Battlefield 2042 is both visually and technically impressive, especially with its dynamic weather system, which we talked about in our in-depth review. But with great power, comes great FPS drops and stutters, or so the saying goes. In this guide, we’ll talk about the best PC settings for Battlefield 2042 and ways you can boost FPS and performance without losing out on too much of what Battlefield 2042 has to offer.
Every PC is different, so take the settings in this guide as a general suggestion. Your computer may need to lower these settings or can handle them higher. Don’t be afraid to experiment and note the game’s performance when certain settings are altered.
Best PC Settings to Use in Battlefield 2042
The aim here is to find a good balance between performance and visuals in Battlefield 2042‘s PC version. We’ve noted where specific PCs may be able to set certain settings higher or lower, depending on their age and power.
- Texture Quality: Medium
- Texture Filtering: Medium
Texture settings below Medium are when visuals noticeably drop off, so setting Texture Quality and Filtering to Medium can improve your FPS count and performance without losing out too much visually. You can definitely go a little higher if you have a decent machine and compromise other visual settings, though.
- Lighting Quality: Low – Medium
Good lighting alone can make a game stunning, but it takes up a lot of resources. For the best performance, set Lighting Quality to low and you should notice a significant boost in FPS. Medium can also work, depending on the power of your PC, so feel free to test the difference between the two before deciding.
- Effects Quality: Medium
‘Effects Quality’ includes gunfire, explosions, smoke and more useful visual information. Medium is the lowest you should go, so you’re able to notice important visual clues that can be the difference between life and death.
- Post Processing Quality: Low
- Mesh Quality: Low
- Terrain Quality: Medium
Battlefield 2042‘s maps are massive to accommodate the new 128 player limit. More terrain means more terrain rendering. Setting Terrain Quality to Medium can improve performance by limiting the amount of processing needed, while also allowing you to see important map details. If you have a significantly older PC, you may need to set this to Low, instead. Post Processing Quality and Mesh Quality can all safely stay at Low, but can be higher if you have the extra power left over.
- Undergrowth Quality: Medium
- Anti-aliasing Post Processing: Off
As long as you don’t mind jagged edges, turning off Anti-aliasing Post Processing can significantly improve performance, due to how much resources it takes up. If sharp edges are something you need, you can keep this on lower, as long as you compromise other resource-heavy settings, like lighting.
- Nvidia Reflex Low Latency: Enabled w/ Boost
- Future Frame Rendering: Off
- Vertical Sync: Off
- Field of View: 75-85
Field of View is mostly down to personal preference and the size of the monitor being used. However, more environment being rendered results in more resources being used. Getting a good balance between a FoV with enough view and performance is important, so play around with this setting between 75-85 and see which number you prefer.
- Brightness: Personal preference (No impact on performance)
- Motion Blur: Personal preference
Turning motion blur off won’t free up many resources, but it can help you spot enemies easier. It can look great visually, but does put you at a disadvantage, if only a small one.
- Chromatic Aberration: Personal preference
- Film Grain: Personal preference
- Vignette: Personal preference
- Lens Distortion: Personal preference
The above settings have almost no impact on performance and are down to the personal preference of the user.
How to Decrease Stutter in Battlefield 2042
Players are reporting experiencing stuttering on PC, which could potentially be down to Windows scanning the program while its running. To turn this off, search for ‘Exploit Protection’ on the Windows Start Menu and open it. Navigate to ‘Program Settings’ and then ‘Choose Exact File Path’. Locate the .exe file for Battlefield 2042, select it and click ‘Open’. Tick ‘Override system settings’ and set the switch to ‘off’. Apply and restart your PC.
This is not a guaranteed fix, but it can improve performance on some machines. A patch fixing major stuttering issues is expected to release soon. If you are experiencing issues connecting to online servers, check out our guide on Battlefield 2042’s server status, or the “Unable to Load Persistence Data” error.
Battlefield 2042 is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.
Published: Nov 14, 2021 04:58 pm