ENGINEERING AVAILABILITY IN ALL VEHICLES
With the release of Alpha 4.5, every single vehicle in Star Citizen is Engineering-enabled and capable of the baseline experience. While many have the full loop available to them, others remain in ongoing stages of development.
Below is a list of all currently flyable ships and vehicles and their Engineering status for Alpha 4.5. Please remember this list will change with each subsequent patch.
We are tremendously excited by the potential this system has for the future of Star Citizen gameplay, and as each ship continues it’s journey to the final stage of implementation, so too will Engineering itself continue to evolve and develop over the next year.
We encourage you to try the experience in multiple ships, and to provide feedback on this new gameplay system through our various communications channels and help us continue to make Engineering as fun and rewarding as possible.
Frontier Fighters Finale
To honor the efforts of the pilots who stepped in and assisted the Headhunters gang in bringing down this dangerous terrorist organization, the Headhunters Striker Clothing Set has been distributed to all participants who stood with the Headhunters from start to finish.
- These items will be delivered in Alpha 4.5. The distribution process can take some time, so don’t worry if you don’t see your items in your hangar right away.
Arden-CL Backpack - Chairman’s Club Edition
being distributed to Concierge
Daily reward:
Piconalia Sweater Tannenbaum
Happy Luminalia PIPELINE!
Its official, CIG has brought back the Star Citizen 2025 Gameplay Survey, asking players how they play, who they are, and what they think about the game now and long term. It takes about 15 minutes, you can skip any questions, and it runs until January 15.
Everyone who completes it gets an in‑game reward: a light‑up Café Musain hangar flair granted directly to their account after the survey closes.
DIRECT LINK TO SURVEY
Hi everyone,
I wanted to take a moment to help clarify what each of our Graphics Settings does and how they impact your experience. Below, you’ll find a brief description of each setting, along with notes on what it affects in terms of performance, visuals, or hardware usage.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask below. I’ll do my best to jump in and answer where I can.
Video Memory (VRAM)
- The horizontal bar in the bottom right of the Graphics Options menu shows the maximum video memory the game will use with the chosen resolution + settings. It is crucial this is kept below the recommended maximum, but if you are running other software (e.g. recording/streaming) then you may need to leave more headroom. If you run out of VRAM, especially on Vulkan, then you will see huge performance dips (e.g. going from 60fps to 10fps) and this won’t recover until the memory goes back under the limit. Actual usage can vary throughout the game, based on locations and other players.
Setting Descriptions
Graphics Renderer
- [Desc] Changes the graphics API used for rendering (Vulkan/DX11)
- [Affects] Vulkan is the more modern API, and will be mandated in a future patch as it supports the latest hardware features such as ray tracing, whereas DX11 is no longer being updated
- Vulkan graphics drivers tend to change more frequently, and so are at more risk of bugs, so we always recommend being on the latest ‘safe’ driver, and avoid experimental drivers. If you hit issues after a driver update then roll back to the most recent working driver. If you have issues running Vulkan on any driver then we strongly recommend you report them so that you are not blocked from running the game in a future patch
- CPU performance should be much better on Vulkan
- GPU performance should be broadly similar between APIs
- Visual quality should be identical on both
- Behaviour/support for driver related overrides such as frame-generation/motion smoothing may vary between graphics APIs, and is largely beyond CIG’s control. We recommend not using any such driver overrides or render-overlays if you experience any issues
Resolution
- [Desc] Sets the final output resolution (after any up-scaling).
- [Affects] Large impact on VRAM usage and GPU performance. Recommend 1080p for low-spec, and 4k only for more recent GPUs
Window Mode
- [Desc] Full screen vs windowed
- [Affects] GPU performance should be slightly better in full-screen, though using a higher resolution will counteract that
VSync
- [Desc] Enable or disable v-sync. Locks image updates to your monitors refresh rate, which also locks your frame-rate to a divisor of your refresh rate (e.g. 120/60/30/20 fps). When disabled you may see ‘screen tear’ where you see partial image updates. We recommend you set your monitor refresh rate via the OS to the maximum and then enable VSync
- [Affects] Screen tear. Frame-rate clamping.
Upscaling
- [Desc] Use a lower resolution internal resolution for some of the rendering (UI is not affected), and use temporal upscaling to recover that detail over time
- [Affects] Lower resolutions can drastically improve GPU performance, and can save VRAM
Upscaling Technique
- [Desc] Change the upscaling technique used. If you have an NVidia card then we recommend DLSS, and for all others we recommend CIG-TSR
- [Affects] Each technique has a different cost in VRAM and performance
Upscaling Model ( DLSS only )
- [Desc] Different variants of NVidia’s DLSS upscaling
- [Affects] Can be a large performance difference between modes
HDR
- [Desc] Enable High Dynamic Range output for improved contrast
- [Affects] Performance should be near identical. This can have an impact on screenshots and your ability to stream content
HDR Brightness (Ref-White) ( HDR only )
- [Desc] Desired brightness of a comfortable ‘paper white’. Adjust based on the light levels in your room. Ideally HDR is experienced in a dim room with a low reference white setting to maximize the contrast of bright highlights.
- [Affects] Typical brightness of a white object/screen.
HDR Peak Brightness ( HDR only )
- [Desc] Maximum brightness to use. Recommended setting is the maximum, which is automatically detected from your display, and only lower if uncomfortable.
- [Affects] Maximum brightness of lights & reflections
Overall Quality Preset
- [Desc] Sets all quality controls below to the same setting
- [Affects] VRAM, GPU performance & quality (see below for details)
Object Detail
- [Desc] Adjusts polygon detail on meshes via changing the distances that each ‘level of detail’ is used, and whether to use hardware tessellation (High and above)
- [Affects] GPU performance
Object View Distance
- [Desc] Controls the maximum distance at which objects are drawn (up to 200% difference between Ultra and Low)
- [Affects] GPU performance and minor CPU cost
Textures Quality
- [Desc] Changes the amount of VRAM used for streaming textures, as well as the target resolution of textures
- [Values] Ultra = 5800Mb, Very High = 4300Mb, High = 3300Mb, Medium = 2300Mb with 25% quality reduction, Low = 1400Mb with 50% quality reduction
- [Affects] VRAM, and increased disk access at higher settings
Detail Textures
- [Desc] Changes the resolution of textures used for details on characters, weapons and items/props.
- [Values] High = 512x512, Medium = 256x256, Low = 128x128
- [Affects] VRAM
Ground Textures
- [Desc] Sets the resolution of ground textures used on planets
- [Values] High = 2048x2048, Low = 1024x1024
- [Affects] VRAM
Texture Filtering
- [Desc] Sets anisotropic texture filtering quality for preserving details at grazing angles
- [Values] High = 16x, Medium = 8x, Low = 4x
- [Affects] GPU performance
Shadow Maps
- [Desc] Changes the resolution of shadow maps as well as their quality.
- [Values] Ultra = 200%, Very High/High = 100%, Medium/Low = 50%
- [Affects] VRAM & GPU performance
Screenspace Shadows
- [Affects] Visual quality & GPU performance
Planet Volumetric Clouds Quality
- [Desc] Changes the rendering quality settings of planet clouds
- [Affects] Visual quality & GPU performance
Gas Clouds
- [Desc] Changes the rendering quality settings of gas (space) clouds
- [Affects] Visual quality & GPU performance
Fog
- [Desc] Changes the resolution of the local fog (i.e. fog within 500m). Higher settings will preserve more detail in shafts of light, lower values will have a flatter appearance.
- [Affects] Visual quality, VRAM & GPU performance
Water Caustics
- [Desc] Enables water caustics effects (light scattered onto objects beneath the water)
- [Affects] GPU performance
Water Simulation
- [Desc] Controls the number of simultaneous water simulations that can occur at once
- [Affects] VRAM & GPU performance
Shader Quality
- [Desc] Adjusts the quality of some material shader effects, such as parallax occlusion mapping (to add 3D details to otherwise flat surfaces).
- [Affects] Visual quality & GPU performance
Post Effects
- [Desc] Controls the quality of some post effects such as Motion Blur, Bloom, Flares & Refraction
- [Affects] GPU performance
Video Comms
- [Desc] Controls the quality of lighting in video comms calls
- [Affects] GPU performance
Visor and Lens Aspect Modifier
- [Desc] Aspect ratio for the UI displayed on the visor/lens. Useful for ultra wide monitors or multi-monitor setups.
- [Affects] Visual only
Field Of View
- [Desc] Horizontal field of view.
- [Affects] Can affect both CPU and GPU performance
**RSI Hermes **
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Daily reward:
Terrapin Deck the Hull and IceBreaker Paints
