Settings & Performance
Make the game look its best or run its fastest. Three ready-made loadouts, plus what every graphics option really does.
Everything on this page lives in the game: press Esc to open the game menu. It lists the panels as buttons: Key Bindings, Controller, Graphics, Interface, Auras, Audio, and Performance Overlay, with Wiki, Unstuck, Log Out, and Return to Game below them, and Report a Bug joining the list while you are playing online. Graphics and Interface hold almost everything described here.
The two panels this page does not table are worth a look anyway. Auras is where you shape the big on-screen alerts that fire when one of your class procs comes up: which ones show, their size, color, opacity, and where they sit on screen. Performance Overlay is the readout you turn on while you tune this page, then hide again.
No option here trades beauty for power. Lower settings shed cosmetic polish only, never information you fight with: your debuffs, cast bars, party health, and damage numbers are identical from Low to Insane. Playing on a modest machine is never a handicap.
Three ready-made loadouts
Start from the loadout that sounds like your machine, then adjust one option at a time until it feels right.
Best FPS
For older laptops, integrated graphics, and battery play.
- Graphics Quality Low press Apply
- Render Quality 50 to 70%
- Weather Effects Off
- Browser Effects Minimal
- Frosted Panels Off
- Reduce Motion On (optional)
Why it works: Graphics Quality is the master switch, and Render Quality is the strongest slider: at 70% the world draws roughly half the pixels while the interface stays perfectly sharp.
Balanced
The sweet spot for most machines, and our default advice.
- Graphics Quality High on a gaming PC, Medium on a laptop press Apply
- Render Quality 90 to 100%
- Weather Effects On
- Browser Effects Auto
Why it works: Medium brings real shadows and full materials, and High adds ambient occlusion and bloom on top. The built-in safety net stays armed on every tier, so Balanced rides out a busy fight without you babysitting it.
Best Visuals
Screenshot mode for powerful desktop machines.
- Graphics Quality Ultra, or Insane if you want everything press Apply
- Render Quality 100%
- Weather Effects On
- Browser Effects Full
- Frosted Panels On
Why it works: Ultra renders at the highest resolution your display offers with the richest lighting. Above it sits Insane, the everything-on showcase: you have to choose that one by hand, because the game never picks it for you no matter how strong your machine is.
How the options behave
The game tunes itself first
On your first launch the game reads your device and stores a sensible tier for you. Every phone and tablet starts on Low so you can get straight into the world, and so does an old or software graphics card. A strong desktop starts on Ultra, or High when the machine looks short on memory. Anything the game cannot place stays on Medium. Any choice you make yourself always wins, and it sticks.
Two kinds of options
The Graphics panel edits a draft. Change Graphics Quality or any of the detail dials, then press Apply and the game rebuilds the world where you stand, no reload. The line beside the button tells you when it has landed. Every other option, in that panel and everywhere else, applies the moment you change it, and only a rebuild that fails outright offers you a Reload button instead.
A built-in safety net
Every tier keeps a safety net armed: when a big fight spikes, the game quietly thins grass, effects, and lighting for a moment, then restores them. Ultra and Insane simply wait much longer before they do it, so a premium preset is never disturbed by a single slow frame.
Where a setting lives
There is no search box, so it helps to know the shape of the menu. Graphics is laid out as cards: Quality, World Detail, Lighting & Effects, Camera, Display, and System, plus Touch Controls on a touchscreen. Interface is split into four tabs: General, Frames, Chat, and Combat. If a setting changes how the world is drawn it is in Graphics, and if it changes what the interface shows you it is in Interface.
The detail dials and the Advanced mix
You do not have to pick Advanced to see the detail dials. The Graphics panel always shows them, in two cards: World Detail holds Terrain Detail, Foliage Density, Surface Detail, View Distance, Water Quality, and Character Detail, and Lighting & Effects holds Effects & Lighting, Shadow Quality, Ambient Occlusion, Bloom, Anti-Aliasing, Dynamic Lights, and Particle Effects. Under a fixed preset each dial shows roughly where that preset sits.
Move any one of them and the quality preset switches to Advanced, seeded from exactly the levels you were looking at, so your custom mix starts from what you already saw rather than from scratch. Press Apply when you like it. Advanced sits at the end of the preset list for that reason: it is the expert profile where your own mix lives.
Two favorite mixes: keep Shadow Quality high and set Effects & Lighting to Low for a crisp, glow-free look that runs light, or do the reverse to keep the bloom and soften the shadows. One thing to know before you mix: Ambient Occlusion and Bloom ride the same chain as Effects & Lighting, so with that dial on Low they have nothing to run on. Anti-Aliasing survives that mix, on a cheaper edge filter built into the final image pass.
Every graphics option, explained
| Setting | What it does | FPS impact |
|---|---|---|
| Graphics Quality | The master switch. Each step changes resolution, shadows, materials, foliage, and lighting effects together. The biggest single difference you can make. | Heavy |
| Terrain Detail | Rich, blended ground textures versus a simpler, faster terrain look. | Moderate |
| Foliage Density | How far and how thick the grass grows around your character. | Moderate |
| Surface Detail | The worn detail layer on stone and paving, from off to a full parallax finish. It is the town-street dial: the more of it you keep, the busier a paved street is to draw. | Moderate |
| View Distance | How far into the distance the world is drawn before it fades out. Each preset sets it for you until you move it yourself. | Moderate |
| Water Quality | How lakes, rivers, and the open sea are shaded, from flat and cheap to fully reflective. | Light |
| Character Detail | How far away other characters keep their full animated rig before they drop to a simpler one. Higher is kinder to the eye in a crowded hub, and heavier. | Moderate |
| Effects & Lighting | Bloom, ambient occlusion, and how many torches and spells cast real light. The single biggest saving among the detail dials, and the switch the other lighting dials depend on. | Heavy |
| Shadow Quality | Shadow crispness. Low keeps shadows but softens their edges. | Moderate |
| Ambient Occlusion | The soft contact shadow where surfaces meet. Off, half resolution, or full. | Moderate |
| Bloom | The gentle glow around bright light, fire, and spell effects. | Light |
| Anti-Aliasing | Smooths the jagged edges of distant geometry. Cheap, and worth keeping on most machines. | Light |
| Dynamic Lights | How many torches, campfires, and spells cast real light into the scene around them. | Moderate |
| Particle Effects | How thick the spell, weather, and ambient particle work is allowed to get. | Moderate |
| Camera Speed | How quickly the camera swings when you look around with the mouse. | None |
| Touch Look Speed | The same thing for swipe-look, and it only appears when you are on a touchscreen. | None |
| Render Quality | Draws the 3D world at a lower internal resolution and scales it up; the interface stays sharp. The strongest instant slider on weaker machines and high-resolution screens. | Heavy |
| Brightness | Scene exposure, darker or brighter. Pure preference. | None |
| Field of View | How much of the world fits on screen, from a zoomed 55 to a sweeping 100 degrees. A comfort choice; wider views draw slightly more. | Light |
| Fullscreen | Fills the whole screen with the game. | None |
| Weather Effects | Ambient rain and snow. Atmosphere only, and switching it off saves a little during storms. | Light |
| Water Ripples (Wakes) | Wakes and ripples that spread out behind you as you swim. Off by default, and the one water effect that costs real frames; splashes and bubbles are unaffected either way. | Moderate |
| Show Overflow XP | At maximum level, whether your bar keeps filling with overflow experience or shows the classic static max-level text instead. | None |
| Browser Effects | How fancy the interface itself is allowed to be: glass blur, glow, animated menus. Auto matches your browser; the 3D world is untouched either way. | Light |
| Interface Mode | Whether you get the desktop interface or the on-screen touch controls. Auto reads your device, and you can force either one: a tablet with a keyboard can take the desktop layout, and a touchscreen laptop can take the touch controls. | None |
| Show Performance Overlay | An on-screen readout of FPS, frame time, and more. Turn it on while you tune this page, then hide it again. | None |
Looking for an FPS cap? There is nothing to hunt for: frame pacing follows your display. Draw distance is a dial of its own, View Distance, in the World Detail card, and each preset sets it for you until you move it.
The Interface panel
Interface is the biggest panel in the game, and it is split into four tabs. Nothing in here changes what the world can do to you: it changes what you are shown and how large it is. These are the rows most worth knowing about.
General
Scale, contrast, and what the interface shows about you. The language and theme pickers sit at the top of this tab too.
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| UI Scale | Scales the whole interface at once. It lands when you let go of the slider, so the window under your cursor does not move while you drag it. |
| HUD Opacity | How solid the HUD panels are over the world behind them. |
| Tooltip Text Size | Tooltip text size, handy on a small screen or a very large one. |
| Frosted Panels | A frosted-glass blur behind windows. Pretty, and exactly the kind of effect a weaker browser feels; leave it off for the classic crisp look. |
| High-Contrast Text | Heavier, higher-contrast interface text. An accessibility option first, and a good one on a bright screen. |
| High-Contrast Background | A plainer, higher-contrast background behind the start and character screens. |
| Reduce Motion | Removes interface animations so windows appear instantly. An accessibility option first, with a small performance bonus. |
| Invert Look (Y) | Flips the up and down direction of mouse look. |
| Show Item Level | Adds an item level line to every item tooltip. Off by default, which keeps the classic stat-only tooltip. |
| Show Reliquary Tracker | Whether the Reliquary tracker (your pinned pages and their progress) sits on your HUD. The Reliquary window has a matching eye button, and pinning a page turns the tracker back on. |
| Show Time Played on Character Screen | Shows your lifetime time played on the character sheet. On by default, and the sheet has an eye button that flips it per device, which is handy if you stream or take screenshots. The total keeps counting either way. |
| Show My Nameplate | Draws your own overhead nameplate exactly as other players see it, flair and all. Turn it off for the classic view. |
| Show Player Nameplates | Draws other players nameplates. Off declutters a crowded hub, and your current target stays readable either way. |
| Show Wallet on Character Screen | Whether your wallet is shown on the character screen. There is a matching switch for the player card. |
| Show Daily Rewards Chest | Whether the daily rewards chest sits on your HUD. |
Frames
Your own frame, your target frame, and the whole party layout. The party cluster also carries scale, width, height, spacing, and column sliders so a raid grid fits your screen, and a Reset button at the foot of the tab puts every frame back where it started.
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Player Frame Scale | The size of your own unit frame. |
| Target Frame Scale | The size of your target frame. |
| Frame Style | The party layout: Automatic follows your group size, Classic is the traditional stack, and Raid packs everyone into the compact grid. |
| Health Text | What the party bars print: nothing, a percentage, current health, current and maximum, or both with the percentage beside them. |
| Sort Players | The order party members are listed in: group order, role, or name. |
| Show Buffs and Debuffs | Whether buffs and debuffs show on the party frames. Matching switches cover resource bars, absorbs, pets, and whether you appear in your own party list. |
| Player Health Text | What your own health bar prints: nothing, a percentage, current health, current and maximum, or both with the percentage beside them. |
| Target Health Text | What the target and target-of-target health bars print, with the same choices as your own frame. |
| Buffs on the Player Frame | Puts your buffs and debuffs on your own unit frame as well as the aura bar. |
| Buffs Below the Player Frame | Moves the buff row below your unit frame instead of above it. Only matters while buffs are on the player frame. |
| Always Show All Buffs | Shows every active buff even on the Low graphics preset, bypassing its usual buff-icon cap. |
| Show Target of Target | Shows who your target is targeting, the classic way to tell whether the tank still has it. |
| Show Your Pet | Shows a frame for your pet. |
Chat
How the chat window reads. A reset for the chat windows themselves lives here as well.
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Chat Text Size | Chat text size. |
| Chat Background Opacity | How solid the chat background is. |
| Compact Chat | Tightens the chat lines so more of them fit. |
| Show Chat Timestamps | Adds a time to each chat line, in 12-hour or 24-hour form. |
| Filter Profanity | Masks profanity in chat with asterisks. On by default; switch it off here if you would rather read chat unfiltered. |
Combat
How your bars behave and what combat puts on screen.
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Auto-Attack on Ability Use | Whether using an ability also starts your auto-attack. On by default, and the classic behavior most players expect. |
| Stop Auto-Attack on Target Switch | Whether switching targets stops your swing. Off by default, so your attack carries over to the new target. |
| Show Attack Button | Puts an explicit Attack button on your action bar. |
| Walk-by Autoloot | Scoops the loot from your own kills as you walk past them. Off by default. |
| Ground-Targeting Reticle | Shows the ground circle while you are aiming a placed spell. |
| Mouseover Cast on Party Frames | Lets a heal or a friendly spell land on the party frame you are hovering, without changing your target. |
| Keep Target on Ground Click | Keeps your current target when you click on empty ground, instead of clearing it. |
| Combat Text Size | The size of the damage and healing numbers that float off your target. |
| Show Secondary Action Bar | Reveals a second action bar row, and a third once the second is on. The slots stay reachable by their keybinds even while the rows are hidden. |
| Hide Unused Action Slots | Hides empty action slots so only the buttons you actually use are drawn. |
| Lock Action Bars | Locks your bars so you cannot drag an ability out of a slot by accident. |
That is not all of them. Every tab carries more sliders and switches than are worth tabling here, so open it once and read down the list. It is five minutes well spent.
The Key Bindings panel
The key list is only half of that panel. Above it sit the switches that decide how your mouse drives the game: mouse camera, whether the cursor locks while you rotate, click to move and which mouse button triggers it, attack move, and the left-handed touch layout.
Two things there are easy to miss. Mouse buttons bind like keys, so the wheel click and the thumb buttons can carry abilities, while left and right click stay reserved for the camera and for clicking on the world. And you can bind straight from the action bar: turn on the on-bar binding mode here, then click a slot and press the key you want.
Sound and language
The options window is not all pixels. Audio holds three volume sliders, for sound effects, music, and voice, plus a music on and off switch and four switches for the sounds that most often wear thin: NPC voices, footsteps, interface sounds, and click feedback. The Interface panel's General tab carries a language picker that relocalizes the whole interface on the spot, no reload needed, and a theme picker for the window dressing.
Prefer not to click every corpse? Walk-by Autoloot, on the Interface panel's Combat tab and off by default, scoops the loot from your own kills as you walk past them.
On a phone or tablet the game starts you on Low. Every touch device lands there on its first launch, on purpose, so you can get into the world and play; raise it yourself from the Graphics panel any time. On an Android browser the whole ladder is open to you and your choice sticks. On iPhone and iPad you can still pick the top presets and they take hold as soon as you press Apply, but the game sets you back to High the next time you launch, because iOS can end the tab while a scene that large is being built. The downloaded app is shorter still: its preset list stops at High and the per-system dials are hidden, because the app manages those itself.
On a touchscreen the Graphics panel grows a Touch Controls card of its own: joystick size and deadzone, on-screen button size, control opacity, an optional camera stick, a left-handed mirrored layout, and inverted touch look, so the screen fits your hands rather than the other way around.