Best Settings for Honkai: Star Rail

Image: Hoyoverse via HGG / Brittany Alva

Human Made

Penned by Brittany Alva

Brittany is our resident Palia and Honkai: Star Rail specialist.

Reviewed by Benjamin Barr

Honkai: Star Rail is a great-looking game no matter what platform you play it on, even on the most basic settings. However, everyone’s phones or PCs are different, and there are some settings that can help the game look and run better – especially if your tech isn’t the most up-to-date out there. 

Additionally, some settings make the game run better on everything out there, while others just make the game feel better to play in most cases. Here are the best settings for Honkai: Star Rail, sorted by what device you’re playing on.

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How to Change Graphics Settings in Honkai: Star Rail

To change the settings in Honkai: Star Rail, you’ll need to pull out your in-game phone, which you can do by clicking or tapping the phone icon on the top left side. 

From there, select the icon that looks like a gear on the right side of the screen. The graphics settings will be the thing that pops up first, and you can adjust each individual setting from there. This same area also lets you adjust the audio settings, which can be helpful for some. 

Everything will automatically change as you select it, so you don’t have to worry about saving anything at the end. 

Best PC Settings for Honkai: Star Rail

These are good PC settings for Honkai: Star Rail if you’re struggling to run the game at its max:

• Graphics Quality: Custom
• Resolution: 1920 x 1080 (Full Screen)
• FPS: 60 (can go up to 120 if possible)
• V-Sync: Off
• Rendering Quality: 1 at the least
• Shadow Quality: Low
• Reflection Quality: Low
• Character Quality: Medium
• Environment Detail: Medium
• Bloom Effect: Medium
• Anti-Aliasing: TAA
• Light Quality: Medium

You can use these exact settings and see how they run on your PC. Luckily, Honkai: Star Rail isn’t a difficult game to run, so these settings should work for most people. However, if they don’t, you can change the settings with ‘Medium’ to ‘Low.’

Best Android Settings for Honkai: Star Rail

Devices that run an Android OS vary in capabilities pretty widely. If you’re struggling to run Honkai: Star Rail, it’s best to start with these settings and move up from there:

• Graphics Quality: Custom
• Resolution: Medium
• FPS: 30
• Shadow Quality: Medium
• Reflection Quality: Low
• Character Quality: Medium
• Environment Detail: Medium
• Bloom Effect: Low
• Anti-Aliasing: TAA
• Light Quality: Low

If things are running fine at these settings and you’d like to have better graphics, increase the ‘Low’ settings to ’Medium.’ You can also change Anti-Aliasing to ‘FXAA.’

Best iOS Settings for Honkai: Star Rail

Honkai: Star Rail can run at pretty high settings on Apple devices released in the past few years. In fact, you can set everything to ‘High’ and keep Anti-Aliasing to ‘FXAA.’ However, if you’re on an older device, you can try these settings instead:

• Graphics Quality: Custom
• Resolution: Medium
• FPS: 30
• Shadow Quality: Medium
• Reflection Quality: Medium
• Character Quality: Medium
• Environment Detail: Medium
• Bloom Effect: Low
• Anti-Aliasing: TAA
• Light Quality: Low

If you’re still running into performance issues, you can try lowering the ‘Medium’ settings to ‘Low.’

What Each Setting Option Does

If you’re trying to adjust settings in Honkai: Star Rail, it’s good to know what each setting actually means. Keep in mind that some of these settings are specific to PC players, so don’t worry if you don’t notice all of the settings on your device. 

Graphics Quality

Graphics Quality is a general setting that sets the other settings to whatever it is. If you’re finding your own graphic settings from scratch, adjusting this first is a good way to find a starting point. 

Resolution

In simple terms, Resolution refers to how detailed the images in the game look. It refers to the number of pixels per inch of screen, which is where the numbers come from on PC. However, on mobile devices, this will just have descriptors like ‘Medium’ and ‘High.’

FPS

FPS, or frames per second, controls how many frames the game will show every second. Ideally, most people want this at about 60. However, 30 is a good choice for those who want the highest performance they can get on less powerful devices. 

V-Sync

V-Sync is a PC-specific setting that’s meant to address screen tearing. This occurs when your game’s framerate doesn’t line up with your monitor’s refresh rate. If you’re noticing little jumps in your graphics that looks more like lagging, then you’ll want to turn this setting to ‘On.’

Rendering Quality

Rendering Quality references the detail of things far away from where you are. You can make things in the distance look better or worse if you’re playing on PC. This will make the game look drastically different, but it can boost performance a lot by having it lower. 

Shadow Quality

Like the name suggests, Shadow Quality affects how detailed the Shadows in the game are. While this can really enhance the graphics of Honkai: Star Rail, it’s an easy thing to go without. Turning it off can really boost the performance of the game. 

Reflection Quality

Reflection Quality is another setting that can make the game stand out in terms of graphics. However, it’s easy to play without having detailed reflections, and it’s an easy setting to lower if you need to make Honkai: Star Rail run smoother. 

Character Quality

As a gacha game, characters are almost everything. However, you can lower (and raise) the detail of the characters if you want to. This can help things run smoother if you’re not concerned about how the characters look. This can make a pretty big difference since you run around the map as your characters, but it’s another setting that can be lowered if necessary. 

Environment Detail

Environment Detail deals with the quality of the details in the over world. This is another setting that can be lowered if necessary, but it will have a pretty drastic effect on what Honkai: Star Rail looks like. 

Bloom Effect

In Honkai: Star Rail, the Bloom setting refers to the amount of light an object gives off. Essentially, it makes things look like they’re glowing and raises the contrast around certain things in the game. Some people like this because it enhances the sense of immersion a game has, but others don’t like how distracting and bright it can be. You should tailor this to your preference for more than just graphics/performance reasons. 

Anti-Aliasing

Anti-Aliasing refers to how a game transitions prior frames to current frames in the simplest definition possible. This exists to remove the harsh lines that pixels can create when transitioning frames. There are better and worse options for this that have an effect on how well a game looks and performs. This is another setting that some people have strong feelings about, so you should try the different options and see what feels the best to you.

Light Quality

Lighting in a game can make a huge difference in how good it looks, but it takes a lot of power to do so. Lowering the Light Quality will make a big difference in how the game performs, but it can make the game look pretty bad if you lower it too much. 

Tips for Getting the Best Settings

Here are some general tips for finding the right settings for you in Honkai: Star Rail.

Test Things Out

Every PC and mobile phone is going to run differently. Plus, people have different wants and balances that they prefer between graphics and performance. When you’re trying to get a game to run the best it possibly can, you’ll want to test things out and adjust settings until you find what you like. 

Luckily, you can do this in Honkai: Star Rail without having to shut down the game every time you adjust the settings. Try running around one of the major cities as well as going into combat to get a good feel for the current settings before trying to change them.

Easy Changes to Improve Graphics or Performance

If you’re looking to improve the graphics or performance in Honkai: Star Rail, adjust these settings first:

• Shadow Quality
• Reflection Quality
• Light Quality

These will make subtle differences in graphics that can take things to the next level (if you’re improving them for graphics) or help things run much smoother (if you’re lowering them for performance). 

Of course, if you’re trying to change something drastically, you can lower or raise all of the settings at once and adjust from there. You can also target specific settings that you care more or less about. For example, some people want the Character Quality to be as high as possible while others could care less how they look. 

Join the High Ground!

Now that you know the best settings for Honkai: Star Rail on whichever device you use, it’s time to actually go play the game! Finding a balance between graphics and performance can be tricky, but it’s well worth it.

Let us know below what you like to focus on when it comes to graphics settings. You can also subscribe below for more gaming and Honkai: Star Rail content. 

Happy gaming!