Zenless Zone Zero (shortened “ZZZ”), the latest highly anticipated free-to-play gacha game from developer miHoYo (known globally as HoYoverse), has joined the ranks of popular titles like Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail. Released on July 4th, 2024, ZZZ is built on the Unity engine and employs 3D cel-shading techniques, similar to those seen in games like Zelda: Breath of the Wild or Hi-Fi Rush. This approach brings the game’s vibrant futuristic themes and diverse cast of characters to life, showcasing Zzz High Precision Character Animation within its distinct visual style.
Having quickly garnered over 50 million downloads across all platforms and with numerous character events on the horizon, Zenless Zone Zero is poised to become the next major gacha game sensation. It’s currently available on PC, PS5, iOS, and Android, although performance can vary significantly between platforms due to different build versions. For instance, while the game might run smoothly on a mobile device, the PC or console versions are typically heavier and larger. This guide provides a detailed analysis of every graphics setting available in Zenless Zone Zero on PC, complete with benchmarks, to help you achieve the smoothest possible experience. Recommended settings tailored to your PC’s power level (defined later in the article) are summarized at the end.
System-Level Optimizations for ZZZ PC Performance
Before diving into the in-game graphics options, optimizing your Windows and system settings can significantly impact Zenless Zone Zero’s performance. Consider enabling these features for potential boosts:
- Enable Resizable BAR.
- Turn on Game Mode in Windows settings.
- Enable Hardware-accelerated GPU Scheduling (HAGS) and Windowed Optimizations.
- Use the Windows “High Performance” power profile and set your GPU power management mode accordingly in the graphics driver settings.
- If you’re consistently just below your target frame rate (e.g., missing 60 FPS), a modest GPU overclock might help.
- Ensure your system is using the proper XMP/EXPO memory profile in your BIOS (if available).
For more detailed instructions on these system-level tweaks, refer to this guide. [internal_links]
Zenless Zone Zero PC System Requirements
Understanding the game’s official requirements is crucial for setting performance expectations.
To run Zenless Zone Zero at the “Low” preset targeting 1080p resolution at 60 FPS, you’ll need hardware roughly equivalent to an Intel Core i5 7th generation CPU (from around 2016) paired with an NVIDIA GTX 970 GPU (from around 2014). Additionally, it requires at least 8 GB of Dual Channel RAM and 57 GB of storage space for installation (with another 58 GB needed temporarily for decompression during installation, totaling 115 GB). An SSD is preferably recommended for storage.
The official specs via the Epic Games Store suggest pushing to the recommended settings, corresponding to a “High” preset level at 1080p 60 FPS, requires an Intel Core i7 10th generation CPU or equivalent (from around 2020) paired with an NVIDIA GTX 1660 GPU or higher.
These specifications are quite modest, implying that most laptops or PCs built within the last decade should be capable of running the game reasonably well. The primary potential bottleneck identified is the significant storage space requirement, particularly with the SSD recommendation, so ensure you have adequate space cleared before installation!
We also recommend using the official “HoYoPlay” launcher available here for downloading and managing the game. Compared to the Epic Games Store version, this launcher typically receives quicker updates and streamlines the launching process. However, both versions utilize the same in-game account, allowing you to potentially purchase content through one launcher (e.g., Epic for discounts) and launch through the other – offering flexibility and potentially saving money.
Our Test Bench
The benchmarks and analysis presented in this guide were performed on the following system configuration:
- CPU: Intel Core i7-14700KF
- Motherboard: GIGABYTE Z790 Gaming X AX
- Cooler: Asus ROG Strix LC II 360
- GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Super
- Memory: 16GB x2 DDR5-6000 CL36
- Power Supply: Corsair RM1000e
In-Game Graphics Settings Analysis
Let’s examine each graphics setting within Zenless Zone Zero on PC and its impact on performance and visual quality.
Display Mode
Set this to “Fullscreen” for maximum performance and minimal distractions from other applications. Other display modes like “Windowed” or “Borderless Windowed” can sometimes introduce stutters or unwanted FPS drops due to background processes.
However, given Zenless Zone Zero’s relatively low graphical demands, switching to “Windowed” is a viable option if you prefer easy alt-tabbing or using other applications simultaneously. This largely comes down to personal preference if performance is already sufficient.
Resolution Scaling: 1080p vs. 1440p vs. 4K Benchmarks
Choosing the correct rendering resolution is fundamental for optimizing game performance. Ideally, you should match the game’s resolution to your monitor’s native resolution. However, performance is also heavily dependent on your PC’s capabilities. As a general rule, high-end systems typically target 4K, mid-range systems 1440p, and lower-end systems 1080p.
On our high-end test system, switching from 4K down to 1440p resulted in virtually no performance change, and reducing it further from 4K to 1080p showed only a marginal increase of 0.8%. This indicates our system is significantly CPU-bottlenecked in Zenless Zone Zero at lower resolutions, meaning the GPU isn’t the limiting factor and lowering the resolution has little effect. If your GPU is less powerful than the CPU, you would observe much more significant performance gains from reducing resolution.
Keep the resolution set to your monitor’s native resolution and only consider changing it if all other optimization attempts fail to achieve your desired frame rate.
Best Graphics Preset for Zenless Zone Zero
Once your target resolution is set, you can begin optimizing individual graphics settings, though the “Rendering” option is best left for later as a last resort.
Zenless Zone Zero offers three primary graphics presets: “Low”, “Medium”, and “High”. Let’s compare their performance impact relative to the highest setting on our test bench.
Our GeForce RTX 4080 Super and Core i7-14700KF test system averaged 168 FPS at the 4K “High” setting. The performance gains when moving down from the “4K High” preset were as follows:
- Medium Preset: +21%
- Low Preset: +28%
Experiment with the preset that brings you closest to your desired frame rate target, and then proceed to fine-tune individual options for the optimal balance of performance and visual fidelity in the following sections.
Vertical Sync and FPS Limit
Vertical Sync (V-Sync) helps synchronize the game’s frame output with your monitor’s refresh rate to minimize screen tearing. However, it can introduce input latency. Only enable V-Sync if you experience noticeable screen tearing. Otherwise, keep it “Disabled” to allow for an uncapped frame rate and lower input lag. If your monitor supports it, consider using variable refresh rate solutions like Nvidia G-Sync or AMD FreeSync instead, as they prevent tearing without the latency penalty of traditional V-Sync.
The FPS (Framerate Limit) setting helps maintain a more consistent frame rate by capping it, which can prevent jarring fluctuations and improve network performance stability. Keep this setting at “Unlimited” unless you are experiencing constant stutters. If stutters occur, enable the FPS limit and set it to match your monitor’s refresh rate (commonly 60 Hz) for a smoother overall experience.
Anti-Aliasing Quality
Anti-aliasing is a technique used to smooth out jagged or stair-stepped edges, particularly noticeable on the outlines of objects. Enabling anti-aliasing helps create a smoother, more cohesive image but can sometimes introduce a slight blurriness. Zenless Zone Zero offers TAA and SMAA options.
Testing showed that TAA (Temporal Anti-Aliasing) had no discernible impact on frames on our system, while SMAA (Subpixel Morphological Anti-Aliasing) resulted in a minor 1% FPS loss. Stick with TAA if you are comfortable with the slight blur, or feel free to disable anti-aliasing entirely if jagged edges don’t bother you, as performance is similar to TAA. SMAA can be an option if you prioritize a smoother image over a minimal potential FPS drop.
Shadows
The “Shadows” setting controls the resolution and quality of shadow maps used within the game world. This includes both dynamic shadows cast by moving objects and characters, as well as static shadows from the environment. Lowering this setting reduces the detail and resolution of these shadow maps.
When lowering the setting from High, we observed the following performance gains:
- Medium Shadows: +0.1%
- Low Shadows: +2.3%
There was a negligible difference between High and Medium settings, while the Low setting provided a modest FPS boost.
- For prioritizing Visual Fidelity: “High” is recommended, as the difference compared to Medium is minimal.
- For maximizing FPS: “Low” is the better choice, offering a noticeable performance gain.
FX Detail
This setting governs the density and quality of particle effects emitted by various systems in the game, such as those from gunfire, explosions, fires, and other environmental or combat effects. A higher setting results in more particles being rendered and more complex effects being visible.
Lowering this setting from High provided the following gains:
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Medium FX Detail: +0.1%
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Low FX Detail: +0.5%
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For prioritizing Visual Fidelity: “Medium” is a good compromise to maintain a healthy level of particle density and quality without significant performance dips during intense action sequences.
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For maximizing FPS: “Low” is recommended, as it minimizes the performance impact during abrupt increases in particle counts, ensuring the least disruption.
Shading Quality
Shading Quality determines the visual fidelity of ambient shadows, subtly influencing the lighting and color of objects. It controls the accuracy of lighting calculations and is particularly important in a game like ZZZ that utilizes cel-shading. Lowering this setting can make everything appear flatter, impacting the visual depth of elements like characters’ hair and other displayed details.
As shown in testing (though no specific chart is provided in the source for this setting, the text implies negligible impact or even negative impact at low), there was a negligible impact on performance across settings, with the Low setting potentially performing worse due to CPU bottlenecks. However, the visual degradation when lowering this setting is significant in a cel-shaded game. Keep this at “High” regardless of your system’s power to preserve the intended artistic style and visual depth, which contributes to the perception of Zzz High Precision Character Animation.
Character Quality
This setting controls the Level of Detail (LOD) for character models by adjusting their polygon count. A higher setting results in more geometrically detailed character meshes, increasing the load on the CPU. This setting also appears to affect the texture resolution applied to characters.
As shown in the benchmark chart, setting Character Quality to Low offered negligible positive impact and sometimes worsened performance due to bottlenecks. Therefore, leave this setting at “High” to ensure character models are rendered with the intended level of detail and texture quality, which is vital for showcasing the game’s zzz high precision character animation.
Environment Quality
Similar to Character Quality, Environment Quality controls the Level of Detail for the game’s environment. It adjusts the rendering distance for distant objects and influences when elements like vegetation, buildings, and even enemy units are culled from view, potentially leading to noticeable pop-in at lower settings.
This setting also had minimal performance impact in testing, providing only a meager 0.1% increase at the cost of degraded visual fidelity and increased pop-in. Keep this setting at “High” to maintain better-looking environments and reduce distracting object pop-in.
Mirror Reflections
Despite the name, the “Mirror Reflections” setting in Zenless Zone Zero controls the detail and frequency of reflections in the environment more broadly, not just in literal mirrors. This includes reflections on large surfaces like buildings, smaller nearby objects, and screen space reflections in puddles. At Low and above, cube maps are used for reflections.
As the benchmark chart demonstrates, this setting has a significant impact on frames compared to most other options. Lowering from High provided the following performance benefits:
- Medium Reflections: +16.3%
- Low Reflections: +16.3%
- Disabled Reflections: +17.6%
The substantial gains are realized when moving from High to any lower setting. Disabling reflections entirely yields only a small additional benefit over Medium or Low. Therefore, we recommend “Medium” for a good balance of visual fidelity and performance. If you need more FPS, set this to “Disabled”.
Volumetric Fog
This setting modifies the resolution and quality of volumetric fog effects, which are crucial for creating atmospheric light shafts and hazy distant views. Volumetric fog is a very important element for the game’s overall visual presentation and depth.
As seen in testing, this setting also has a notable impact on performance. Lowering from High offered the following benefits:
- Medium Volumetric Fog: +1.1%
- Low Volumetric Fog: +1.2%
- Disabled Volumetric Fog: +2.6%
Due to its importance in the game’s visual atmosphere, sticking to “Medium” is preferable. You can drop to “Low” if you require more FPS, but avoid disabling this setting entirely to preserve the intended look.
Bloom, Distortion, Color Filter Strength
- Bloom: Controls the luminous glow effect around bright objects and light sources. While typically low-impact, surprisingly, disabling Bloom yielded a 1.5% performance gain in tests. Disabling Bloom is recommended for maximizing frames if needed, but otherwise, leave it enabled if you prefer the visual effect and have sufficient FPS.
- Distortion: Creates a heat haze-like distortion effect around certain sources, often associated with heat but in ZZZ also seen around “ethers”. No performance impact was noted in testing for this setting, making it purely a matter of personal visual preference.
- Color Filter Strength: A post-processing effect akin to applying an Instagram filter over the game’s visuals. This setting has no performance impact and is entirely a personal aesthetic choice. You can try setting it to 0 to see the base look and adjust it to your liking. The default value is 10, which represents the developers’ intended visual experience.
Rendering (Resolution Scaling – Advanced)
The “Rendering” setting, also known as resolution scaling, allows you to render the game at a resolution different from your monitor’s native resolution and then scale it up or down. This is a powerful way to drastically increase performance at the cost of image clarity (upscaling introduces blurriness) or improve image clarity at the cost of performance (downscaling). We positioned this at the end because it’s generally recommended to play at native resolution (1.0) if possible. If you’re still struggling to achieve satisfactory frames after adjusting all other settings, then consider using resolution scaling. (Note: ZZZ does not currently include built-in DLSS or FSR, but these can sometimes be forced via graphics driver control panels).
By default, the game renders at a scale of “1.0” (native resolution). Changing this value results in the following performance changes relative to 1.0:
- 0.8 Scale: +0.2%
- 1.2 Scale: -22.5%
Once again, the pronounced CPU bottleneck on our test system means downscaling to 0.8 offered only a negligible 0.2% benefit. Conversely, increasing the scale to 1.2 (rendering at 120% of native resolution for a sharper image) resulted in a significant 22.5% FPS drop. If you are experiencing subpar FPS (below 60 or even 30), changing the Rendering scale to 0.8 should provide a noticeable performance improvement, provided your system isn’t solely CPU bottlenecked.
If you have significant performance headroom, as seen on our test bench, consider trying the 1.2 scale to enjoy the crispest possible image quality in-game.
Additional Settings
Under the “Other” settings category, you’ll find the “Show Combat DMG” option, which toggles the visibility of damage numbers displayed on enemies when they are hit. We recommend leaving this enabled as it’s useful combat feedback. However, if you are severely struggling with FPS or experiencing stutters specifically during combat, you could consider “Disabling” this option, though its performance impact is typically minimal.
Zenless Zone Zero: Analysis of CPU Bottlenecks
Our testing reveals that Zenless Zone Zero exhibits varying degrees of CPU limitation depending on the resolution. While the game is mostly GPU-bound when running at 4K (UHD), it becomes heavily CPU-bound at 1440p (QHD) and 1080p (FHD). Using the “High” quality graphics preset settings, the GPU spent 41% and 53% of its time waiting for the CPU at 1440p and 1080p respectively, as indicated by the “GPU-Busy Deviation”.
4K High Preset CPU Bottleneck
1440p High Preset CPU Bottleneck
1080p High Preset CPU Bottleneck
The pronounced yellow lines representing the “GPU-Busy Deviation” clearly illustrate the extent of the CPU bottleneck. This suggests that even with a modern, powerful CPU, the game’s performance at lower resolutions is limited by the CPU’s ability to feed instructions to the GPU. This points towards potential optimization opportunities within the game itself. Hopefully, future patches released by miHoYo will address and improve this CPU utilization issue.
Best PC Settings for Zenless Zone Zero
Based on our analysis and benchmarks, here are our recommended optimized settings configurations tailored for different PC power levels:
| Optimized Settings | High-end PC | Mid-Range PC | Low-End PC |
|---|---|---|---|
| Resolution | 4K (3840 x 2160) | 1440p (2560 x 1440) | 1080p (1920 x 1080) or lower |
| Display Mode | Fullscreen/Windowed | Fullscreen/Windowed | Fullscreen |
| V-Sync | Disabled | Disabled | Disabled |
| FPS | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Anti-Aliasing Quality | SMAA | SMAA | TAA or Off |
| Shadows | High | High | Low |
| FX Detail | High | Medium | Low |
| Shading Quality | High | High | High |
| Character Quality | High | High | High |
| Environment Quality | High | High | High |
| Mirror Reflections | High | High | Medium or Disabled |
| Volumetric Fog | High | High | Medium or Low |
| Bloom | Personal Choice | Personal Choice | Disabled |
| Distortion | Personal Choice | Personal Choice | Personal Choice |
| Color Filter Strength | Personal Choice | Personal Choice | Personal Choice |
| Rendering | 1.2 | 1.2 or 1 | 0.8 or 1 |
For context, here are our definitions for the High-end, Mid-range, and Low-end PC tiers referenced in the table above:
| High-end | Mid-range | Low-end | |
|---|---|---|---|
| CPU | Core i7-13700K/Ryzen 7 7800X3D | Core i5-13600K/Ryzen 5 7600X | Less than: Core i5-12400/Ryzen 5 3600 |
| GPU | RTX 4070 Ti Super/RX 7900 XT | RTX 4070/RX 7800 XT | Less than: RTX 4060/RX 7600 |
| Memory | 32GB (dual-channel) | 16GB (dual-channel) | Less than: 16GB (dual-channel) |
Conclusion
Zenless Zone Zero is a visually appealing game that, while generally not overly demanding, presents some interesting optimization characteristics, particularly the notable CPU bottlenecks at lower resolutions. By following this detailed guide and adjusting the in-game graphics settings based on your specific PC hardware, you can significantly improve performance and achieve a smoother gameplay experience. Experimenting with settings like Mirror Reflections and Volumetric Fog can yield significant FPS gains if needed, while settings like Shading Quality and Character Quality have minimal performance impact but are crucial for maintaining the game’s distinct art style and the visual fidelity of its zzz high precision character animation. Finding the right balance will allow you to fully enjoy the vibrant world and fast-paced action of Zenless Zone Zero on PC.
