BEST PUBG SETTINGS
PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS FPS BOOST
PUBG is out for some time now and Sanhok released - but there is still quite some room for optimization. Follow this guide to get the best PUBG performance out of your rig and learn about in-game settings, ini commands, driver configurations and other useful optimizations for competitive gaming and high FPS. This also means: This guide won't describe how to get the best looking PUBG. It's all about the best tradeoff between FPS and visibility.If a beautiful PUBG is your goal, things like the in-game settings explanations might still help you though.
You can either just follow this PUBG guide from top to bottom to gain some additional fps, check out each topic on it's own or get the full load of it with in-depth explanations and additional information, by clicking the boxes with the + signs.
I feel for the people that have shitty computers. Because if you play this game and you have shitty fps, you're already losing at that point.
- Michael "shroud" Grzesiek
PUBG In-game settings
A healthy and clean system assumed, the ingame settings are the or at least one of the main parts for high fps in PUBG. Unfortunately, PUBG doesn't have the best ingame options. They're clustered and packaged in groups, don't offer much flexibility and are obscure. For every ingame option, you'll find some short explanaions, best practises and in-depth information where I try to go a bit more into details.
To make sure you're set to go and don't have any outdated optimization leftovers, follow the Getting Started part of the PUBG settings guide. It's especially important that you get rid of your previous configuration files if you made any changes and optimization attempts in the past.
Best PUBG Resolution
The resolution has quite an impact on the game's performance and fps, but also on the visibility. In a game like PUBG, with long range combat, a resolution too low will end in a pixelated mess in which you'll have a hard time telling apart enemies from the environment. The eye strain will also be inconveniently high. That's why you unfortunately can't go as low as in other competitive shooters like CSGO.
Keep in mind that in the end your true resolution is also affected by ScreenScaleand sg.ResolutionQuality.
BEST CHOICE: 1920x1080 (1680x1050) [for medium+ to higher end systems]
HIGH FPS CHOICE: 1600x900 (1440x900) [for lower end systems]
For a good amount of visibility and high enough fps in PUBG, full hd (1920x1080) is the way to go. As the native resolution of most monitors out there, it provides the best balance of visibility and fps for higher end systems. Your goal should be to stay at a for you comfortable steady FPS level, like 100+ FPS.
Using a different aspect ratios like 16:10 (8:5) for even more FPS
A great way to get a bit more FPS is going with a 16:10 resolution like 1680x1050 or 1400x900. Yes, you lose about 15% screen estate, but that also means your pc has to render 15% less pixels, which can make the difference between stable and unstable FPS. Depending on your play style and monitor viewing distance, you may not even really use that space on your screen anyway right now.
Display Mode
HIGH FPS CHOICE: fullscreen
BEST CHOICE: fullscreen [maybe with windows 10 fullscreen optimization]
FOV
FOV, the field of view, is the angular extent of your horizontal view in PUBG. In other words: That's how much you see, without having to move your mouse. You can chose a value between 80 and 103 degrees. Beside it's impact on performance, the FOV is a value that depends on your play style and is a thing of personal preference.
BEST CHOICE: 90-103
HIGH FPS CHOICE: 80-90
You don't want it to be too narrow, because you'll miss enemies, but you also don't want to set it too high for two reasons:
Performance impact of the FOV
The FOV can have quite an impact on performance. The more things you see, the more things need to get processed and rendered. That's why you not see too big of an impact on the initial change, but as soon as you're in fire fights with multiple persons in a city with many objects, you might see a fps loss up to 15-20%.
Visibility impact: You get zoomed out
The FOV does not change your resolution. That also means, that a higher FOV (you see more) means less pixel for everything you see. You get "zoomed out". That hurts your visibility, especially if you already have to play on a lower resolution.
Screen Scale
Screen Scale is something that you might know from other games under the name Resolution Scaling. In PUBG it takes a percentage value from 70 to 120 and renders the resolution at the given value.
Examples:
If you set your resolution to 1920x1080 and the Screen Scale to 120, it will do something called supersampling and render your game at 2304x1296 (1920*1,2(120%) * 1080*1,2(120%)). This results in a less pixelated and jagged image similar to using anti-aliasing, but without anti-aliasing's drawbacks like slight blurriness. As you probably already realised, it also has a drawback. It costs more performance because it renders the game at a higher resolution, in this example it would be 30% more pixels. You should only use it if you have a high end system that hits steady 144 FPS.
If you set the Screen Scale to 70, it will render the image at 70% of it's width and height and upscale it to your set resolution. At 1920x1080 the game would render at 1344*756. As you can imagine, that is too low and results in bad visibility.
Lowering the Screen Scale still has one (small) advantage: the user interface stays at the set resolution and is not affected by setting a lower resolution. That results in a clean and sharp UI.
HIGH FPS CHOICE: 100
BEST CHOICE: 120 [only for high end systems!]
IMPORTANT: Keep in mind, that your resolution is also affected by sg.ResolutionQuality, which may already lower the resolution your game is rendering in, without you knowing it. Make sure to check out the chapter about it, before you set a Screen Scale value other than 100.
ANTI-ALIASING IN PUBG - INFLUENCE ON FPS & VISIBILITY?
Anti-Aliasing is a technique used to remove jagged, pixelated edges, something you may know as staircase effect. In PUBG you can either disable anti-aliasing by using the in-game setting "very low" or use FXAA or TAA.
- very low = off
- low = FXAA
- medium = faster T-AA
- high = default T-AA
- ultra = very high T-AA
HIGH FPS CHOICE: VERY LOW
BEST CHOICE: VERY LOW [use ScreenScale instead if you have enough performance]
PUBG'S ANTI-ALIASING IMPACT ON FPS & PERFORMANCE
FXAA and TAA both have not too much of an impact on your average fps, so that you might see a maximum loss of 1-3%.
BUT: Especially in a competitive game, the average FPS are not everything you should have an eye on. Stable framerates without FPS drops should be your goal. And there you might see a bigger difference, especially with older graphics cards frame drops up to 20% deeper seem not unusual. Crucial and deadly in fire fights.
VISIBILITY IMPACT
FXAA and T-AA, the two anti-aliasing technologies used in PUBG result in slight blur, which is especially noticeable on "low" (FXAA) when in motion. But even on T-AA (medium & higher) you'll have slight blur which might make it harder for you to distinguish an enemy from a bush or fence.
Some people just can't stand pixelated edges, so at the end, it might be a personal choice for you. That might also be the reason why about 10% of professional PUBG players play with anti-aliasing on medium or higher. If you have a high-end pc though, try setting ScreenScale to 120 instead!
Shadows
Shadows have a big impact on your fps, unfortunately they are forced on a medium level in PUBG which is one of the reasons you have a hard time reaching higher FPS. No matter what in-game option you choose, the main ShadowQuality is always forced to a medium level and player shadows are always crispier than your favorite chicken dish. But that doesn't mean the the setting is completely useless and it still has an impact on your FPS.
HIGH FPS CHOICE: VERY LOW
BEST CHOICE: VERY LOW
No way to turn off shadows in PUBG
And that's okay. Yes, there is no legitimate way to turn off shadows in PUBG anymore. And yes, they still wouldn't need to be that detailed and performance hungry.
POST PROCESSING IN PUBG
The post-processing option bundles multiple different effects into one option, some of them impact your performance (hard), others impact the visibility, most times in a bad, sometimes in a good way.
HIGH FPS CHOICE: very low
BEST CHOICE: very low
- VERY LOW = bloom, tone mapping
- LOW = bloom, ambient occlusion, HBAO, depth of field, more tone mapping
- MEDIUM = bloom, ambient occlusion, motion blur, HBAO, depth of field, tone mapping+ & sharpening
- HIGH = bloom, ambient occlusion+, motion blur+, HBAO, lens flare, depth of field+, tone mapping++ & sharpening
- ULTRA = bloom, ambient occlusion+, motion blur++, HBAO, lens flare+, depth of field++, tone mapping++ & sharpening
(+ = higher quality option of effect. The post processing option affects even more things in your game. You can find a complete overview under "What post-processing changes in detail." )
POST PROCESSING'S FPS IMPACT IN PUBG
All of these effects affect your performance, some more, some less. Bloom is forced on a medium level and can't be lowered or disabled.
Ambient occlusion and especially HBAO can already cost you up to 25% FPS and are already enabled with the post-processing option low. That alone is a reason to not go any higher than VERY LOW.
POST PROCESSING'S VISIBILITY IMPACT IN PUBG
All of the effects, except the sharpening, make the visibility worse. They add additional shadows, blur and blurry lighting. The sharpening which is only active with MEDIUM or above post-processing settings, is the only effect that could make your visibility better. This would be especially helpful if you plan on playing with anti-aliasing and want to reduce the slight blur coming with it.
Unfortunately, all the other negatively impacting effects can't be disabled or lowered each on their own. They're all forced and bundled into this one setting. Nearly every other game has the options to turn such effects off individually, so maybe message and ask Bluehole for it on your preferred channel like their forums, the subreddit or twitter.
Effects
The effects option does not only affect the level of detail in visual effects like explosions, but also material and surface quality.
HIGH FPS CHOICE: very low
BEST CHOICE: very low
FOLIAGE (AND GRASS)
The foliage setting controls the render distance and density of foliage and grass. Where the foliage density is always forced to a maximum, the grass density and view distance increase each level.
To get the best performance and visibility, by rendering the least amount of grass, VERY LOW is the setting to go.
HIGH FPS CHOICE: very low
BEST CHOICE: very low
Is there a way to disable grass in PUBG?
No, there is no legitimate way to disable all the grass. And that's just fair.
VIEW DISTANCE IN PUBG
There are many myths out there about the view distance setting, but let's get right to so some facts:
- Players are always rendered independently from the view distance for about 1000 meters.
- Buildings & big structures are also always rendered, their level of detail just changes. ("marshmallow/melted buildlings effect")
- Very low, low and medium give the same results right now.
- The foliage & grass view distance is set by the foliage option, not view distance
HIGH FPS CHOICE: very low
BEST CHOICE: very low / ultra
PUBG INI COMMANDS
Don't get your hopes up too high, most commands are getting ignored and changing them in the ini files doesn't do anything. There are still some commands you should know about, one of the most important ones being sg.ResolutionQuality.
sg.ResolutionQuality
You can find this command in the GameUserSettings.ini and it is one of the reasons why many benchmarks, guides and comparisons are so different in their results. And another example for the PUBG Corporation's really bad video settings.
sg.ResolutionQuality is like ScreenScale a command that sets resolution scaling. This time it is not set by the user, but by the game itself. The first time you start PUBG (or if you delete your config files), the game rates your hardware and calculates a performance score to determine the default / recommended values.
Based on that score, the game also sets sg.ResolutionQuality to 70, 85 or 100, a setting you can't find in your in-game options. So even if you have your ScreenScale on the default value of 100, your game might already only render in 70% or 85% of your set resolution.
Example:
Two healthy systems assumed, System A which is only slightly better than System B scores high enough for a sg.ResolutionQuality of 100. The only (slightly) worse system's score doesn't exceed the threshold and the sg.ResolutionQuality gets set to 85 or even only 70. The (slightly) worse System B renders 15% or 30% less pixel and scores the same or even higher FPS. People don't compare their sg.ResolutionQuality and get confused, why the worse system scores the same or even more FPS. Of course that's not always the reason for significant differences, but quite often.
PUBG Launch Options
There are no launch options (anymore) that give you any performance or visibility boost.
Fun fact: most of the launch options you find in guides, even in those of big youtubers with millions of subscribers, never worked. They're from a different game, Arma, which uses a totally different game engine.