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NASCAR 26 runs cleanly out of the box, which we said in our review, but stock car racing lives and dies on a smooth, consistent frame rate. A dropped frame at 190 miles per hour into turn one is the difference between a clean pass and a wrecked car.
The good news is that a handful of settings do most of the damage to your frame rate, and NASCAR 26 shares its engine with last year's game, so the levers that mattered then still matter now.
Here is how to get the smoothest race without making the game look flat.
Before tuning, make sure your rig is in the right ballpark. These are the official NASCAR 26 requirements.
| Minimum | Recommended | |
| CPU | Intel Core i5-2320 or AMD FX-6300 | Intel Core i9-9900KS or AMD Ryzen 9 3900X |
| RAM | 16 GB | 32 GB |
| GPU | GeForce GTX 1060 6GB or Radeon RX 570 4GB | GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 11GB or Radeon VII 16GB |
| Storage | 65 GB | 100 GB |
| OS | Windows 10 or 11, 64 bit | Windows 10 or 11, 64 bit |
If you are near the recommended tier or above, you have plenty of headroom to chase high frame rates, and the settings below are about keeping that frame rate rock steady rather than just making the game playable.
If you only touch a few things, touch these. In this engine they are where the frame rate goes to die.
A solid starting point for a smooth, good looking race on a mid to high end card. Nudge individual sliders from here based on your target frame rate.
| Setting | Recommended | Why |
| Resolution | Native (no dynamic resolution) | Consistency over guesswork |
| Anti Aliasing | High | Best balance of clean edges and FPS |
| Shadows | Medium | Big saving, barely noticeable at speed |
| Reflections | Medium | Protects FPS in a full field |
| Mirrors | Low or off when not needed | The single biggest free frame rate gain |
| Crowd and Track Detail | Medium | Track side detail you rarely look at |
| Motion Blur | Off | Cleaner image, no cost |
| VSync | Off, use a frame cap instead | Lower input lag, steadier pacing |
A note on the frame cap: rather than VSync, cap your frame rate a few frames below your monitor's refresh, and turn on adaptive sync if you have it. You get smooth, tear free racing with far less input lag than VSync, which matters a lot when you are judging braking points.
This is the honest part. NASCAR 26 does not appear to expose a built in DLSS toggle in its video menu the way big NVIDIA showcase games do, and last year's entry had no native DLSS support at all.
So do this first: open the in game video settings and look for a DLSS or FSR upscaling option. If it is there, turn it on, it is the best single performance setting you can enable on a supported card.
If there is no in game option, you are not entirely out of luck on an RTX card. You can force DLSS Super Resolution through the NVIDIA app's DLSS Override, which works on games that support DLSS under the hood even without an in game switch.
We walk through exactly how to do that, and which cards support what, in our guide to DLSS support and the greyed out setting and our DLSS 5 explainer. Just know that if the game has no DLSS integration at all, forcing it will have no effect, so treat the NVIDIA app route as a try it and see.
Rough expectations at 1440p with the preset above, so you know what to aim for before you start tuning.
NASCAR 26 is not a demanding game if you respect the few settings that actually cost frames. Turn the mirrors down, keep anti aliasing at high, put shadows and reflections at medium, skip dynamic resolution and motion blur, and cap your frame rate with adaptive sync on.
Do that and you get the steady, tear free racing that stock car games need, without giving up the visual step up NASCAR 26 made this year.
What are the best NASCAR 26 settings for high FPS?
Turn mirror detail down or off, keep anti aliasing at high, set shadows and reflections to medium, leave dynamic resolution and motion blur off, and use a frame cap with adaptive sync instead of VSync.
What are the NASCAR 26 system requirements?
Minimum is roughly a GTX 1060 6GB or RX 570 with 16 GB of RAM. Recommended is an RTX 2080 Ti or Radeon VII with 32 GB of RAM, on Windows 10 or 11.
Does NASCAR 26 support DLSS?
There is no clearly confirmed in game DLSS toggle, and last year's game had no native DLSS. Check your video menu for a DLSS or FSR option first. On an RTX card you can also try forcing DLSS through the NVIDIA app, though it only helps if the game supports DLSS under the hood.
Should I use VSync in NASCAR 26?
Better to turn VSync off, cap your frame rate a few frames below your monitor's refresh, and enable adaptive sync. You get tear free racing with much lower input lag, which helps your braking and cornering.
Why does my frame rate drop at the start of a race?
A full 40 car field is the heaviest moment for the engine, especially with reflections and car detail high. Lowering reflections and opponent car detail smooths out those opening laps.
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