No Man’s Sky: Best TKGRAPHICSSETTINGS.xml for Fractal Update

The goal here is to balance the “NumHighThreads” and “NumLowThreads” to match your CPU’s physical core architecture, which prevents the engine from over-saturating a single logical processor.

File Path & Setup

1. Navigate to: [NMS Install Folder]\Binaries\SETTINGS\TKGRAPHICSSETTINGS.MXML
2. Open with: Notepad++ (standard Notepad can occasionally break the XML formatting).
3. Pro Tip: If you mess up the values, simply delete the file and launch the game. NMS will regenerate a clean, default version of the file.

Optimized “Interstellar Threads” Configuration Table

Parameter	Recommended Value	Technical Purpose
NumHighThreads	See Calculation below	Handles physics, AI, and geometry generation.
NumLowThreads	0 or 1	The Stutter Fix. Prevents low-priority tasks from interrupting the main loop.
TextureStreamingEx	On	Reduces VRAM “choke” during high-speed low-altitude flight.
TerrainTessellation	Standard	Disables complex ground geometry for a significant FPS boost.
VsyncEx	Off	Use your GPU control panel (G-Sync/FreeSync) instead for lower latency.

HowTo: Engineering the CPU Thread Balance

Follow these GameEngineer.net technical steps to solve the “Rubber-Banding” issue:

1. The Thread Formula: In 2026, the best practice is to set NumLowThreads to 0 to prevent background tasks from causing stutters. For NumHighThreads, use the following formula:$$NumHighThreads = (Total Logical Cores) – 1$$(Example: On a 6-core/12-thread CPU, set High to 11 and Low to 0.)
2. Unlocking FOV: The in-game slider is capped at 100. In this file, search for FoVOnFoot and FoVInShip. You can manually change these to 120.000000 for a much wider, more modern perspective.
3. Texture Cache Logic: Set UseTerrainTextureCache to true if you are on an SSD. This allows the game to pre-load terrain assets, which drastically reduces “pop-in” when you land your ship on a new planet.
4. GSync Override: Even if you don’t have a G-Sync monitor, NMS often defaults GSync to true. Change this to false in the XML to prevent strange internal frame capping that can conflict with modern Windows 11 windowed optimizations.
5. Texture Page Size: Do not touch TexturePageSizeKb unless you have a high-end GPU with 16GB+ VRAM. If you do, increasing this to 256 can help with high-resolution texture loading on ultra-detailed planets.

Technical Explanation: Thread Contention ($T_{con}$)

In the Fractal Update, No Man’s Sky’s procedural engine generates terrain in real-time. If the NumLowThreads value is too high, the engine constantly spawns low-priority worker threads that compete with the Render Thread for CPU cache ($L3$).

By setting NumLowThreads to 0, you force the engine to prioritize the High Threads, effectively giving the procedural generation more “room” to breathe. This reduces the Frame Time Variance, ensuring that when the game generates a massive dinosaur or a complex forest, it doesn’t drop the frame rate to zero for a millisecond.