Black Desert Online is a visually stunning and action-packed MMORPG that has captured the hearts of gamers all over the world. With its immersive world and exciting gameplay, it's no wonder that players are constantly looking for ways to boost their FPS and improve performance. Whether you're a new player or a seasoned veteran, optimizing your game's performance is essential for a smooth and enjoyable gaming experience. In this article, we'll provide expert tips and tricks on boosting FPS and improving overall performance in Black Desert Online. From adjusting in-game settings to optimizing your hardware, we'll cover everything you need to know to maximize your gaming experience.

Optimize the Black Desert Online In-Game Settings

Changing your Black Desert Online settings usually makes the most significant performance improvement for low to mid-end systems. Open up your settings, and make changes according to your system’s specifications. Most of the setting changes showcased apply to low-end PCs. If you experience performance issues while using the recommended system requirements, then follow the next steps. In your settings, you can set the specifications settings and siege war settings to be automatically set for a low or mid-end PC.

Black Desert Online Settings > Performance Settings

Navigate to your Performance settings and set the overall Texture and Graphics Quality according to your system. Disable high-end graphics and Anti-aliasing. You can monitor your current framerate to see how much performance you can get while adjusting these settings. As for the other settings, we recommend you to go with the following:

Disable Screen Space Ambient Occlusion
Enable Display Filter
Disable Faraway Objects (for low-end CPUs)
Disable Depth of Field & Faraway NPCs

Under Optimization, enable the Auto frame optimization and disable Upscale, should you be running Black Desert Online on a laptop, then enable the Low-power Option; otherwise, disable it to get more FPS. You should also enable the optimization options below. However, you will need to restart the game to apply these settings:

Performance Optimization - Assigns Black Desert Online more Memory
Effect Optimization - Set it to prioritize Performance in case you need more FPS
Character Optimization/Hide other Adventurers - Adjust the distance other players will be loaded in or hide all the adventurers (when possible) for a smoother game experience.

Under Workers & Pets, you can also hide certain NPCs to improve your Black Desert Online performance on your PC. In your Display Settings, under Game Window, play in Full-Screen mode. Set the screen resolution to your native monitor resolution. If none of the next tweaks helped you out as much as you wanted, you could lower this setting. This will in any way improve your performance, but the visual quality will suffer a lot.

Optimization settings for Black Desert Online

Change the Black Desert Online Process Priority

To further increase the Black Desert Online performance on your PC, we will change the application’s priority compared to other programs running in the background. Right-click your taskbar to open up your Task Manager. In the Processes tab, right-click the Black Desert Online process and select to Go to details. In the Details tab, the application should be highlighted. Right-click the game process and set the priority to high.

2021-03-03 22_50_23-.jpg — Task Manager > Details > BlackDesert64.exe > Set Priority > High

This will in turn allocate more resources to playing Black Desert Online and should increase your performance, especially if you have other programs running in the background. To reduce the CPU utilization from other programs, we suggest ending some programs from running in the background, which you don't need when playing Black Desert Online. Make sure to only end programs from running, which you know won't break your operating system.

Verify the Black Desert Online Game Files

Ensure your Black Desert Online files are up to date and complete. In your Steam library, right-click the application and select Properties. A new window will open up, where you will have to select Verify integrity of game files in the Local Files tab. This will take a minute to redownload and replace any missing or corrupted Black Desert Online files.

Steam library > Black Desert Properties > Local Files > Verify Integrity of game files

Update Device Drivers

Next, ensure your peripherals and other devices are running the latest driver. In some cases, outdated driver software for your components can be the culprit of stuttering or FPS drops. Search for Device Manager in your taskbar to open it up. Expand Mice and other pointing devices. Right-click your device, select Update Driver, and then Search Automatically for updated driver software. If you’re unsure about which device you are currently using, repeat this step for each device. You should also update your network adapter, display adapter, and disk divers.

Device Manager > Devices > Update Driver

Update Graphics Card Driver

NVIDIA graphics cards can utilize the GeForce Experience application. Click here to download the application to your system. When the download is completed, open up the application, and in the Drivers tab, select Download. This will download and install the latest GPU update and should take a few minutes to complete.

Update Operating System

To optimize your system for performance, you should ensure your operating system is up to date. Simply search for Update in your taskbar search. In your Check for updates system settings window, download the latest update and make sure to restart your PC after that the download is completed. This will in any case, help you with performance issues.

Disable Windows Game Bar Recording

Some native Windows 10 settings can reduce your overall performance while playing Black Desert Online. Ensure to disable Game Bar recording, as it continuously records your gameplay and audio. In your taskbar search, enter: Game Bar to open the Game bar system settings. Uncheck the recording option. In the Captures tab, disable the background recording additionally. These settings will only reduce your performance. If you want to record your gameplay, we suggest using OBS Studio, or an external capture card if you lack performance.

NVIDIA Control Panel Adjustments

Making changes to your NVIDIA control panel can be essential. Change a few options in your NVIDIA control panel to improve your system's Black Desert Online performance. To open your NVIDIA control panel, right-click your desktop and select NVIDIA Control Panel. In your control panel, navigate to Manage 3D Settings > Program Settings.

Select to Add a program to customize and then add the Black Desert Online from the program list. If you can’t find the game in the program list, click on Browse. In your file explorer, you must locate the drive and path on which you installed the Black Desert Online and add it to the program list from there. Make sure that the CUDA setting is set to your primary GPU, set the Power management mode to Prefer maximum performance, and set the texture filtering quality to Performance.

Change the Black Desert Online Graphics Preference

Windows 10 allows you to utilize power user settings, such as your graphics settings. To change your graphics settings, enter Graphics Settings in your taskbar search to open up your native settings. When selecting Browse, your file explorer will open up, where you will have to navigate to the drive and path where Black Desert Online is saved. After adding the program to your graphics settings list, the operating system lets you choose between the following:

Let Windows choose
Power Saving (Usually Intel HD Graphics)
High Performance (Usually, your graphics card(s)
Specific GPU (Choose which GPU to use)

For the most system performance, use the High-Performance option. If your GPU is bottlenecking your performance, you should set it to High Performance. Don't forget to apply your changes.

Graphics Settings > Graphics Preference > High Performance

Delete the Windows Temporary Files

Your hard drive might be cluttered with unwanted files. These files will induce lag if not removed properly. You can delete your temporary files manually or use PC cleanup programs, such as CCleaner. These applications are usually the best choice as it will automatically keep your hard-drive clean for you. To manually delete your temporary files, enter %temp% in your taskbar search and hit enter. A new folder will open up. Make sure to delete the content of your temporary files folder.

Sometimes, this can take a few minutes if you haven’t done this before. Some files will most likely stay in your temporary files folder, as these are still in use by your programs. To completely delete these files, you should also empty your recycle bin.