For gamers looking for unmatched performance, breathtaking visuals, and fluid gameplay at 4K and higher, the Best Games to Play on RTX 4090 for Maximum Performance is the best graphics card available.
It can handle even the most demanding AAA games thanks to its enormous 24GB VRAM, DLSS 3 support, and sophisticated ray tracing.
We examine the top games to play on the RTX 4090 for optimal performance in this guide, emphasizing games that make the most of its power and next-generation capabilities.
10 Best Games to Play on RTX 4090 for Maximum Performance
| Game | Why It’s Perfect for RTX 4090 |
|---|---|
| Cyberpunk 2077 | Ultra ray tracing and path tracing push GPU to the limit |
| Alan Wake 2 | One of the most demanding modern ray-traced games |
| Microsoft Flight Simulator | Massive world rendering and CPU/GPU heavy simulation |
| Red Dead Redemption 2 | Stunning open-world visuals at ultra settings |
| Hogwarts Legacy | Heavy ray tracing and large open environments |
| Starfield | Large-scale environments and detailed textures |
| Control | Benchmark-level ray tracing showcase |
| Metro Exodus | Fully ray-traced lighting in Enhanced Edition |
| The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt | Next-gen update adds heavy RT features |
| Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora | Dense environments with advanced lighting |
1) Cyberpunk 2077
With your incredible features, one of the best games you could play would be Cyberpunk 2077, which is one of the most visually demanding games available. The game is utilizing the new Ray Tracing Overdrive mode which allows more detailed tracking of the lighting and shows the effects of lighting and shadows in a much more advanced way than before.
The new 4090 cards are capable of handling 4K at Ultra settings and should produce high frame rates, even at maximum settings. The game is visually stunning, using the latest in realistic lighting and environments.
The game also has a large number of NPCs as well as dense environments. All of this creates a visually stunning next-gen game and will fully utilize the 4090 graphics cards 24GB GDDR6X VRAM and Ada Lovelace architecture.
Cyberpunk 2077 Key Features:
- Overdrive Ray Tracing
- Night City Open-world
- Customization Skill Tree RPG Deep
- Support = DLSS 3 Frame Generation
- Systems NPC AI Advanced + Textures High
Pros
- Next Gen RTX stunning visuals
- Great characters + story
- RTX 4090 4K Excellent Performance
- Expansions major + Updates Frequent
Cons
- Hardware highly demanding
- Minor bugs
- Builds with a Steep learning curve
2) Alan Wake 2
As a Technical Showcase, Alan Wake 2’s Lighting System and Cinematic Lighting make it one of the best games to play on RTX 4090 for the best experience. The game uses heavy Path Tracing, Advanced Shadowing, and a abundance of High Res Textures that will push atleast mid ranged graphical processing units.
At 4K Ultra with DLSS 3 and Ray Reconstruct Set to On, the card will perform well. The game being foggy with a lot of Volumetric and Realistic Lighting along with 4K Ultra = Great graphics. Floor and building textures are very demanding. The NVIDIA flagship card will push a lot of Framerates and will make the game a lot of fun to play.
Alan Wake 2 Key Features
- Path Tracing Advanced
- Narrative Dual Protagonists
- Horror Cinematic
- Reconstruction Ray with DLSS 3
- Lighting Environment Detailed Highly
4 Pros:
- Effects Lighting Leading Industry
- Story Horror Psychological Deep
- RTX 4090 Optimization Excellent
- Atmosphere Immersive
3 Cons:
- Requirement GPU high
- Gameplay Slower Overall
- Variety Combat Limited
3) Microsoft Flight Simulator
Microsoft Flight Simulator’s massive, Real Time, Photoreal, and Open World makes it well deserving of being one of the best games to play on RTX 4090 for the best experience. The RTX 4090 runs the game well at 4K Ultra with DLSS 3 Frame Generation and will drive the Framerates.
The game uses high Res Satellite textures, AI driven airplane traffic, and uses a lot of GP on Volumetric Clouds. The high VRAM (Video RAM) will ensure you will stay at a high Framerate with little stutters, Even on long flights over big cities and lots of detailed areas. The graphics over big cities detailed areas are phenomenal.
Microsoft Flight Simulator Key Features:
- 1:1 Map Global Real-world
- Weather Real-time Simulation
- Detailed Ultra Cockpits Aircraft
- Generation Frame DLSS 3
- Cities Based Photogrammetry
4 Pros:
- Massively Open-world Freedom
- Updates Continuous + Expansions
- Smooth 4K Ultra with RTX 4090
- Highly Realistic Visuals
Cons
- High storage cost
- Significant CPU cost
- Difficult to learn
4) Red Dead Redemption 2
One of the most beautiful open-world games ever made is Red Dead Redemption 2, which is also listed in the Best Games to Play on RTX 4090 for Maximum Performance. 4K with all the maxed-out settings, including top-tier lighting and textures, the RTX 4090 will give you a blistering fps.
Red Dead Redemption 2 has a realistic weather system and lighting system, and fully developed wildlife ecosystems. Super ultra shadows and reflections will be even sharper on the RTX 4090. This hardware will give you smooth fps even in heavily populated cities and during intense combat encounters.
Red Dead Redemption 2 Key Features:
- Realistic open-world simulation
- Complex weather and lighting changes
- Realistic animations
- High-res textures
- Lengthy story campaign
4 Pros:
- Gorgeous 4K Ultra HD performance
- Deep emotional narrative
- High exploration limit
- Good performance on high-end GPUs
3 Cons:
- Slow pacing
- High install size
- Limited ray tracing
5) Hogwarts Legacy
Hogwarts Legacy offers an open-world wizarding experience with great detail. The game is also listed in the Best Games to Play on RTX 4090 for Maximum Performance, but it is very demanding because of its ray-traced reflections, shadows, and occlusion. The RTX 4090 will give you 4K Ultra settings with ray tracing and great fps with DLSS 3.
Hogwarts Legacy has many areas that require a lot of GPU power, such as large castle interiors, many magical particles, and large outdoor areas. The 24 GB of VRAM will eliminate all texture pop in and stuttering, and you will no longer be immersed in Hogwarts and the surrounding areas.—
Hogwarts Legacy Key Features:
- Wizarding open world
- Ray trace shadows and reflections
- Spell based combat
- In-depth castle interiors
- Supports DLSS 3
Pros:
- Fantastic magical world
- Strong performance on RTX 4090
- Great combat system
- Good world design
Cons:
- Frequent stuttering
- Boring side quests
- High VRAM usage
6) Starfield
Starfield is an enormous space RPG. As one of the Best Games to Play on RTX 4090 for Maximum Performance, it has fully explorable 3D space and realistic ship interiors and textures.
The RTX 4090 facilitates 4K Ultra gameplay in open worlds and space battles as well as delivering 4K Ultra gameplay in a variety of expansive environments.
The complexity of the lighting, the vast amounts of procedurally generated assets, and the streaming of assets all make the 4090 an absolute must for the game.
With the support of DLSS, the players’ frame rate will be higher and more stable, allowing the game to have fully utilized its frame rate without compromising in detail.
Starfield Key Features:
- Extreme space exploration
- Planets are generated procedurally
- Complex character customization
- High-res assets
- DLSS
4 Pros:
- Large exploration area
- 4K gameplay on RTX 4090
- Complex ship building
- Large campaign
3 Cons:
- Inconsistent performance
- Planets are repetitively designed
- Large storage space needed
7) Control
Control is one of the most notable titles for benchmarking ray tracing and remains one of the Best Games to Play on RTX 4090 for Maximum Performance. The game has ray tracing for reflections, shadows contact shadows, and global illumination all of which add realism and immersion to the game.
The RTX 4090 running at 4k with all the ray tracing settings set at maximum will give the player a smooth experience and with DLSS also the player will be able to achieve higher frame rates with all the quality features of the game.
The game also features fully destructible environments which further utilizes the GPU. The powerful card will allow the player to fully experience all the features of the game.
Control Key Features
- Destructible Environments
- Detailed Post-Apocalyptic Environments
- Dynamic Weather Systems
Pros
- Immersive Atmosphere
- Stable RTX Optimization
- RTX Compatible
Cons
- Story Length
- Story Moderately Long
- Moderate Story Length
8) Metro Exodus
Due to its cutting-edge use of ray-traced global illumination, Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition is one of the Best Games to Play on RTX 4090 for Maximum Performance. This Edition is one of the few games that demand ray tracing to be enabled.
The RTX 4090 achieves 4k ultra settings without breaking a sweat. This coupled with its ultra realistic lighting and shadows, weather and reflections give Metro Exodus a post apocalyptic world like no other.
The fully raytraced lighting is a spectacle proving GPUs can deliver True Cinema. DLSS is supported and boosts the game further.
9) The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
One of the Best Games to Play on RTX 4090 for Maximum Performance is the next-gen The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. With the next-gen update of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, ray-traced global illumination, reflections, and ambient occlusion can be used.
With the RTX 4090, you can have ray tracing on and play at 4K ultra+ with high fps due to DLSS 3. The forests, weather, and cities (especially Novigrad) will look better than before. The open world combat and exploration will be smooth due to the GPUs combat architecture.
10) Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora has expansive environments featuring complex jungles, state-of-the-art volumetric lighting, and heavy use of ray tracing, making it one of the Best Games to Play on RTX 4090 for Maximum Performance.
The RTX 4090 is unrivaled for 4K Ultra with ray tracing and DLSS 3 Frame Generation turned on, allowing for smooth gameplay across enormous open worlds with dense foliage.
The game’s rich alien ecosystems, advanced lighting, and complex reflections require an insane amount of GPU power. The game’s advanced Snowdrop engine technology paired with the RTX 4090 means the best image quality and smooth gameplay.
Criteria for Selecting Games for RTX 4090
Ray Tracing and Path Tracing Support
The highest level of ray tracing technology and advanced shadow border tracing support, the RTX 4090 architecture can handle the highest level of graphics. With ray tracing, the RTX 4090 allows for amazing graphical realism at 4k and above.
High-Resolution Textures
RTX 4090 graphics can be smoothed out, and the graphics card can provide maximum detail to the complex characters of the world. RTX 4090 textures are ultra-high, and with the use of VRAM, the FPS of the system can be increased.
Open-World and Large Environments
Great and populated open-ended environments are a challenge for the RTX 4090 graphics card and its streaming and artificial intelligence environments. This provides increased fluidity for complex maps and environments.
DLSS 3 Optimization
The DLSS 3 technology can be applied to this game and can help to solve the problems of increased FPS with the help of artificially created frames. The RTX 4090 can be set at ultra graphics without compromise to the quality of the graphics.
Future-Proofing and Continuous Updates
The increasing demands that can be placed on the hardware and the high efficiency of the RTX 4090 can be maintained. Therefore, the use of the latest technology and the latest RTX 4090 is a major benefit.
Key Benefits of Playing on RTX 4090
Unmatched Ray Tracing Performance
RTX 4090 generates industry-leading ray-traced lighting, reflections, and shadows. Example game environments are created with lifelike visuals and cinematic-quality graphics. 4K+ Game worlds become dramatically more immersive.
Smooth 4K and 8K Gaming
RTX 4090 has 24GB of VRAM and huge GPU power. For intense AAA+ games, the 4090 guarantees fluid high frame rate gameplay with no stuttering on 4K and 8K ultra settings.
Future-Proof for Upcoming Games
Because the RTX 4090 has Ada Lovelace architecture, upcoming AAA games will run without compromising on graphics. RTX 4090 guarantees no performance drops with high graphics settings and advanced game features.
Maximum Visual Fidelity
Your gaming will be immersive with more lifelike environments and gaming graphics. RTX 4090 will create ultra-detail environments with unprecedented image quality, and graphics will be enhanced with richly colored gaming effects.
Great For High Refresh Rate Monitors
With the RTX 4090, you can play 4K monitor games at 144Hz or 240Hz. This card can keep up with high frame rates, great for competitive play with no tearing or lag, even with heavy graphics.
Conclusion
The best use case for the RTX 4090 is gaming at 4K Ultra, 8K, and full ray tracing with the ability to sustain high frame rates. This is the only card with 24GB of memory, making it the best card for future-proofing for the next generation of gaming and is currently the most powerful consumer GPU. The card fully utilizes the Ada Lovelace architecture and VRAM.
The card fully utilizes the VRAM when gaming on cyberpunk 2077, alan wake 2 and MS flight simulator as these all use advanced path tracing, DLSS 3 frame generation and high-res textures.
It can also run an open world game like Red Dead, Spring 2023 and IV Hogwarts Legacy and Starfield without losing frame rate. The choice for ultimate graphics and the most AAA titles is on the RTX 4090. All its 3 games render at and above 30fps and present and future AAA titles.
FAQ
What makes RTX 4090 ideal for gaming?
RTX 4090’s Ada Lovelace architecture, 24GB VRAM, and support for DLSS 3 and advanced ray tracing allow ultra settings at 4K or 8K with smooth frame rates, making it perfect for demanding AAA games.
Which games showcase RTX 4090’s full potential?
Top titles include Cyberpunk 2077, Alan Wake 2, Microsoft Flight Simulator, Red Dead Redemption 2, Hogwarts Legacy, Starfield, Control, Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora.
Can RTX 4090 handle ray tracing at 4K?
Yes. RTX 4090 supports full ray tracing and path tracing, providing cinematic-quality lighting, reflections, shadows, and ultra-detailed textures at 4K without compromising performance.
What is DLSS 3 and why is it important?
DLSS 3 (Deep Learning Super Sampling) uses AI frame generation to increase FPS, reduce latency, and maintain image quality. It’s essential for smooth 4K/8K gameplay on demanding games.
Are open-world games more demanding on RTX 4090?
Yes. Titles like Starfield, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Microsoft Flight Simulator require massive GPU bandwidth for large environments, NPCs, and dynamic lighting, which RTX 4090 handles effortlessly.
