Raft System Requirements & PC Benchmark

Raft is an engaging oceanic survival craft game developed by Redbeet Interactive and published by Axolot, challenging players to survive on a floating wooden platform across a vast, flooded open world. Built on the Unity engine, the game pairs dynamic ocean wave simulation with an intricate modular building system where players expand modest life rafts into multi-story floating fortresses. While initial ocean scavenging runs smoothly, expanding your base introduces substantial computational load. Benchmark your configuration against our extensive catalog on PCRunIt PC games.

Raft System Requirements Breakdown

The minimum system requirements specify an Intel Core i5 processor running at 2.6 GHz, a legacy DirectX 11 GPU such as an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 500 series or AMD Radeon HD 7700 (1 GB VRAM), and 8 GB of RAM. This configuration permits basic oceanic survival at 720p on Low settings, though frame rates will fluctuate heavily once you encounter large tropical islands.

To maintain a fluid 60 FPS at 1080p on High settings, the recommended specifications demand an Intel Core i7 processor at 3.2 GHz or modern quad-core equivalent, an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 (4 GB VRAM) or AMD Radeon RX 570, and 16 GB of dual-channel system memory. Storage is modest at 10 GB, but installing the game on a fast SSD prevents hitching when approaching procedural story locations like Tangaroa or Temperance.

Hardware Bottlenecks & Engine Scaling

Raft’s performance profile is divided between GPU water rendering in the early game and severe CPU draw-call bottlenecks in the late game. The dynamic water shader utilizes vertex displacement to generate rolling ocean waves, applying constant buoyancy physics calculations to your raft and floating debris.

As your raft grows to encompass hundreds of wooden planks, collection nets, crop plots, and animal pens, the bottleneck shifts heavily to the CPU. Unity must track physics colliders and execute draw calls for every single placed object. When sailing through choppy seas, calculating the synchronized movement of an enormous multi-deck structure can choke the main render thread, causing frame rate drops even on top-tier graphics cards. This physics scaling challenge mirrors the building limitations found in cooperative survival sandboxes like Valheim and wilderness survival titles like Sons Of The Forest.

FPS Optimization Tips / Best Settings

• Cap Floating Debris Distance: Reducing item collection net sprawl and avoiding leaving uncollected floating items prevents unnecessary physics evaluations.
• Lower Shadow and Ocean Quality: Dropping Shadows and Water Quality from Ultra to Medium dramatically reduces vertex rendering load on the ocean mesh.
• Disable Motion Blur and SSAO: Disabling ambient occlusion and screen-space motion blur cleans up visual clarity and recovers 5 to 8 FPS during storm sequences.
• Maintain 16 GB Dual-Channel RAM: Adequate dual-channel memory prevents memory stuttering as world asset streaming loads large story islands in the background.
• Limit Dynamic Lighting on Rafts: Avoid placing dozens of individual lanterns across your decks, as overlapping dynamic point lights heavily tax the Unity forward renderer.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does Raft drop frame rates as my raft gets bigger?

Every placed building piece, crop plot, and storage chest is a physics collider. Unity must calculate buoyant wave physics and render draw calls for thousands of interconnected components simultaneously.

Does Raft support NVIDIA DLSS or AMD FSR?

Raft does not include native support for modern temporal upscalers such as DLSS or FSR, relying entirely on traditional native resolution rendering and FXAA/TAA anti-aliasing.

Is an SSD necessary for playing Raft?

While Raft can run from a mechanical hard drive, installing the 10 GB client on an SSD significantly reduces texture stuttering when sailing into large story destinations.