Capcom’s hardware redemption continues with fatherly hack o’ shooter Pragmata, a smooth and low-end-friendly PC performer that’s far more Resident Evil Requiem than Monster Hunter Wilds.

It’s maybe not quite on Requiem’s level of framerate abundance, and Pragmata struggles a teeny bit more on underpowered handheld PCs – which we both know means the Steam Deck – during its tougher stretches of polished moonbase corridors and electricity-spewing robofoes. But it does run well, especially by AAA standards, and matches Resi’s feat of producing a ray tracing setting that looks nice without pulverising your graphics card with a thousand gleaming hammers. Progress!

Optimised settings, based on my testing around Pragmata’s relatively demanding, 3D-printed facsimile of New York City, can be found below. Before that, though, a reminder of its official PC specs, and a look at how various hardware configurations can get it running.

Pragmata system requirements and PC performance

Low GPU requirements? RAM needs capped at 16GB? An install size of fewer gigabytes than the entire internet data consumption of Belgium? Truly, Pragmata is a bucker of trends. The notes even warn of framerate drops in the tricky bits. Which, no, is not exactly good news, but it’s nice for system requirements to be so honest.

Pragmata minimum PC specs

• OS: Windows 11 (64 bit)
• CPU: Intel Core i5-8500 / AMD Ryzen 5 3500
• RAM: 16GB
• GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 / AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT
• DirectX: Version 12
• Network: Broadband Internet connection
• Storage: 40GB available space
• Additional Notes: Estimated performance when set to “Performance” preset: 1080p/45fps. Framerate might drop in graphics-intensive scenes. SSD recommended.

Pragmata recommended PC specs

• OS: Windows 11 (64 bit)
• CPU: Intel Core i7-8700 / AMD Ryzen 5 5500
• RAM: 16GB
• GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 Super / AMD Radeon RX 6600
• DirectX: Version 12
• Network: Broadband Internet connection
• Storage: 40GB available space
• Additional Notes: Estimated performance when set to “Balanced” preset: 1080p/60fps. Frame rate might drop in graphics-intensive scenes. AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT 12GB or Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 12GB required to support ray tracing. SSD recommended.

At least some of these requirements can be skirted under, too. You don’t strictly need Windows 11, for one – Windows 10 works fine – and I got a sub-minimum GTX 1060 graphics card playing without serious issue. At 1080p with the Performance preset, which includes FSR 1 upscaling on Performance mode, this decade-old card produced 51fps; swapping to the much better-looking FSR 3 on Quality mode cut that to 39fps, though that’s still playable. Remember that I was benchmarking in one of the game’s more trying areas, so a lot of the game you’d get even better numbers than what’s listed here.

Modern mid-rangers and even budget GPUs do well too. Pragmata, unlike Crimson Desert, doesn’t need post-launch patches to run off Intel Arc hardware: the Arc B580 scored 54fps with the Quality preset at native 1080p, rising to 62fps with FSR 3 on Quality. The RTX 5050, the slowest and most pencil-armed of the current GeForce generation, averaged 69fps on 1080p/Quality – no DLSS required. The RTX 4060, meanwhile, pumped out 72fps on the same settings, and with DLSS upscaling on Quality, could manage 65fps at 1440p too. Enabling DLSS frame generation, which appears to work cleanly, without stuttering or nasty frame timing jumps, raised that to 77fps.

For truly burnished 1440p, mind, it’s worth pairing with something like the Radeon 9070 XT, which – with a touch of FSR 3 on Quality – averaged 142fps on the Quality preset. Upping to 4K cut that in half, to 72fps, though that many frames with that many pixels still looks very pretty fine indeed. As do the equivalent, DLSS-aided settings on the RTX 5080: 103fps, or 269fps with 4x MFG.

What makes almost all of these results particularly impressive is that the Quality preset includes ray tracing, meaning that whoever figured out how to get Resident Evil Requiem’s RT tech to only barely tax performance probably had a hand in Pragmata as well. Not that the game looks terrible without it, but it’s hard to turn down ray tracing’s noticeably more striking lights and detail-rich reflections when it’s so attainable on non-premium hardware.

Less happily, Pragmata also repeats Requiem’s handling of path tracing. This actually will send your framerate plummeting, as it did by nearly two-thirds on my RTX 5080, and by over half on the RTX 4060. The visual difference between this and regular ray tracing is noticeable, though I’d only call it an upgrade in very specific scenes and spots; it also has a tendency to brighten up dark areas, which to my eyes, thins the eeriness of Pragmata’s early exploration through its apparently abandoned lunar station. Either way, it’s not really worth scuppering performance to the degree that it does.

3840×2160, Quality preset, path tracing on

Otherwise, though, technical complaints are rarely provoked. The closest thing I’ve had to a recurring issue is framerate drops when battling a very specific brand of android: a giant, babyman-lookin’ weirdo who first shows up in the aforementioned Manhattan area. Hopefully this issue’s isolated nature makes it an easy fix. Besides that, I ain’t got much. Certain holographic displays flicker with FSR upscaling. And… uhhhhhh… oh, the ‘Press any button’ prompt on the start screen doesn’t count the Enter key? Seriously, I’m clutching at technostraws here. Even the bloody shader cache process works quickly, marking the first time in PC gaming history that anyone’s said something nice about shader caching.

As for the ageing innards of the Steam Deck, know that Pragmata will run, sort of. Drop all the way down to the Minimum preset, and ditch FSR 1 for FSR 3 on Performance mode, and you should get at least 40fps in the more easygoing areas. More detailed locales, and certain effect-heavy enemy attacks, will force you down into the thirties, unfortunately with the occasional sub-30fps dip. It is broadly playable, though, and a comfortable fit for the Deck’s gamepad-style control scheme.

Pragmata best settings guide

Actually, no, I do have one more gripe: Pragmata’s graphics presets help themselves to an unusually wide range of both visual and display settings, sometimes sneakily re-enabling toggles that I’ve previously switched off, like V-Sync and frame generation. Still, if you want even more frames in yer second, it’s worth adjusting these manually anyway. On the RTX 4060, which I used to test the performance impact of every graphics setting individually, the Performance preset (93fps at native 1080p) was a good deal quicker than the Quality preset (72fps, also native), so clearly there are gains up for grabs.

Manual tweaking also spares you the blurriness of FSR 1 on the lower presets, as seen here:

1920×1080, Quality preset

The good news is that, in yet another similarity to a certain game that rhymes with ‘President Weevil Blequiem’, most settings can be left cranked up with negligible framerate impact. Most GPUs will even be able to handle settings above their Quality preset levels, as some (like text and mesh quality) have a ‘Max’ mode that can only be enabled by hand. This is balanced by a handful of sacrificeable effects, like motion blur and depth of field, that can rack up small but additive performance improvements when turned off.

Here’s what most PCs can aim for:

• V-Sync: Off, unless your monitor lacks adaptive sync
• Ray tracing: On
• Path tracing: Off
• DLSS Ray Reconstruction: Off
• Global illumination quality: Overriden by ray tracing, otherwise use Medium
• Upscaling: DLSS/FSR 3 on Quality
• Image quality: 100%
• Dynamic resolution: Off
• Frame generation: Off, or DLSS 2x if you want
• Nvidia Reflex Low Latency: On+Boost, if supported
• Hair quality: High
• Texture quality: High: 2GB
• Texture filtering: High (ANISO x16)
• Mesh quality: Max
• Shadow quality: High
• Shadow cache: On
• Contact shadows: On
• Effects quality: Max
• Video quality: Whatever best matches your monitor
• Anti-aliasing: Overridden by DLSS/FSR 3, otherwise use FXAA+TAA
• Ambient occlusion: SSAO
• Volumetric lighting: Max
• Bloom: Off
• Screen space reflections: Overridden by ray tracing, otherwise use On
• Subsurface scattering: On
• Motion blur: Off
• Lens flare: Off
• Lens distortion: Off
• Depth of field: Off

These settings look as good, where it counts, as the Quality preset, yet averaged a markedly faster 89fps on the RTX 4060; an improvement of around 24%. And, while I could have added another 14% or so by swapping ray tracing for High-quality global illumination… I dunno, reader. When it’s so simple to get 60fps-plus on an years-old, mid-range GPU, at this point I’d rather just have the extra shinies.

Again, don’t take that to mean path tracing is equally worthwhile – that genuinely does take more than it gives – but I’d recommend sticking with RT if your PC supports it. Also, I’ve left frame generation off here, but if you’re reliably averaging above 70fps or so then you can try it out without serious image quality loss or tangibly added input latency. Just don’t use it without a strong base of ‘real’ frames, or else it’ll feel like laggy mush. Luckily, this is one game where such a base is easily built.