PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (or “PUBG” for you slang-users out there) is a game where perception and quick reflexes can mean the difference between getting the drop on a nearby foe and having said foe pop you in the head before you even seen them, and you can’t exactly see well or react quickly if you’re chugging along with sub-optimal frames-per-second. In the below guide, we’ll show you some tricks you can use to get a little FPS boost and, hopefully, improve your PUBG game as a result.
Note: The below fixes do require the editing of game files, so be sure to follow each step carefully to avoid breaking the game and having to re-install it from scratch.
Tweaking Steam Launch Options for PUBG
Adjusting a few parameters in PUBG’s Steam Launch Options can help improve the game’s framerate considerably, and here’s how you go about doing so:
- First, navigate to PUBG in your Steam library, right-click it, select the “Properties” option, and navigate over to the “Steam Launch Options” tab.
- You should see a blank field in the tab. Copy and paste the following code string into the field and then press enter: -malloc=system +mat_antialias 0 window -USEALLAVAILABLECORES -sm4
- Next, navigate to your computer’s file explorer (such as the Cortana search function for Windows 10) and type %appdata% (it doesn’t have to be bold) into the search field.
- Once you’re in the appdata menu, search for Local\TslGame\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor and open it. You’ll find a series of .ini files inside.
- The first .ini file you’ll want to open is the ini file. When it’s open, paste the following inside:
[ScalabilityGroups]
sg.ResolutionQuality=70
sg.ViewDistanceQuality=0
sg.AntiAliasingQuality=0
sg.ShadowQuality=0
sg.PostProcessQuality=0
sg.TextureQuality=0
sg.EffectsQuality=0
sg.FoliageQuality=0
sg.TrueSkyQuality=0
sg.GroundClutterQuality=0
sg.IBLQuality=0
sg.HeightFieldShadowQuality=0
- Once you’ve pasted the above lines, save the file, close it, right click it, and make sure the “Read Only” marker is ticked.
- Next up, you’ll want to add some additional lines to the ini file. Open it up and paste the following into it:
[Core.System]
Paths=../../../Engine/Content
Paths=%GAMEDIR%Content
Paths=../../../Engine/Plugins/OceanPlugin/Content
Paths=../../../Engine/Plugins/Mutable/Content
Paths=../../../Engine/Plugins/Runtime/Coherent/CoherentUIGTPlugin/Content
Paths=../../../Engine/Plugins/RoadEditor/Content
Paths=../../../Engine/Plugins/2D/Paper2D/Content
Paths=../../../Engine/Plugins/Wwise/Content
[/script/engine.engine]
bSmoothFrameRate=true
MinDesiredFrameRate=60
SmoothedFrameRateRange=(LowerBound=(Type="ERangeBoundTypes::Inclusive",Value=60),UpperBound=(Type="ERangeBoundTypes::Exclusive",Value=144))
MaxPixelShaderAdditiveComplexityCount=128
MaxES2PixelShaderAdditiveComplexityCount=45
TimeBetweenPurgingPendingKillObjects=30
bDisablePhysXHardwareSupport=True
[/script/engine.renderersettings]
r.SeparateTranslucency=False
r.CustomDepth=1
r.DefaultFeature.Bloom=False
r.DefaultFeature.AmbientOcclusion=False
r.DefaultFeature.AmbientOcclusionStaticFraction=False
r.DefaultFeature.MotionBlur=False
r.DefaultFeature.LensFlare=False
r.DefaultFeature.AntiAliasing=0
r.ViewDistanceScale=1
r.ShadowQuality=0
r.Shadow.CSM.MaxCascades=1
r.Shadow.MaxResolution=256
r.Shadow.RadiusThreshold=0.1
r.Shadow.DistanceScale=0.1
r.Shadow.CSM.TransitionScale=0
r.DistanceFieldShadowing=0
r.DistanceFieldAO=0
r.DepthOfFieldQuality=0
r.RenderTargetPoolMin=300
r.LensFlareQuality=0
r.SceneColorFringeQuality=0
r.EyeAdaptationQuality=0
r.FastBlurThreshold=0
r.Upscale.Quality=1
r.TonemapperQuality=0
r.RefractionQuality=0
r.SSR.Quality=0
r.SceneColorFormat=3
r.TranslucencyVolumeBlur=0
r.MaterialQualityLevel=0
r.SSS.Scale=0
r.SSS.SampleSet=0
r.EmitterSpawnRateScale=0.75
- Again, save the file with the above pasted inside, close it, right-click it, and make sure “Read Only” is ticked.
- Lastly, open the ini file and paste the following inside:
[ScalabilitySettings]
PerfIndexValues_ResolutionQuality="50 50 50 50"
[AntiAliasingQuality@0]
r.MSAA.CompositingSampleCount=1
[ViewDistanceQuality@0]
r.SkeletalMeshLODBias=5
[ShadowQuality@0]
r.LightFunctionQuality=0
r.ShadowQuality=0
r.Shadow.CSM.MaxCascades=0
r.Shadow.MaxResolution=32
r.Shadow.RadiusThreshold=0.24
r.Shadow.DistanceScale=0.1
[PostProcessQuality@0]
r.DepthOfFieldQuality=0
r.RenderTargetPoolMin=200
r.Upscale.Quality=0
[TextureQuality@0]
r.MaxAnisotropy=0
[EffectsQuality@0]
r.TranslucencyLightingVolumeDim=1
r.RefractionQuality=0
r.SceneColorFormat=3
[FoliageQuality@0]
r.ParticleLightQuality=0
- Save the file, close it, and set it to “Read Only.”
- For the scalability changes to take effect, you’ll have to boot up PUBG and set all of the graphical settings to Low.
Once you’ve made all of the above changes, your PUBG FPS will hopefully be improved, though sadly none of these changes are guaranteed to work. If you’re trying to play PUBG on an older computer and you don’t want to buy an entirely new machine, simply updating your current rig’s graphics card or RAM can help improve FPS as well, though doing either will naturally require a bit of a financial investment on your part.
For more PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds guide coverage, be sure to check out our guide on all of the different weapon attachments in PUBG.