MXGP 26 PC Performance Fix: Best Graphics Settings for Unreal Engine 5 Optimization

Okay, let me just say it: I love this game. I’ve been hammering motocross games for years, through the good, the bad and the ‘why does my rider fly into orbit after a tiny bump’ entries. When I heard MXGP 26 was moving to Unreal Engine 5, I got goosebumps. Artefacts Studio and Nacon finally went all in, and the result looks gorgeous: moody lighting, dust hanging in the air, and riders that actually look like they’re wrestling a 250-pound machine.

But the thing that sold me is the real-time track deformation. This isn’t a texture trick. Twenty bikes chew through the dirt, ruts form, lines change, and by lap five the track is a completely different animal than it was at the gate drop. It’s the closest I’ve felt to real racing in a game.

And then I launched it on my PC and… stutter city.

If you’re here, you probably know the feeling. The first few seconds at the start gate feel like a slideshow, frame times go all over the place, and sometimes the whole thing just hiccups mid-corner and you eat the berm. I spent a stupid number of evenings testing options, so here’s everything that helped. Fair warning: results vary by hardware, so treat this as a starting point, not gospel.

MXGP 26 Advanced Physics Guide: How to Master Real-Time Track Deformation and Persistent Ruts

Why Does MXGP 26 Run So Heavy? (The Short Version)

Understanding the ‘why’ helped me tweak smarter. There are two main culprits:

1. The Track Deformation Is a CPU Monster

In older games, ruts were basically a visual layer. Here, the track geometry actually changes, and the game has to calculate physics for 20 riders on a surface that’s constantly morphing. When the whole pack bunches up at the start, your CPU is basically screaming. That’s where the nasty micro-stutters come from.

2. UE5’s Fancy Graphics Eat VRAM

Virtualized geometry and modern global illumination look incredible, but they chew through video memory. If your card has less than 8GB of VRAM, you’ll get texture pop-in, sudden FPS drops, and in the worst case random crashes to desktop. Been there, hated it.

So the plan is simple: ease the load on the CPU, keep VRAM under control, and make the engine compile its shaders early instead of mid-race.

Step 1: The In-Game Settings That Actually Matter

Let’s start with the easy wins. These are the settings I settled on after way too much trial and error.

Display Basics

Display Mode: Fullscreen. Borderless feels convenient, but it adds a bit of input lag and Windows compositing overhead. In a racing game where you’re trying to hit a tight apex, you feel it.
Resolution: Native for your monitor (1080p, 1440p, whatever you have).
V-Sync: Off. If you have a G-Sync or FreeSync monitor, let that handle tearing. You’ll get lower latency.
Frame Rate Limit: Match your refresh rate, or cap at 60 or 120. A locked frame rate makes frame pacing so much smoother than an uncapped one that bounces around.

The Graphics Options (My Recommended Values)

Setting	Recommended	Why It Matters
Track Deformation Quality	Medium	The biggest CPU saver. High/Ultra gets very expensive, Medium keeps the ruts and the physics feel.
Shadow Quality	Medium	High shadows are a notorious FPS killer in UE5.
Post-Processing	Low–Medium	Less blur and fringing, plus clearer corners and a 7–10% gain.
Texture Quality	High (8GB+ VRAM) / Medium (4–6GB)	Prevents VRAM overflow stutter.
Effects Quality	Medium	Dust and mud look great but tank FPS when you’re behind a pack.
Foliage Quality	Low–Medium	Trees and grass around the track add up.
View Distance	Medium	Far objects stay recognizable without wasted geometry.

My honest take on Track Deformation: I was so tempted to leave it on Ultra because it’s the headline feature. Don’t. Medium still gives you proper ruts and changing lines, and the stability difference is massive. I’d rather have a smooth Medium than a stuttery Ultra that makes me crash.

Upscaling (DLSS / FSR / XeSS)

Use whatever your GPU supports, but stick to Quality or Balanced. Upscaling can look a little soft, so add sharpness around 0.3 to 0.5 to bring the detail back. Anything more aggressive and the image starts looking mushy, which is a problem when you’re trying to read the next corner.

Step 2: The Engine.ini Tweak (For the Brave)

This is where I saw the biggest improvement in stutter. If you’re comfortable poking around config files, give it a go. If not, skip to Step 3, the game still runs better with the settings above.

⚠️ Back up your Engine.ini first. Copy it somewhere safe before editing. Config options can change between patches, and not every console variable is guaranteed to behave the same on every setup.

How to Do It

Press Windows + R.
Type %localappdata% and hit OK.
Find the MXGP26 folder (or the folder named after the studio/publisher), then go to \Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor\ (or \Windows\).
Open Engine.ini in Notepad.
Scroll to the very bottom, add a new line, and paste this:

[SystemSettings]
r.Shaders.Optimize=1
r.ShaderPipelineCache.Enabled=1
r.CreateShadersOnLoad=1
r.XGEShaderCompile=1
r.Shadow.MaxResolution=1024
r.Shadow.DistanceScale=0.85
r.VolumetricFog=0
r.Streaming.PoolSize=3000
r.Streaming.LimitPoolSizeToVRAM=1
r.Streaming.AmortizeCPUToGPULoading=1
r.Streaming.MaxNumImagesToLoadPerFrame=60
r.MotionBlurQuality=0
r.DepthOfFieldQuality=0
r.SceneColorFringeQuality=0
r.NGX.DLSS.Enable=1

[/Script/Engine.RendererSettings]
r.HZBOcclusion=1
r.AllowStaticLighting=0
r.SupportComputeSkinnedVertices=1

Save, close, then right-click the file → Properties → tick Read-only → Apply. Otherwise the game may overwrite your changes on launch.

What These Lines Actually Do

Shader options (r.CreateShadersOnLoad and friends): These push shader compilation into the loading screen instead of the race itself. This was the single biggest cure for that ‘random hitch mid-corner’ problem.
Shadow resolution at 1024: Smaller shadow maps, much lighter on memory. On muddy, organic dirt you really can’t tell the difference.
Volumetric fog off: This frees up a surprising amount of GPU headroom, especially on overcast or rainy tracks.
Streaming pool size: A good rule is about 40–50% of your total VRAM. That’s roughly 3000 for an 8GB card and 4500 for a 12GB card. Set it too high and you invite overflow stutter.
Motion blur, depth of field and fringing off: More clarity, fewer wasted frames. Personally I think the game looks cleaner this way.

Step 3: Windows and GPU Driver Tweaks

Don’t skip this section. A few toggles here made the game feel noticeably more consistent.

Windows

Hardware-Accelerated GPU Scheduling (HAGS): Go to Settings → System → Display → Graphics → Default graphics settings, turn it on, and restart. It can reduce CPU overhead and improve how your CPU and GPU talk to each other.
Game Mode: Keep it enabled so Windows stops stealing resources for background tasks while you race.

NVIDIA Control Panel

Open Manage 3D Settings → Program Settings, then add the MXGP 26 executable if it’s missing.
Set:

Power Management Mode: Prefer Maximum Performance (keeps clocks high when physics spikes hit).
Shader Cache Size: 10GB or Unlimited (fewer reload hitches).
Texture Filtering – Quality: High Performance.

AMD Radeon Software

Turn Anti-Lag ON to cut input latency in heavy scenes.
Turn Radeon Chill and Radeon Boost OFF. Dynamic resolution tricks can fight with Unreal Engine 5’s own render scaling and cause weird visual glitches.

My Quick-Start Cheat Sheet

If you just want the TL;DR, here’s the order I’d do things in:

Set Fullscreen, V-Sync off, and cap your frame rate.
Drop Track Deformation and Shadows to Medium.
Match Texture Quality to your VRAM.
Use DLSS/FSR/XeSS on Quality or Balanced with a bit of sharpening.
Apply the Engine.ini tweaks (after backing up!).
Enable HAGS, Game Mode, and set your driver options.
Update your GPU drivers and keep an eye out for patches.

What I Think After All This

Look, I’m not going to pretend MXGP 26 is a perfectly polished PC port. The stutter at the start of races is real, and it’s frustrating when a game this ambitious makes you spend an evening in config files. That’s the criticism.

But here’s the praise: once it’s tuned, this game is an absolute blast. The way the track breaks down over a moto, the way you hunt for a fresh line in lap six because the inside is torn to pieces, that’s the stuff I’ve wanted from a motocross game for years. Artefacts Studio took a huge swing with the deformation tech, and it mostly lands.

After applying everything above, my race starts went from ‘ugh, here we go’ to ‘okay, let’s go,’ and the mid-race hitches basically vanished. Smooth frame pacing makes you a better rider, because you can finally trust your inputs.

A few final tips:

Change one thing at a time if you’re troubleshooting. Otherwise you’ll never know what helped.
Test at the start gate with a full pack. That’s the worst case, so if it’s smooth there, it’s smooth everywhere.
Keep your drivers updated, and check for patches. The devs may well fix some of this natively.

If these tweaks helped, or if you found settings that work even better on your rig, drop them in the comments. I’m always looking for extra frames. See you on the track! 🏍️💨