Best Video Settings for Apex Legends. Apex Legends is a graphically intensive PC game. It requires good Graphic Card to play Apex Legends but most of the people don’t have good Graphic card so they face problems like Low FPS.
There are countless reasons why your PC may not be fully optimized for gaming, such as old drivers or malware issues. A low FPS does not make for an enjoyable gaming experience, so it’s important to know why it’s not as high as it should be.
Luckily there are plenty of ways to optimize your computer for gaming, whatever the issue may be. Read on to discover how to keep games running smoothly and quickly on your PC.
How to make games run faster on your PC
PC gaming has many benefits over consoles, like higher quality graphics and the ability to install mods, but it’s also up to you to make sure your computer is optimized for best performance. Unlike consoles where developers know the exact hardware they are developing for, there’s a huge number of different PC configurations that a player might have. PC games will never be as optimized for your specific hardware as developers simply can’t test every possible configuration.
Since console operating systems are designed to only run games and a few simple apps, they can be far more efficient with resources. You can do a lot more on PCs, but that means there’s a lot more potential for other programs to steal processing power and reduce your video game performance.
Common examples of things that can slow down your PC include too many background programs running, malware or virus issues and outdated hard drives. Tackling these problems first may help to increase game speed.
While fixing a slow PC can improve your performance generally, there are also computer upgrades for gaming that will help boost your FPS. Read on for more about FPS and how to increase it for best game performance.
What is low FPS and why does it happen?
When games are displayed on your screen they consist of a fast sequence of images, much like videos. These images are called frames and are created by your video card using data it receives from the games program running on your PC. The number of frames displayed by your monitor in one second is called the frame rate or frames per second (FPS).
While videos usually run at about 24fps, games running at this speed will look jagged and feel unresponsive. This is mostly due to something known as ‘motion blur’. When filming at 24fps, a film camera will take 24 pictures in a second, but the lens will stay open long enough when taking each picture that any moving objects will slightly blur. This makes the objects appear to move smoothly into the next frame. A video game, on the other hand, will display game objects exactly where they are, without motion blur (or with only a motion blur special effect). This makes it look like they are jumping from one frame to the next.
Finding your current FPS
If you don’t know what FPS your game is running at, there are a couple of ways to find out:
- Many PC games have an option in their own Video Settings menu to display FPS
- If you use Steam or GeForce Experience, they both have settings for displaying FPS
- You can also use Fraps to show the FPS in any game
What is the optimum FPS?
The standard for good FPS is generally said to be 60, not only because games running at that frame rate will look smooth, but also because standard monitors run at 60Hz. Hertz, or the refresh rate of a monitor, is how many images the monitor can display in a single second. Having your game run at an FPS faster than your monitor refresh rate provides no added benefit as the monitor won’t be able to display the extra frames. For example, a game that runs at 90fps will only be able to display a maximum of 60fps on a 60Hz monitor.
While 60hz has been the standard for years, many new gaming monitors now have higher refresh rates such as 120Hz or 144Hz. If you buy or build a PC with a high refresh rate monitor, boosting your FPS is even more valuable because your monitor will be able to display the additional frames, creating an even smoother gameplay experience.
Don’t know the Hz of your monitor or laptop screen? Follow these steps to find out your refresh rate on Windows 10:
- Press the Windows key (usually between CTRL and ALT) + I on your keyboard to open Windows Settings
- Click ‘System’
- Scroll down and click ‘Advanced display settings’
- You will see your refresh rate and screen resolution listed under each screen or monitor
(On earlier Windows versions you will find this information under 'Control Panel' > 'Appearance and Personalisation' > 'Adjust screen resolution' > 'Advanced settings' > 'Monitor')
Once you know both your monitor refresh rate and the FPS you are getting on the games you play, you will know how much you can boost your FPS before you’re limited by your monitor. Note down your FPS at this point so you will know if anything has changed once you have taken steps to increase it.
Why is my FPS so low?
There are many things that can contribute to low game performance. Here are just some examples:
- Outdated drivers
- Old or slow graphics cards
- Other programs running on the computer
- Game settings being turned up too high
- Running on a higher resolution than necessary
Increasing FPS on your PC
If you’d like to know how to increase frame rate without buying new hardware, here are the best things you can do:
Update graphic and video drivers
Graphics card manufacturers have a vested interest in ensuring that all new and popular games run well on their own hardware. AMD, NVIDIA and Intel regularly release drivers with performance improvements on their cards. So, to increase graphics card performance, it’s important to download and install the latest drivers for your card.
Graphics card manufacturers have a vested interest in ensuring that all new and popular games run well on their own hardware. AMD, NVIDIA and Intel regularly release drivers with performance improvements on their cards. So, to increase graphics card performance, it’s important to download and install the latest drivers for your card.
You can usually download the newest drivers for your graphics card on the manufacturer’s website. Follow the steps on the installation wizard to install your new driver, and make sure to check any auto-update settings to ensure your driver remains up to date in the future.
Take a look at our post on choosing the best graphics card for more information on finding out which type of card you’re currently using.
Optimize in-game settings
Maxing out the video settings will make your games look great, but unless you have the hardware to handle the calculations you may be left with a glorified slideshow. Turning down your gaming settings is a reliable way to give you a big boost in FPS.
Maxing out the video settings will make your games look great, but unless you have the hardware to handle the calculations you may be left with a glorified slideshow. Turning down your gaming settings is a reliable way to give you a big boost in FPS.
The options available will depend entirely on the game, but important things to look out for are usually under ‘post-processing’ and ‘special effects.’ These options will add things like sunrays, bloom and motion blur to your game - taking a large amount of processing power for little impact. Similarly, game physics options like NVIDIA PhysX and AMD TressFX take a huge amount of processing power for a negligible difference.
If your FPS is still low after disabling the special effects, ‘render distance’ and ‘texture quality’ options are the ones to reduce next. Turning them down may have an effect on visual quality, but it will also have a positive impact on your FPS.
Reduce your screen resolution
Higher resolutions increase the number of pixels that your graphics card needs to render, which can reduce your FPS significantly. Ideally you want to run games at the same resolution as your screen. However, if you are struggling to maintain enough FPS even after reducing your other game settings, you may want to reduce your screen resolution. Almost every game will have the option to do this in their video settings menu.
Higher resolutions increase the number of pixels that your graphics card needs to render, which can reduce your FPS significantly. Ideally you want to run games at the same resolution as your screen. However, if you are struggling to maintain enough FPS even after reducing your other game settings, you may want to reduce your screen resolution. Almost every game will have the option to do this in their video settings menu.
Change graphics card settings
AMD and NVIDIA both provide control panels where you can change the performance settings on their cards. There are a couple of options in both control panels that might increase FPS in your games.
AMD and NVIDIA both provide control panels where you can change the performance settings on their cards. There are a couple of options in both control panels that might increase FPS in your games.
The most important option is changing your power mode to maximum, which means that your graphics card won’t try to save electricity or be more efficient by reducing processing power. For instructions on using the control panels and changing your power mode, refer to AMD’s and NVIDIA’s own websites.
Invest in FPS booster software
FPS booster software promises to increase your frame rate in games, but if you’ve already taken steps to optimize your FPS by other methods you likely won’t see much difference. What the best gaming optimization software can do is stop or slow down background processes, freeing up computing power for your game.
FPS booster software promises to increase your frame rate in games, but if you’ve already taken steps to optimize your FPS by other methods you likely won’t see much difference. What the best gaming optimization software can do is stop or slow down background processes, freeing up computing power for your game.
Microsoft added Game Mode with Windows 10, which you can access by pressing the Windows key + G when you are in a game. Game mode can reduce the impact of other programs running on your PC, although you’d be better off by closing those programs directly in Task Manager.
Razer has a software called Cortex which prioritizes processing resources for your game and does other things like turning off your computer’s CPU (central processing unit) sleep mode. Cortex is entirely free so it won’t hurt for you to try it, but don’t expect any dramatic performance improvements.
We hope that helps!
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If you play high-end 3D games on your PC, you want the best performance possible. That’s usually a matter of simply sinking a bunch of money into better computer parts, primarily the graphics card. But can you improve performance without spending a lot of money, or even better, without spending any at all? Yes, you can – to an extent.
To be clear, we’re talking about improving the performance of your games, and not necessarily the graphics. A faster, smoother framerate is generally more desirable than the latest graphical tricks, especially if you’re playing multiplayer online games. The sweet spot is 60 frames per second, the maximum refresh rate of most laptop screens and monitors. That’s what we’re shooting for here.
Tweak graphics settings
You probably already know that setting your graphics to a lower quality will increase the framerate of your game. But it’s not quite as simple as that. Some graphics settings are more important than others. Reducing the right settings may get you to 60 frames per second without turning image quality to mud.
You should likely start with special effects — dynamic shadows, reflections, water fidelity, motion blur, and bloom. These are taxing, and in fast-paced games such window dressing often adds little to the experience. Exotic effects like Nvidia PhysX system and AMD’s TressFX should be disabled completely. Also look at lowering object draw distance and density, settings that have particular impact in open-world games like Grand Theft Auto V and Skyrim.
The quickest way to see dramatic framerate improvements without spending any money is to simply run your game at a lower resolution. If your monitor has a resolution of 1,920 x 1,080, you can drop it down to 1,680 x 1,050 or 1,366 x 768 to see some quick gains. Of course this will make the graphics less clear, and many gamers prefer to use the native resolution to reduce the need for anti-aliasing.
Many PC games unfortunately lack detailed visual options, especially if they’ve been ported from game consoles. You can try to manually adjust 3D settings in Windows using the application from your graphics card provider. There are also free programs like Nvidia GeForce Experience and Razer Cortex that offer pre-configured ideal settings for popular games.
Close background applications
If possible, always close background programs in your operating system before starting a game. This will free up processor cycles and memory for your computer to devote to the game itself. Remember that there are often programs running in the background even without a visible window on the desktop – RAM-heavy programs like iTunes, Google Chrome, and Microsoft Office like to run a “helper” app that keeps the program going even after you close the window. Check your notification area or your Task Manager to find these apps and close them. Even seemingly innocuous programs, like the one that comes with your mouse or keyboard, can slow your system down.
Many Windows programs add an auto-start function when you install them, and may be constantly running in the background. For Windows 7 and earlier, press the Windows button and “R” at the same time, then type “msconfig” and “enter” to open the configuration window. Click the Startup tab, then disable everything you don’t need and reboot. In Windows 8 and later it’s even easier: just press Ctrl+Shift+Esc to open the Task Manager and click on the Startup tab. If you don’t know what an item in the list is for, do a web search for the name – odds are excellent that someone has already asked that question.
Install the latest drivers
Both Nvidia and AMD regularly update the drivers for their respective cards. The latest drivers will usually improve performance, especially for the newest games. Head to nvidia.com/download.aspx or support.amd.com to find the latest version. Make sure to match the drivers to your operating system and your specific model of graphics card. If you’re not sure which card you have, both sites offer an automatic detection tool to get you the right package.
If you use a laptop with Intel’s integrated graphics, you won’t see updated drivers nearly so often. Even so, it doesn’t hurt to check downloadcenter.intel.com to see if there’s anything new.
Keep in mind that occasionally graphics card manufacturers will make a mistake in newer drivers that will adversely affect gaming performance. If you suddenly see a decrease in framerate or errors in textures, try uninstalling your graphics driver completely, downloading an older version, and using it instead. Both Nvidia and AMD offer archived versions of their driver packages.
Paid options
The simplest way to increase graphics performance is to buy a new graphics card and install it. (This is valid for desktop PCs, of course — even on laptops with discrete graphics cards, the cards are usually soldered to the motherboard and can’t be removed.) The good news is that there’s an incredible range of cards available these days. Even quite inexpensive cards like the Nvidia GTX 750 Ti or the AMD Radeon R7 260X, both below the $150 USD mark, can hit 60 frames per second in most modern games at 1080p resolution with some of the settings tweaks mentioned above.
If you’re willing to spend more money (and you’ve already bought a more expensive graphics card), your next improvements should be your computer’s CPU and RAM, in that order. (Laptop CPUs can’t be replaced, but most have at least one RAM DIMM slot free.) A faster CPU will increase framerate, though not as much as an improved graphics card, and more RAM will allow your computer to manage your operating system and applications more effectively.
More drastic upgrades are available for improved graphics and performance, like dual graphics cards linked in SLI or Crossfire configurations, or elaborate CPU and GPU cooling systems for overclocking. But that’s overkill. The above options should provide more than enough of a speed boost to get you to 60 frames per second, if you’re playing at 1080p.