Battlefield 2042 isn't the most optimized experience on PC, with even more powerful rigs struggling to pull a consistent 60 FPS throughout the game. For those who expect something better from their PC experience FPS, it can be more than frustrating.
This guide walks through all of the display options, detailing their performance impact and expectations for different settings.
Battlefield 2042 Optimal Settings
Screen configuration
The monitor priority you set to 2042 has a small impact on performance.
- Full screen mode
- Fullscreen: Sticking to traditional fullscreen will give you a moderate performance boost, but if you alt-tab, be prepared to lose around 5% of your frames each time you do so.
- Borderless: Going borderless will allow you to use the rest of your computer with a bit more freedom, since alt tabbing isn't as taxing. You'll see minor FPS and your resolution will be locked to monitor defaults, so if you're using 1440p or higher this might not be the best mode for you.
- Windowed: This will make 2042 appear in its own window, giving the same kind of freedom as Borderless but with, well, a border. The same rules apply.
- Full screen device
- All you're doing here is deciding which output device your game will appear on. This should be your primary monitor, but if you have more than one or your setup is designed for TV, you can change that here. The only performance change here is based on output device specs.
- Full screen resolution
- The resolution is one of the biggest FPS on this list, and even at 1440p, 2042 consumes enough system resources that you'll see a significant performance hit. Go to 1080p unless you have a higher tier setup or don't mind a sometimes 20% reduction in FPS.
- Refresh rate
- There's no real performance impact here, as it just sets the number of frames rendered per second on your monitor or other output device, which affects the visual quality of your game, but not the game itself.
Field of view
Your FoV won't kill or improve your footage to a great extent, but adjusting it can give you a bit more out of your GPU.
- Field of view
- 65 and 70 FoV are the console defaults, so it's always a good idea to increase it to at least 85. This increase tends to cost around 1 or 2 FPS in total, so it's rarely noticeable unless you Don't sit right at 60 or just below.
- 3rd person vehicle field of view
- There's no reason to adjust this unless you want to see more of it every time you drive around the battlefield. The performance impact is minimal.
- Champ of vision ADS
- No performance impact here either. The change is purely cosmetic unless you take things to the extreme, in which case you won't be able to make anything out anyway.
Graphics settings
These basic settings won't give or take away much from your gaming experience, but they're worth tweaking to make your experience smoother.
- Brightness
- Exactly what it says on the box: how brilliant do you want your game to be?
- High dynamic range
- This feature is monitor dependent and won't do much to your FPS.
- Motion blur
- How much blur do you want in your game? The correct answer is always none. Keep it at 0 and enjoy a clear picture at all times.
- Chromatic aberration
- Disable this option, as it adds extra blur to push for more photogenic gameplay. We are looking for performance here, not pretty colors.
- Film Grain
- Another setting to always turn off. This adds a grainy filter to the screen like you'd see in a movie – no noticeable impact beyond aesthetics.
- Vignette
- Keep this unique too, as it creates additional blur around the edges of the screen during specific gameplay segments, and when you want to see everything clearly, it would only get in the way.
- Lens distortion
- Stay away ? Yes. No more blurring and image distortion without too much impact on performance.
Graphic quality
The nuts and bolts of any tuning suite, individual quality options can make or break your in-game performance. Always use a custom setup here, as Low, Medium, etc. will not be optimal for your platform.
- Texture Quality: The difference between the highest and lowest settings is noticeable here. Mid-tier GPUs like the 1070 and 1080 can leave it on High without much FPS loss, with low-powered cards handling Medium quite well.
- Texture Filtering: You can save some FPS here by switching to Medium, even on high-end hardware. You might see additional savings without too much visual impact on Low, especially with an older GPU.
- Lighting quality: Light and shadows always have a significant performance cost, so even powerful setups would do well not to exceed this average value. Older or lower powered gear should keep it at Low.
- Quality of Effects: 2042 has a lot of in-game physics and other FPS draining effects no matter what mode you're playing. They will look best on this higher setting, but keep it on Medium or Low for best results.
- Post-processing quality: Post-processing applies various effects to your image after rendering and generally doesn't take away too much from your performance. The High setting is therefore suitable for most users.
- Mesh Quality: Meshes are the basic geometric units used in every game, and higher quality means more complexity, which requires more processing power to render in-game. Medium settings are more than enough, so don't play with anything higher unless you want all your levels to be as complex as possible.
- Terrain Quality: Separate from meshes in that they are soil, water, and other surfaces below the texture. Medium settings are fine here, but high settings won't cost you too much if you have a beefy PC. Anti-aliasing
- Post-processing: better known as AA, there are only two settings here, and I recommend sticking to TAA Low, as you're unlikely to spend too much time staring at the rough edges throughout 2042 with all the bullets whizzing by your head. Your FPS will also experience a slight increase at the lowest setting.
- Ambient Occlusion: A resource-intensive lighting setting, keeping AO off is generally the best option for most people, because even on SSAO (the lowest setting before Off) you could lose a few frames for little return.
Advanced
These settings are specialized, designed to give you better performance or image quality by affecting how the game renders or adjusts the image on the fly.
- Dynamic Resolution Scale: This setting is for anyone without a DLSS-enabled GPU. The game description means precisely what it says: the game will be rendered at a variable resolution designed to maximize your frame rate. It's especially good for low-power systems or those who don't mind a visual hit if it means their images look higher.
- Dynamic Resolution Scaling Refresh Rate Target: Selectable only if Dynamic Resolution Scaling is enabled, this setting determines how hard the game tries to hit your monitor's refresh rate. If you are using 144Hz and want to achieve that no matter what, this setting can help you do that.
- DLSS: NVIDIA's proprietary machine learning technology adapts resolution, then fills in gaps on the fly, enabling maximum frames with minimum visual degradation. The Performance setting is fine for most users, although the quality only sets you back a few frames for a much improved picture.
- Ray Traced Ambient Occlusion: Ray Traced everything is the enemy of FPS enthusiasts everywhere. In a multiplayer game where milliseconds matter, keep this setting off.
- NVIDIA Reflex Low Latency: Using Reflex, like DLSS, is ultimately a matter of taste, but keeping everything snappy and fast on the trigger or otherwise is never a bad thing, I don't think.
- Future Frame Rendering: Something like a counter reflex, you'll see increased performance with your computer thinking a bit about the next few seconds for you. The trade-off is that it's not you who thinks, the game has to compensate for any action you take in real time, which slightly delays your every input.
- Vertical Sync: This setting locks your frame rate to your monitor's refresh rate, provided it can reach it. You'll never exceed your hardware's set value, but you'll also see less screen tearing, a weird line across your game every time two frames go out of sync. Few performance changes here when it comes to pure FPS, but it can make for a more cohesive viewing experience. If you generally can't get enough FPS to hit the VSync limiter, it's best to leave it enabled.
- High Fidelity Object Quantity: This setting determines how well distant objects are rendered in your game. With so many tiny objects appearing on the huge maps in 2042, you will see good gains with this setting on lower values. In other words, on lower settings a soldier or vehicle at 1000 meters will look bulkier and animate less well than if you were at a higher setting.
And those are our tuning recommendations for Battlefield 2042. Let us know if they helped your experience in EA and DICE's latest entry in the storied franchise. Keep an eye out for more Battlefield 2042 guides here on GameSkinny.
