How to Increase FPS in Warframe (2026): The Settings Ladder, From Free to Hardware
Last Updated on September 14, 2026
Work the ladder from the top: each step is free until the last one. Most people get their frames back at step three, the six expensive settings, or step four, upscaling. If the GPU is not the limit, steps five and six are the ones that matter: background processes and the CPU’s single thread. Buy hardware last.
Reviewed September 14, 2026, against the current Settings menu (Update 43.5) and the official support articles; this page is re-checked after every major patch.
| Step | What it costs | What it usually gives |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Verify and Optimize the cache | Five minutes | Fixes hitching from corrupt files |
| 2. DirectX 12 (6+ cores) or 11 (stutter, old CPU) | A restart | Lower CPU overhead in crowds, or no shader stutter |
| 3. Shadows, Volumetric Lighting, Geometry, SSAO, SSGI, Particles down one step | Little visible | 20 to 40 percent on a mid GPU |
| 4. Upscaling: DLSS 4 or FSR 3.1 at Quality | A hint of softness at 1080p | 30 to 60 percent at 1440p and 4K |
| 5. Close overlays and background apps; isolate the CPU | Free, or CPUCores | Steadier 1 percent lows in dense rooms |
| 6. Hardware | Money | A faster single thread beats a bigger GPU for this game |
Table of Contents
Step by step
- Launcher gear icon: Verify, then Optimize. Restart the launcher.
- Launcher: pick DirectX 12 if you have six cores or more and the FPS problem is crowds; pick DirectX 11 if you get hitches after loading or in open worlds.
- Display: Vertical Sync Off, Max Framerate at your refresh rate, Reduce Frame Latency On, Show FPS On.
- Graphics: Shadow Quality Medium, Volumetric Lighting off or Low, Geometry High not Ludicrous, SSAO Medium, SSGI off, Particle System Quality Medium, GPU Particles Medium. Texture Memory High only with 6 GB VRAM or more.
- Upscaling: DLSS 4 on an RTX card, otherwise FSR 3.1; start at Quality, drop to Balanced only if you must. Anti-aliasing greys out once upscaling is on; that is normal.
- Close Rivatuner, Afterburner OSD, Razer Synapse and Chroma, Discord overlay, browser tabs playing video. Check Task Manager for anything eating a core.
- If the GPU sits under 90 percent while frames drop in busy rooms, the CPU is the wall. CPUCores keeps Windows and background tasks off the game’s cores; on a 4 or 6 core CPU that is the difference in 1 percent lows. It will not help a GPU-bound rig. CPUCores on Steam.
- Last: hardware. For this game a modern 6 core CPU with strong single-thread speed and 16 GB of RAM matters more than any GPU above a GTX 1660 or RX 6600.
CPUCores — Maximize Your FPS
If you’ve worked through the settings above and still get stutter, the bottleneck is often background processes stealing CPU time from the game. CPUCores isolates Windows and background tasks onto separate cores so your game gets the rest — it launches straight from Steam and detects your library automatically.
Tips that save runs
- Dynamic Resolution (Auto) is the panic button for weak GPUs, but it cannot be combined with DLSS or FSR; pick one.
- Optimized Flip-Model helps DirectX 11 in Borderless and Windowed modes; it does nothing on DirectX 12.
- Ludicrous is a preset for screenshots, not for playing.
Mistakes that waste runs
- Leaving Vertical Sync on Auto with a 144 Hz monitor and wondering why it feels like 60.
- Turning Texture Memory to Low; it looks terrible and saves almost nothing unless VRAM is under 3 GB.
- Running an FPS counter overlay that is itself the stutter (Rivatuner is on DE's conflict list).