Need for Speed Unbound PC performance guide: Optimal settings for best performance

Need for Speed Unbound, the brand new mainline entry in the long-running arcade racing series, has finally been released, and while the game does not feature any significant changes to the iconic Need for Speed formula, it fully delivers on what players expect from an arcade racing experience.

Need for Speed Unbound is also the first game in the arcade racing series from EA to take a leap into the current generation of consoles, completely abandoning the now outdated last-generation hardware, giving the developers complete freedom to utilize the power and potential offered by Sony and Microsoft's latest machines.

Although the game is a current-generation console exclusive, the PC port is relatively light when it comes to hardware requirements and performs fairly well even on mid-range PC specifications. Utilizing the latest iteration of DICE's proprietary Frostbite engine, Need for Speed Unbound delivers some truly breathtaking visuals, complete with all the modern graphical bells and whistles.

Although Need for Speed Unbound is a fairly optimized experience on PC, there are a few things that players can tweak to reach the playable sweet spot of 60fps, especially for hardware that surpasses the minimum requirements by just a margin. Given below is a comprehensive PC performance guide for Need for Speed Unbound, complete with our optimized settings recommendations.

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System requirements for Need for Speed Unbound

Need for Speed Unbound, which was built on a similar iteration of the Frostbite engine used in DICE's Battlefield 2042, shares an almost identical minimum and recommended system requirements, with only a few key differences. While the GPU and memory requirements remain basically the same, the CPU requirement for NFS Unbound is on the higher end, in comparison to Battlefield 2042.

Nevertheless, players with PCs that can easily run Battlefield 2042 can rest assured that their system can handle the gorgeous open world of NFS Unbound. Furthermore, the game is built purely on the new DirectX 12 framework, which requires a GPU with feature level 12_0 and above. Here are the minimum and recommended system requirements for Need for Speed Unbound:

Minimum

• OS: Windows 10 64-bit/ Windows 11 64-bit
• Processor: Ryzen 5 2600, Core i5-8600
• Memory: 8 GB RAM
• Graphics: RX 570, GTX 1050 Ti
• DirectX: Version 12
• Network: Broadband Internet connection
• Storage: 50 GB available space

Recommended

• OS: Windows 10 64-bit/ Windows 11 64-bit
• Processor: Ryzen 5 3600, Core i7-8700
• Memory: 16 GB RAM
• Graphics: Radeon RX5700 (8GB), GeForce RTX 2070 (8GB)
• DirectX: Version 12
• Network: Broadband Internet connection
• Storage: 50 GB available space

While it's not explicitly stated by EA or Criterion Games, installing the game on a NVMe or SATA SSD is a must, since the dense open world of NFS Unbound features multiple high resolution assets and texture mesh, which can put significant stress on the CPU.

Having the game installed on an SSD will greatly improve the asset streaming and texture loading speed to prevent loading hitches, streaming stutters, and significantly reduce loading times.

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Optimal settings for best performance in Need for Speed Unbound

Need for Speed Unbound, unlike most modern AAA releases, does not feature ray-tracing support as of yet. Whether the feature will be added in a post-launch update for the game has not been confirmed by Criterion Games or publisher EA themselves.

Nevertheless, the screen space reflections and ambient occlusion techniques used by the game offer an unprecedented level of visual fidelity. Coupled with modern upscaling solutions, players can easily maintain a high framerate without compromising on visual quality.

We tested out the game on a mid-specs system equipped with an Intel Core i5 8600K processor, Nvidia GTX 1650 SUPER GPU, and 16 gigabytes of DDR4 RAM, with the game being installed on a WD Blue SATA SSD. On this machine, using our optimized settings, we averaged around 55 to 60 fps on native 1080p resolution.

The settings we used were a mix of medium to high for most graphical options, with only texture filtering cranked up to ultra. While using AMD FSR 2.0, we did hover above the 60fps range, but that framerate was not stable, and, in our opinion, not worth the visual downgrade. Here are our optimized settings for Need for Speed Unbound:

• Motion Blur: On
• Screen Mode: Fullscreen
• Screen Resolution: 1920x1080
• Vertical Sync: Off
• Dynamic Resolution Scaling: Off
• Upsampler: Off
• Resolution Scale: 100%
• Graphics Quality: Custom
• Texture Quality: Medium
• Shadow Quality: Medium
• Texture Filtering: Ultra
• Ambient Occlusion: SSAO
• Effects Detail: High
• Geometry Detail: Medium
• Anti-Aliasing: TAA
• Terrain Quality: High
• Vegetation Detail: Medium
• Post Process Quality: High
• Lighting Quality: Medium
• Depth of Field: High
• Reflection Quality: Medium

Using these settings, we were able to achieve a stable 60fps on Need for Speed Unbound, with only occasional dips to the upper 50s. While the game does look really impressive, it isn't that taxing on a mid to high-end PC.

The most important graphics settings that offered a huge boost to the framerate were texture quality, shadow quality, and vegetation detail, all of which require an adequate amount of VRAM and are heavy on the CPU.

A six-core twelve thread CPU is the bare minimum for any modern open world title, and it holds true for NFS Unbound as well. While the game does work on quad core CPUs, the experience is not enjoyable, with frequent loading hitches resulting in stutters, which can negatively impact the gameplay experience.

Therefore, using an entry-level six core CPU (such as the Ryzen 5 2600) can significantly help players achieve a playable framerate in the game.

Need for Speed Unbound is now available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Windows PC.