The official Phantom Blade Zero performance pc targets are 1080p at 30 FPS on minimum and 1440p at 60 FPS on recommended, with upscaling enabled in both cases. The install is roughly 145 GB and an SSD is required, so storage is the first thing to check before you blame the graphics card.
The build these targets were measured against is the day-one patch, the roughly 5 GB update shipped ahead of launch, reported as version 1.301.524 (observed 2026-10-30). That patch is what improved ray tracing and path tracing performance, and the same launch letter tells you to roll the NVIDIA driver back from 621.01 to 617.42 with a clean install, because 621.01 caused performance instability. Both of those are inputs to the numbers below, not separate advice. The version history page has the launch letter in full.
The official Phantom Blade Zero performance PC requirements
| Minimum | Recommended | |
|---|---|---|
| OS | Windows 10/11 64-bit | Windows 10/11 64-bit |
| DirectX | 12 | 12 |
| CPU | Intel Core i7-8700K or AMD Ryzen 5 3600 | Intel Core i5-10600K or AMD Ryzen 5 5600X |
| RAM | 16 GB | 16 GB |
| GPU | NVIDIA GTX 1660 6GB or AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT 8GB | NVIDIA RTX 3060 Ti 8GB or AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT 12GB |
| Storage | 145 GB, SSD required | 145 GB, SSD |
| Target | 1080p at 30 FPS, upscaling on | 1440p at 60 FPS, upscaling on |
Storage is the number one requirement
The install is roughly 145 GB, and the official pre-load announcement asked players to reserve at least 300 GB of free disk space for the pre-load process that began on October 26, 2026, ahead of the October 28 launch. Installing on an SSD is required for a smooth experience, and an NVMe drive is strongly preferred over SATA — on SATA the asset streaming hitches badly.
The settings that move the frame rate
| Setting | What to do | What it costs or saves |
|---|---|---|
| Global Illumination | Drop from Cinematic to High | Recovers roughly 22% of the average frame rate for a small visual loss |
| Path tracing | Off below roughly an RTX 4070 Ti or RX 7900 XT | Costs about 50–60% of the frame rate |
| Ray tracing | Off below roughly an RTX 4070 Ti or RX 7900 XT | Costs roughly 20–25% of the frame rate |
| Shadows | Keep on High or Very High | The lighting is the strongest part of the game |
| Effects | Medium to High | |
| Motion Blur | Off | |
| Chromatic Aberration | Off | |
| Depth of Field | Off | |
| Texture resolution | Medium at 6 GB VRAM or less, High at 8 GB, Ultra at 12 GB or more | 4K Ultra with path tracing can exceed 13 GB, and a VRAM overflow shows up as stutter |
Update your graphics drivers before launch — the studio asked players to do so, and noted that the game is playable on portable and mid-range hardware rather than only on high-end machines. How that holds up on a Steam Deck specifically, with measured frame rates and the settings they were taken at, is on the Steam Deck page. The day-one patch of roughly 5 GB also improved ray tracing and path tracing performance and addressed some of the shader compilation stutter that plagues Unreal Engine 5 titles.
One exception to "update your drivers", and it is the studio's own instruction: with the game itself, roll back to 617.42 if you are on 621.01 or newer. The stuttering fixes page has that step first, then the shader cache, overlay and power plan checks.
What the hardware is really doing
The animation and the reactive environment are the strongest parts of the game's technical presentation — vegetation bends, breaks and sways in response to footsteps and sword strikes, and the cloth around Soul's legs and shoulders adds extra animation. The shadows are less thoroughly developed than the rest of the lighting, which is why turning shadows down is the one visual setting you can lose without losing much.
When frames drop
If the frame rate is not where you want it, the usual causes are a driver, an install on the wrong drive, or a shader cache that has never been rebuilt. The stuttering fixes page works through them in order.
Turning on upscaling
Upscaling is already part of the official targets at both minimum and recommended, because both list it as enabled. The DLSS page covers what the 4.5 suite gives you on RTX cards, what Ray Reconstruction needs, and how far the hardware has to go for path tracing.