Sea of Thieves PC Settings Guide
Sea of Thieves has one of the most expensive water simulations in any live game, and it only shows its cost when the weather turns. Sailing calm seas alone is not a test; a three-ship fight in a storm with cannon smoke and rain is.
The engine is otherwise well behaved and holds high frame rates on mid-range hardware, so most players can run high settings and simply accept a dip during the biggest encounters.
Settings that matter most
- Water quality: The defining cost of this game. Lowering one step is the most effective single change.
- Shadow detail: Meaningful savings during multi-ship fights near islands.
- Level of detail: Keep reasonably high — spotting distant sails is how you survive.
Scope and assumptions
Covers live servers with active ship combat and storms, which are heavier than sailing alone.
- • 1080p: High or Ultra on most modern GPUs.
- • 1440p: water and volumetric quality are the main costs.
- • High refresh: realistic outside multi-ship fights in storms.
Troubleshooting checks
- • Test during a storm or a ship fight, not in calm open water.
- • Lower water quality before textures if you need frames.
Reviewed by GameOptimizer Editorial · August 2, 2026
Your Hardware
Best Sea of Thieves Settings for NVIDIA RTX 4060
Core Settings
Sea of Thieves — Specific Settings
Based on benchmark data and community reports for this hardware combination — treat as an estimate, not a guarantee. How we calculate this.
Still stuttering after applying these? See what's holding your PC back — or read our graphics settings guide to understand what each option costs.
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Your GPU is limiting FPS here
NVIDIA RTX 4060 is holding back your AMD Ryzen 5 7600 at 1440p in Sea of Thieves. A better GPU could get you closer to ~56 fps at these settings.
Estimate only — based on a 20% uplift for a moderate GPU bottleneck, not a measured benchmark.
Suggested upgrade
NVIDIA RTX 5070
Comfortable 1440p high settings in most modern titles.
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Tap a resolution to see how the NVIDIA RTX 4060 handles Sea of Thieves at that target.
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NVIDIA RTX 4060 Ti 16GB
~20% more performance · 16GB VRAM
Intel Core Ultra 5 245K
Fewer CPU bottlenecks at high refresh rates
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Save These Settings
Download a free, printable settings pack with the tuned values, hardware targets, and troubleshooting notes.
What's Next?
Settings and FPS figures are algorithmic estimates rather than measured benchmarks. Drivers, patches, cooling, background tasks, and individual scenes can change actual performance. Verify the result in game.