Star Citizen guide #01: first login and the right settings

Before taking off, ten minutes of setup will save you hours of frustration. Here’s how to get your PC, the game and your controls ready for a smooth first session.

Before you even launch the game

• Install the game on an SSD, ideally NVMe. On a regular hard drive, cities load late and the game stutters: it’s the number one cause of poor performance.
• RAM: 16 GB is the minimum to play; 32 GB is the comfortable option. Close browsers and heavy apps before launching.
• Keep your graphics drivers up to date, and use the RSI launcher to install and update the game (plan for more than 100 GB of free space).
• After every big patch, the game rebuilds its shaders: the first few minutes stutter, that’s normal. If it keeps stuttering, delete the shader cache in %localappdata%\Star Citizen (safe to do, it rebuilds itself).

The graphics settings that matter

• In Options › Graphics, start with a medium preset, then raise quality only if you have headroom.
• If the Vulkan renderer is offered, try it: on many setups it’s more stable than DirectX 11. If it crashes, switch back.
• Turn on the upscaling option for your graphics card and set the render resolution one step below your screen resolution: a big smoothness gain for very little sharpness loss.
• Cities (Area18, Lorville…) are the heaviest places in the game. Judge your settings in space or in a station, not in the middle of a city.
• Don’t panic if everything slows down on a busy server: it’s often the server struggling, not your PC.

The mobiGlas, your future smartphone

Press F1: the mobiGlas opens on your wrist. Everything happens there: contracts (missions), the star map (also on F2), comms, reputation, and customization for your ships and gear. Take five minutes to open every app in your first session.

Another habit to build: hold F (“inner thought”) to show the actions available on whatever you’re looking at: open a door, sit down, pick up an item. And I opens your personal inventory.

Controls

You can play with mouse and keyboard, a gamepad or joysticks (HOSAS/HOTAS). Start with the default keys, play two or three sessions, then customize in Options › Keybindings: by then you’ll know what you’re actually missing.

For your very first session

1. Launch the Persistent Universe and pick your starting city: it becomes your home, your respawn point and where your ships wait for you.
2. If the game offers the tutorial (New Player Experience), do it: it teaches flight and combat basics in a few guided steps.
3. To practice flying with zero risk, Arena Commander (the training mode) offers free flight and races, and you lose nothing.

💡 Beacon tip: back up your controls folder before every big patch. The path and the method are in our mapping guide.

Read next: Getting around without the hassle · Your first ship · Rookie mistakes

Written for Star Citizen Alpha 4.10.2 (October 2026). The game changes with every patch: if something has moved, tell us in a reply and we’ll update the guide.