Category: Game Guides & Tips

More than a decade into GTA Online’s life, Rockstar has piled on so many businesses, heists, and money methods that figuring out where to actually spend your time is genuinely confusing, even for players who’ve been around a while. Here’s what’s actually worth doing right now, not what used to be good years ago.

Short answer: the core loop that works best in 2026 is using Cayo Perico as your anchor active earner, running it once, then using its 144-minute solo cooldown for a passive business like the Nightclub or Acid Lab, before coming back for another run. Combining active and passive income beats leaning on either alone.

Start here if you’re new

Contact missions and time trials are the real starting point, not heists, they need little to no upfront investment and teach you the game’s mission structure while you build initial capital.

VIP Work missions like Headhunter and Sightseer take 5-10 minutes each and pay $20,000-$30,000 with zero setup cost, making them ideal filler while you’re saving toward your first real purchase. The Cluckin’ Bell Farm Raid is another genuinely free option worth knowing about, no property or setup cost at all, fully solo-capable, paying $600,000 on your first completion each week and $400,000 on repeats. Once you’ve got some cash together, the Fleeca Job is the natural next step into traditional heisting, a two-player heist paying up to roughly $250,000 total on Hard difficulty (split 60/40 by default between host and crew, so an individual take is closer to $150,000). Like the Casino Heist, it also pays more on your first completion each week, with lower rewards on repeats, though Rockstar hasn’t published the exact multiplier.

The best active money-maker: Cayo Perico

Cayo Perico remains one of the strongest repeatable solo heists in the game, though how much it pays varies a lot depending on whether it’s your first run of the week or a repeat.

This is still one of the strongest repeatable solo options in the game, and no crew is needed, which matters a lot if you don’t have a reliable group of friends to play with. You’ll need the Kosatka submarine (around $2.2M from Warstock Cache & Carry) to unlock it, plus a $100,000 setup fee paid before each run. One important thing worth understanding: after a solo completion, there’s a 144-minute real-world cooldown before you can run it again (crews get a shorter 48-minute cooldown), so this isn’t something you grind back-to-back solo, it’s better thought of as the anchor of a rotation, using the cooldown window for Acid Lab, Nightclub sales, or other activities.

Title Update 1.73 (July 2026) made two separate changes worth knowing about: it reduced Cayo’s primary and secondary target values, and it moved repeat-run target appearance rates onto the same weekly (Thursday) cadence as other activities, rather than the old 3-day window. In practice, this means your first scope-out after the weekly reset is heavily weighted toward the better targets (community-tracked at roughly 40% Ruby Necklace, 40% Bearer Bonds and 20% Pink Diamond, with Tequila rare or absent, though Rockstar hasn’t published an official probability table), so a strong first-weekly run with a high-value target and good secondary loot generally lands in the $1M-$1.3M range. Every additional run before the next reset is weighted much more heavily toward the low-value Tequila target (around 80%) and generally pays considerably less. Some players clear $2M+ during dedicated event weeks when the rare, event-only Panther Statue target is available.

Worth knowing if you’ve got the bankroll for it: the Kortz Center Heist, added in July 2026, offers one of the largest solo-capable first-weekly payouts in the game for players who own the required Mansion plus its $4.7M Art Studio expansion, roughly $16.2M at list for the cheapest combination. A strong solo first-weekly run can land around $2.0M-$2.2M, though Rockstar hasn’t published official figures, and repeat runs pay far less. It’s not a beginner option, but worth knowing about once you’re established.

The best passive businesses right now

At high popularity, the Nightclub gives you a genuinely passive $50,000 per in-game day from its safe (capping at $250,000 if left uncollected), while the Acid Lab is the strongest active-passive hybrid for a solo grinder.

The Nightclub auto-accrues product from your other businesses and fills a popularity-based safe at $50,000 per in-game day, up to a $250,000 cap. Feeder businesses linked into the Nightclub don’t increase that safe rate, what they actually add is extra product for the warehouse, a separate income stream you sell off once it’s full. The Acid Lab costs $750,000 to set up (through the First Dose missions, then converting the MTL Brickade at the Freakshop). A base batch sells for around $237,600, rising to $335,200 once you’ve completed 10 Fooligan Jobs and installed the $250,000 Equipment Upgrade, which also cuts production time to roughly four hours.

Worth skipping fresh investment into right now: MC (Motorcycle Club) businesses like the cocaine lockup or meth lab take a big upfront investment and involve slow sell missions that expose your product to other players during delivery, a real risk, though how often that actually results in a raid varies too much by session and play style to state as a fixed frequency. They’re really only worth it once linked into a Nightclub for passive production. If you already own one, keep it running; if you don’t, there are better places to put your first big purchase.

The one habit that actually moves the needle

Check the Rockstar Newswire at the start of each week. Rockstar regularly runs 2x or 3x bonus events on specific businesses and missions, and timing your sell-offs or grind sessions around whichever business is currently boosted can meaningfully accelerate your income compared to ignoring the rotation entirely. It’s also worth knowing that Title Update 1.73’s first-completion weekly bonus applies broadly, covering 13 different heists and missions including Fleeca, Cluckin’ Bell, the three Doomsday acts, and several original heists, not just the Diamond Casino Heist. Casino specifically pays more on your first finale of the week, with repeat runs in the same week dropping back to standard pay, making it a strong once-a-week target rather than something to grind repeatedly the way Cayo Perico can be.

Quick comparison by method

Method	Setup Cost	Time per Cycle	Typical Payout	Best For
Contact missions/VIP Work	None	5-10 min	$20K-$30K	Brand-new players building capital
Fleeca Job	Low	~15 min	Up to $250K	First heist, learning the structure
Cayo Perico	~$2.2M (Kosatka) + $100K/run	~45 min active, then 144 min solo cooldown	$1M-$1.3M on a good first weekly run; considerably less on repeats	Best solo active income, rotate with other activities
Acid Lab	$750K	~4 hours/batch (upgraded)	$237K-$335K	Cheap active-passive hybrid
Nightclub	~$1.08M base property	Passive	$50K/day at high popularity (capped at $250K)	Best low-effort passive income
Diamond Casino Heist	~$1.24M+ (Arcade)	Longer setup, 2-4 players	Up to ~$4.7M gross (Hard mode, diamonds, first weekly run, before cuts)	Best once-a-week team payout

Who this isn’t for

If you’re brand new with little starting capital, jumping straight into Cayo Perico or the Acid Lab isn’t realistic, both require a meaningful upfront investment you won’t have yet. Build capital with contact missions and the Fleeca Job first; trying to skip straight to the “best” methods without the bankroll to unlock them just wastes time.

Bottom line

New players: build capital with contact missions or the Cluckin’ Bell Farm Raid, then work toward Cayo Perico. Established players: use Cayo Perico as your anchor active earner rather than a back-to-back grind, keep a Nightclub or Acid Lab running passively during its cooldown, hit the Diamond Casino Heist once a week for its bonus payout, and always check the weekly bonus rotation before deciding what to grind.

If you’ve ever gotten kicked out of a heist setup or watched a car teleport across the map mid-chase, you already know GTA Online’s connection quality can be genuinely inconsistent. A lot of that comes down to how the game actually connects players, not just your own internet speed, and that’s the specific problem a tool like GearUP Booster is built to address.

Short answer: GearUP Booster can meaningfully reduce lag if your connection is routing poorly to Rockstar’s servers, especially if you’re playing on a distant server, dealing with an inconsistent ISP (Internet Service Provider), or seeing spikes during peak hours. If your connection is already stable and low-latency, don’t expect a dramatic difference. This isn’t a universal fix, and no honest review of it claims otherwise.

Why GTA Online lag happens in the first place

GTA Online isn’t a purely peer-to-peer game, it blends host-based session data with server-side syncing, which means either side of that connection can introduce lag.

One player in your session acts as the host, and a lot of gameplay data routes through them, but item and progress data still syncs with Rockstar’s servers separately. That means lag can come from your own connection, the host’s connection, or the path between you and Rockstar’s servers, three separate points of failure, not one. NAT (Network Address Translation) type issues, Wi-Fi instability, and simply being geographically far from the server you’ve been routed to can each cause the stuttering and disconnects GTA Online players know well.

What GearUP Booster actually does

GearUP uses smart routing (branded as “AIR”) to move your connection off congested default paths and onto more direct, stable routes to game servers, it doesn’t touch game files or your hardware.

Rather than a traditional VPN (Virtual Private Network), which can sometimes add latency by rerouting through distant privacy-focused servers, GearUP is built specifically for gaming: it looks for a shorter or less congested path between you and the game’s actual servers, and can help with NAT-type connection problems that cause session-join failures. It doesn’t modify GTA Online itself or interact with EasyAntiCheat/BattlEye-style systems, which matters if you’re wondering whether it’s safe to use, it isn’t touching the game, just the network path to it.

Does it actually work? What independent testing shows

Multiple independent reviews report real, measurable ping improvements specifically for players on poor or distant routing, one documented test showed a drop from 110ms to 68ms connecting to a distant server.

That’s a meaningful, verifiable improvement, and it lines up with the pattern across every independent review we found: GearUP genuinely helps when the problem is routing, a bad path between you and the server, rather than a problem with your own hardware or local network. If you’re already getting low, stable ping to GTA Online’s servers, there simply isn’t much room for a routing tool to improve on that, and every credible review we found says the same thing.

Who this is actually worth it for

• You regularly play on servers outside your region
• Your ISP has a history of inconsistent routing or peak-hour congestion
• You experience frequent disconnects or NAT-related session join failures
• You’ve already ruled out weak Wi-Fi or outdated router hardware as the cause

Who this isn’t for

If your connection is already fast and stable to your usual GTA Online servers, a routing tool has little to work with, the bottleneck isn’t there to fix. Similarly, if your lag is caused by local Wi-Fi interference or an aging router, GearUP can’t compensate for hardware it doesn’t control. Be honest with yourself about which category you’re in before subscribing.

One thing worth checking before you subscribe

GearUP runs on a subscription model (monthly, quarterly, or annual), and like any subscription service, it’s worth reading the cancellation terms before signing up. This is standard due diligence for any subscription product.

Try it yourself

GearUP offers a free trial period, so you can test it against your own specific connection and routing before committing to a paid plan, genuinely the only way to know if it’ll help your setup, since results depend entirely on where your particular bottleneck is. Our readers can use code FOLUGTA for 10% off if you decide to subscribe.

Try GearUP Booster →

Bottom line

GearUP Booster isn’t a magic fix, and it won’t help if your connection is already solid. But if you’re dealing with genuine routing problems, distant servers, an unreliable ISP, or frequent NAT-related disconnects during GTA Online sessions, it’s a legitimate, well-reviewed tool built specifically for this kind of problem, not a generic VPN repurposed for gaming.

Heist payouts in GTA Online change more than people realize, and a lot of guides floating around cite numbers that are already stale. Here’s where things actually stand now, based on current data.

One important distinction before getting into the rankings: this is a comparison of payouts, not strict GTA$/hour. Setup time, cooldowns, crew cuts, property costs, and how reliably you can complete a heist all affect which option is actually most efficient. And where a figure is described as gross, that’s the total haul before player cuts, support fees, or other deductions, not necessarily what one player banks.

Short answer: the Kortz Center Heist, added in July 2026, now has the biggest reported first-weekly payout potential, both solo, with a strong run landing around $2.0M-$2.2M, and with a full crew, where reported theoretical gross can reach around $7.1M under maximum conditions. But its repeat payout collapses hard, so Cayo Perico remains the better repeatable solo anchor, generally landing $1M-$1.3M on a good first-weekly run and considerably less on repeats. For an established team without Kortz’s roughly $16.2M entry cost, Diamond Casino remains a strong, more accessible option, with first-weekly Hard-mode diamonds reaching roughly $4.7M gross under maximum conditions.

Highest payout overall: Kortz Center Heist

If you can afford the entry cost, Kortz Center now has the biggest reported first-weekly gross haul in the game. It requires owning a Mansion, with the cheapest option around $11.5M, plus its $4.7M Art Studio expansion, putting the minimum undiscounted entry cost at roughly $16.2M before you can even start (GTA+ and the Fine Art Collector perk can lower the Art Studio cost for some players).

A strong solo first-weekly run can land around $2.0M-$2.2M, with the exact result depending heavily on the week’s primary painting, accessible secondary loot, and bonuses. The primary target alone can reach $1.925M, but loot-bag capacity limits how much secondary loot a solo player can carry.

With a full four-player crew, reported theoretical gross reaches around $7.1M under maximum first-weekly conditions, though Rockstar hasn’t published that figure as an official maximum, and it isn’t directly comparable to a shared team payout the way Diamond Casino’s gross vault figure is. Kortz doesn’t use the traditional assignable percentage-cut system, but exactly how the total is distributed among a crew is something current community reports genuinely disagree on, some describe the host taking the primary target while helpers get a base payment plus a share of secondary loot, others describe something closer to an even split. Worth confirming for yourself rather than assuming a specific model going in.

The first weekly setup is free, additional setups within the same week cost $100K, and confirmed repeat primary-target values fall to roughly $300K-$480K before secondary loot and bonuses. That makes Kortz much more attractive as a weekly payday than as something to grind repeatedly.

Best repeatable solo anchor: Cayo Perico

No crew required, no risk of three strangers ruining your run, and a far lower entry cost than Kortz Center. It’s an island heist with multiple approach routes and a submarine base of operations.

A strong first-weekly run with a high-value target and good secondary loot generally lands in the $1M-$1.3M range, with some players clearing $2M+ during dedicated event weeks when the rare, event-only Panther Statue target is available.

One important detail: primary and secondary target appearance rates now refresh on a weekly Thursday cadence rather than the old three-day cycle. Your best odds at a high-value primary therefore come with your first run after the weekly reset, while repeat runs before the next reset are weighted heavily toward the lower-value Tequila target and generally pay considerably less.

There’s also a 144-minute real-world cooldown between solo completions, compared with 48 minutes when the finale is completed with multiple players.

Between Kortz’s much higher first-weekly ceiling and Cayo’s better repeatability, a sensible solo rotation is running Kortz once per week if you already own the required property, then falling back on Cayo as your ongoing solo anchor.

Best established team option: Diamond Casino

Diamond Casino remains a strong, more accessible established team heist for two to four players. Under maximum first-weekly conditions, Hard-mode diamonds can reach roughly $4.7M gross.

There are some important qualifiers attached to that number: it requires diamonds specifically, which are an event-gated vault target and aren’t always available; it assumes Hard mode and your first weekly completion; and it’s the gross vault take before player cuts, Lester’s fee, support-crew cuts, and any losses during the finale. In other words, $4.7M is a ceiling, not a typical individual payday.

The Casino Heist requires more coordination and setup than Cayo, but it doesn’t carry Kortz Center’s roughly $16.2M minimum entry barrier. That makes it a much more accessible high-end team option for players who already have an Arcade and a reliable crew.

Best for learning traditional heists: Fleeca Job

Fleeca is simple, fast, and teaches you the traditional GTA Online heist structure without demanding much. Its base Hard-mode finale take is about $251.6K, with a 60/40 host-and-crew split as the default allocation, putting the host’s default base cut at around $151K.

That’s not much money by current GTA Online standards, but that’s not really the point. Fleeca is effectively the introduction to the original apartment-heist system, giving new players an easy way to learn setups, assigned roles, finale cuts, and basic team coordination.

Like several other classic heists, Fleeca now pays more on your first completion each week and less on repeats. Rockstar has confirmed that system but hasn’t published the exact multiplier, so be wary of guides presenting a specific first-weekly multiplier as an official Rockstar figure.

If your priority is making money as a brand-new player rather than learning the traditional apartment-heist structure, the Cluckin’ Bell Farm Raid is arguably the stronger starting point. It requires no property purchase or setup fee, can be completed solo, and currently pays the host $600K for the first finale of the weekly period and $400K on subsequent completions that week.

What about the older four-player heists?

The older four-player apartment heists, Prison Break, Humane Labs Raid, Series A Funding, and Pacific Standard, now benefit from Rockstar’s weekly first-completion system alongside activities including Cluckin’ Bell Farm Raid, KnoWay Out, the Doomsday Heist acts, and several others.

That means their first completion during a weekly period pays more than subsequent runs of the same finale. Rockstar hasn’t published one universal multiplier for these activities, however, so don’t assume a figure such as 1.5x applies equally to all of them just because a third-party guide says it does.

The practical result is that their first weekly completions are generally more attractive than repeat grinding. Whether they’re actually worth prioritizing depends on setup time, crew reliability, what properties you already own, and what else you could be running instead.

One thing to check before committing to a session

Rockstar regularly applies temporary 2x, 3x, and other bonuses to selected heists and activities, so the best-paying option on any given week can shift temporarily.

It’s worth checking the current in-game bonus rotation before locking in a plan. A temporary event bonus can change the payout math enough to make an activity that normally sits below Cayo, Kortz, or Casino considerably more attractive for that particular week.

Bottom line

If you already own the property required for Kortz Center, its first weekly completion should be near the top of your list if raw payout is the goal. It currently offers one of the strongest solo first-weekly payouts and the biggest reported theoretical full-crew gross haul, but its sharply reduced repeat values make it poorly suited to continuous grinding.

After that, Cayo Perico remains a strong repeatable solo anchor. For established teams, Diamond Casino remains a high-paying and substantially more accessible alternative to Kortz, particularly when diamonds are available. For beginners, Fleeca is still one of the best ways to learn the traditional heist system, while Cluckin’ Bell Farm Raid is the stronger zero-property option if making money is the immediate priority.

And remember that maximum payout isn’t the same thing as maximum efficiency. What you already own, how quickly you complete setups, whether you’re playing solo or with a reliable crew, and Rockstar’s current weekly bonuses can all change which heist makes the most sense to run.

Before anything else: if you haven’t modded GTA V since before March 2025, know that the ground shifted under the whole scene. Rockstar’s Enhanced edition update changed enough under the hood that it broke a large chunk of the existing legacy mod library. Mods built for the old version don’t just work automatically anymore, and here’s something worth clearing up upfront: Legacy itself was never discontinued, it’s just a separate track now.

Short answer: don’t assume compatibility in either direction, some script mods work across both Legacy and Enhanced through the same updated Script Hook V, while asset, configuration, and memory-dependent mods often need Enhanced-specific files or conversion. You’ll also need to disable BattlEye anti-cheat to run most single-player mods at all. Both GTA5-Mods.com and Nexus Mods maintain active, separate sections for Enhanced-compatible content now, the key is checking which section you’re browsing and the individual mod’s compatibility notes before downloading anything.

What changed and why it matters

The Enhanced update wasn’t a small patch. It revived interest in PC modding by adding ray tracing and a substantially updated PC build with a different executable and changed asset formats, and many older mods, particularly asset, configuration, and memory-dependent ones, needed updates or conversion to work on it, though some script mods carried over without changes. A mod that ran fine before Enhanced can crash your game or fail to load entirely if the creator hasn’t updated it for whichever asset format it relies on. Rockstar itself never removed the original PC version either, GTA V Legacy remains available and supported, and is included with every new purchase. If your hardware doesn’t meet Enhanced’s requirements, Legacy is a genuine, still-maintained option, not a dead end.

The good news: Rockstar’s attitude toward modding has genuinely shifted. In November 2025, Cfx.re (the FiveM team Rockstar acquired in August 2023) announced a partnership with Sollumz, a popular Blender-based modding toolkit, adding direct support for converting Legacy assets to work with Enhanced through a shared Materia conversion library. It’s a real, concrete example of the company actively supporting the conversion process, a genuine change from the more adversarial relationship modders had with Rockstar years ago.

One separate thing worth knowing about if you’re into multiplayer roleplay servers specifically, not the single-player mods this guide focuses on: Cfx.re released FiveM for GTA V Enhanced in early access on July 21, 2026. It’s genuinely new, Cfx.re itself says the early-access release contains bugs and missing features that will change before final release, while Cfx.re continues developing the platform and server/resource creators adapt their own existing content for it.

The core tools you actually need

On Legacy, the traditional workflow uses OpenIV and OpenIV.asi to load modified files from a separate mods folder without touching original game archives. On Enhanced, OpenIV.asi’s file-loading role has been replaced by OpenRPF, and CodeWalker is commonly used alongside it for archive and asset work. Using the wrong loader for your version is an easy mistake if you’re following a guide that doesn’t distinguish between the two.

Script Hook V enables the scripting mods rely on, and Alexander Blade (its developer) updated it to support Enhanced directly, Legacy ASI plugins can be compatible with Enhanced through this same updated library, though individual mods may still require their own Enhanced update. Some script mods also need Script Hook V .NET, for Enhanced, use the current Script Hook V .NET Enhanced build, which supports both versions. If a specific mod isn’t working, check whether the mod itself has an Enhanced-compatible release before assuming Script Hook V is the problem.

BattlEye only needs to be active for GTA Online, and Rockstar explicitly allows disabling it through the launcher for a modded Story Mode setup.

One more thing worth knowing: “Enhanced-compatible” doesn’t mean compatible forever. Rockstar title updates can temporarily break Script Hook V, its .NET layer, and other memory-dependent mods, so if a previously working setup suddenly stops after a game update, check for a newer compatible release before reinstalling everything.

One rule that hasn’t changed

Use ordinary third-party mods in Story Mode only. Rockstar explicitly treats modding in GTA Online as a Terms of Service violation that can trigger suspension, a character reset, or a permanent ban, restore a clean, unmodded installation and re-enable BattlEye before playing Online. FiveM and Community RP servers are a separate case, Rockstar officially recognizes that ecosystem with its own resource and mod framework, so it isn’t the same as modding regular GTA Online.

Bottom line

Check a mod’s version notes before installing anything, specifically confirming which version, Legacy or Enhanced, it’s actually built for. That single check will save you more headaches than anything else in this guide.

GTA V on PC now comes in two versions. GTA V Enhanced, released as a free upgrade in March 2025, adds ray tracing, modern upscaling and a much bigger graphics menu. The original version, now called GTA V Legacy, is still included with every new PC purchase, for systems that can’t run Enhanced. This guide covers Enhanced, since that’s where nearly all the settings decisions are.

Short answer: if your graphics card is the limit, turn on upscaling first (DLSS on an Nvidia RTX card, FSR on anything else). Then add ray tracing one effect at a time. If your frame rate barely moves when you lower graphics settings, your CPU is the limit instead, and you’ll get more from cutting population and distance settings.

Can your PC run Enhanced?

Rockstar’s minimum for Enhanced is a GeForce GTX 1630 or Radeon RX 6400 with 8GB of RAM and an SSD. Its recommended spec is a GeForce RTX 3060 or Radeon RX 6600 XT with 16GB of dual-channel RAM. Below the minimum, GTA V Legacy is the version to play.

The full requirements, per Rockstar:

	Minimum	Recommended
Graphics card	GeForce GTX 1630 or Radeon RX 6400 (4GB)	GeForce RTX 3060 or Radeon RX 6600 XT (8GB)
Processor	Intel Core i7-4770 or AMD FX-9590	Intel Core i5-9600K or AMD Ryzen 5 3600
Memory	8GB	16GB, dual-channel
Storage	105GB, SSD required	105GB, DirectStorage-compatible drive
Operating system	Windows 10 (version 1909 or later)	Windows 11

Enhanced won’t meet Rockstar’s minimum on a hard drive, so if you’re still running games from an HDD (hard disk drive), install it on an SSD (solid-state drive). Also note that GTA Online players on Legacy and Enhanced play in separate sessions, so you can’t join friends who are on the other version. Rockstar offers a one-time migration of Story Mode and GTA Online progress from Legacy to Enhanced; after you migrate, progress no longer syncs between the two.

Upscaling: the first fix when your GPU is the limit

Upscaling renders the game at a lower resolution and reconstructs the image, which frees up a lot of GPU performance. Use DLSS on an RTX card and FSR (FidelityFX Super Resolution) on AMD, Intel or older Nvidia cards.

At 1440p, DLSS’s Quality mode renders at roughly 1707×960 internally and upscales back to full resolution. It keeps much more detail than the lower upscaling modes while giving a meaningful performance boost, so start with Quality mode and compare fine detail and motion against native before dropping further. At 1080p, upscaling starts from fewer pixels, so the trade-off is more visible there.

Which options you get depends on your card:

• Nvidia RTX cards: DLSS Super Resolution works on every RTX card. An update on August 12, 2025 added DLSS Frame Generation for RTX 40 series cards and DLSS 4 Multi Frame Generation for RTX 50 series cards, which inserts several generated frames for each one your GPU renders. Make sure your graphics driver is current before trying them.
• Everything else, including GTX cards: DLSS needs an RTX card, so use FSR. Enhanced supports FSR 1 and FSR 3; FSR 3 is the newer, higher-quality option, and the same August 2025 update added FSR frame generation too.
• Already getting the frame rate you want? Use DLAA or FSR Native AA instead, which run at full resolution and use the upscaler’s technology purely to clean up the image.

Frame generation makes motion look smoother, but it works best from an already healthy base frame rate; around 60 fps is a common rule of thumb. Check your frame rate with frame generation turned off first, because that base number is what determines how responsive the game feels.

Ray tracing: add it one effect at a time

Enhanced splits ray tracing into separate effects: shadows, reflections, ambient occlusion and global illumination, each with its own quality setting. A separate Scene BVH Quality setting controls how detailed the scene geometry is for ray tracing, and it counts toward the same performance budget.

Ray tracing is the headline feature of Enhanced, and it changes how the game looks most at night and in the rain, when neon reflects off wet streets. Digital Foundry singled out the ray-traced global illumination (RTGI) as unusually thorough: it lights the scene from every light source, including moving ones like car headlights, not just the sun.

That thoroughness costs more on the processor than you’d expect. Digital Foundry found RTGI relatively light on the graphics card but much heavier on the CPU, and in its testing a Ryzen 5 3600 couldn’t hold 60 fps at 1440p with DLSS Quality. Lowering resolution won’t fix that kind of limit.

Practical starting points:

• Run each effect one step below its maximum. The top settings cost noticeably more performance for differences that are hard to spot during normal play.
• Reflections are a popular one to keep if you can only afford one effect, especially for city driving at night, while global illumination delivers the biggest overall change to the lighting. Try both and decide which you’d rather keep.
• Don’t max Scene BVH Quality by default; treat it like any other ray-tracing setting.

When your CPU is the limit

If your frame rate barely changes when you lower resolution or switch upscaling modes, check for a frame cap or V-Sync first. If neither is on, your CPU is likely the bottleneck, and the settings to cut are the ones that add world complexity.

GPU settings like resolution and texture quality won’t help a CPU bottleneck. Instead, lower these, one at a time, and check your frame rate after each:

• Population Density and Population Variety: fewer pedestrians and cars means less for the CPU to simulate.
• Distance Scaling and Extended Distance Scaling (in Advanced Graphics): Extended Distance Scaling in particular is a long-standing performance trap in GTA V.
• Ray-traced global illumination: step it down or turn it off, given its CPU cost.

Don’t lower texture quality to fix a CPU problem. Only reduce it if you’re running out of VRAM (your graphics card’s memory).

Settings by hardware

Start from your card’s tier, then fine-tune with the benchmark and real gameplay.

Non-RT cards that meet the minimum (such as GTX 16 series): keep ray tracing off, use FSR if it improves your frame rate without hurting the image too much, and tune conventional settings first. If you’re below the minimum spec, use GTA V Legacy instead. If you’re thinking about an upgrade, an RTX card unlocks both DLSS and ray tracing. Browse graphics cards on Amazon

Around the recommended spec (RTX 3060-class, RX 6600 XT-class): start at 1080p with Quality upscaling and ray tracing off, then add individual effects if you have headroom. Rockstar’s recommended spec isn’t a promise of ray tracing at 1440p.

Upper mid-range and high-end (RTX 4070 Ti or RX 7800 XT and up): these cards can handle 1440p with ray tracing at high settings, especially with upscaling, though the exact result depends heavily on your CPU and distance settings. On RTX 40 and 50 series cards, frame generation adds smoothness on top, as long as your base frame rate is already solid.

Test with the benchmark, then with real gameplay

Use the built-in benchmark for repeatable comparisons, then check your settings in the situations you actually play, especially a busy GTA Online session.

The benchmark is in the graphics settings in Story Mode. If you don’t see the option on a fresh save, players report it appears once you’ve finished the opening mission. It’s useful for comparing one setting change against another, but a populated GTA Online session can be noticeably more demanding on your CPU than the benchmark, so don’t call a configuration stable until you’ve played with it there.

Who this isn’t for

If you play GTA Online competitively and want the highest possible frame rate, skip ray tracing entirely and prioritize a high, stable frame rate over visuals. And if your PC is below Enhanced’s minimum spec, this guide’s ray-tracing advice won’t apply; GTA V Legacy is the better fit. For modding either version, see our GTA V mods guide.

Bottom line

Figure out what’s limiting you first. If it’s your graphics card, upscale, then add ray tracing one effect at a time. If it’s your CPU, cut population and distance settings and ease off global illumination. That gets you most of Enhanced’s visual upgrade without fighting your frame rate the whole time.