying these changes, Steamoz’s max-FPS settings guide and higher-FPS settings walkthrough offer additional driver and Windows tuning ideas.
For most players, the final recommendation is simple: run native 1080p or 1440p, use High textures, Medium volumetric lighting, High screen-space reflections, and a firm 60 FPS cap. RTX owners should add DLSS Quality, then test RT Reflections only after the game is already smooth. That setup keeps Jesse’s combat responsive, preserves the Oldest House’s distinctive atmosphere, and avoids paying a huge performance bill for effects you’ll barely notice while throwing a filing cabinet at the Hiss.