Subnautica 2 hit early access and players are already discovering that the default Epic preset is doing their frame rates no favors. According to PC Gamer's hardware testing, dropping five specific graphics settings by a single notch from Epic to High can add anywhere from 29 to 33 fps depending on your GPU and resolution. That's a meaningful gain from what looks like a minor tweak on paper.
The game runs on Unreal Engine 5 and makes heavy use of Lumen, Epic Games' dynamic global illumination and reflections system. Lumen is gorgeous, but it's also expensive, and Subnautica 2 is currently giving even high-end hardware a harder time than you'd expect at common resolutions.
What the benchmark numbers actually show
Testing was conducted on two Nvidia GPUs: the RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB and the RTX 5080, both with Quality upscaling enabled and frame generation turned off. At 1080p on full Epic settings, the RTX 5060 Ti averaged 60 fps with 1% lows dropping to 36 fps. The RTX 5080 hit 102 fps average at 1080p but only 78 fps at 1440p, which is underwhelming for a GPU in that price bracket.
Switch to the custom mix of Epic and High, and the numbers change significantly. The RTX 5060 Ti jumped to 89 fps average at 1080p and 76 fps at 1440p. The RTX 5080 reached 132 fps at 1080p and 107 fps at 1440p. Those 1% lows improved substantially too, which matters more than the averages for a game where stutters break immersion.
The five settings doing the most damage
Here's the lowdown on which options to target. All five sit in the graphics menu and each one steps down from Epic to High:
- Global illumination (the biggest Lumen-related offender)
- Shadows
- View distance
- Shading
- Effects
The key here is that dropping global illumination likely reduces how aggressively Lumen calculates indirect lighting, even if it doesn't disable the system outright. The visual difference in the murky underwater biomes is minimal. Shadowing on objects in shallow, brightly lit water shows the most noticeable change, but side-by-side screenshots are needed to spot it. In motion, most players won't register the difference at all.
FSR support is not yet available in Subnautica 2 at launch. AMD GPU owners are limited to TSR for upscaling until FSR is added in a future update. Nvidia users can enable DLSS Frame Generation for additional performance headroom.
Early access performance context
This is still an early access game, and the performance picture will shift as players reach more demanding biomes. One tester running an RX 6800 XT at 1440p on Medium settings reported frame rates ranging from the high 60s to mid 70s in more advanced areas of the game. That suggests performance degrades noticeably in asset-heavy zones that early-game benchmarks don't capture.
The game also lacks a direct toggle to disable Lumen, which limits how granular players can get with lighting performance. A 2x frame generation option exists for modern Nvidia cards, but there's no equivalent for AMD or Intel users yet. More upscaling and frame generation options are expected as development continues.
For survival games built around exploration and atmosphere, smooth frame rates matter more than in faster-paced genres. Stutters during a deep dive are genuinely disruptive to the experience, which makes the 1% low improvements from this settings adjustment as important as the average FPS gains.
What this means for players is that the Epic preset, at least in its current form, is not the right starting point for most hardware. The five-setting adjustment gets you most of the visual quality at a fraction of the performance cost, and the game still looks excellent with the changes applied.
For a deeper look at PC settings optimization across resolutions, the Subnautica 2 best graphics settings guide covers 1080p, 1440p, and 4K configurations in full detail.
