If you’re experiencing low FPS or input latency in Fortnite and want to customize your settings for improved performance, then you’re in the right place. Our guide to the best Fortnite settings provides a full rundown of the right settings to use, whether you’re gaming with a low-end or high-end PC.
But before diving in, you may be tempted to mail it in and choose either one of the quality presets or Fortnite’s performance mode instead of spending a few minutes reading this guide.
Our suggested Fortnite PC settings are simple to set up and can consistently generate high FPS and reduce latency, all with no dropped frames, for many ranges of gaming PCs. Let’s dive in so you can improve the performance of Fortnite on your machine.
Update graphics drivers first
Customizing your Fortnite settings can yield some impressive FPS results and improve latency. But it’s all for naught if you don’t first ensure your graphics drivers are up to date. Fortunately, it’s simple to update your graphics drivers, whether you have an AMD or an NVIDIA GPU.
Best graphics settings (high-end setups)
Since Fortnite isn’t as graphically intensive as other triple-A games, you can achieve very high FPS with a mid-range gaming PC. For reference, a “mid-range” gaming PC is one with an RTX-series NVIDIA GPU (or AMD equivalent), an Intel Core i7 (or AMD equivalent), and 16GB of RAM.
Display
- Window mode: Fullscreen
- Resolution: Set to 1080p or 2560 x 1440, depending on your monitor resolution and desired visual quality
- Vsync: Off
- Frame rate limit: Set at the FPS option one level above your monitor’s refresh rate. For example, set to 160 FPS in Fortnite if you have a 144 refresh rate monitor.
- Rendering mode: DirectX 12
Resolution is one key Fortnite setting that has a big impact on performance. Pro Fortnite players overwhelmingly opt for for performance over visuals, as seen in the below chart that details resolution settings pick rates for pro players we track.
Fortnite pro resolution pick rates
Graphics
- Brightness: 100%
- User interface contrast: 1x
- Colorblind mode: Off
- Colorblind strength: 0
- Motion blur: Off
Graphics quality
- Anti-aliasing and super-resolution: NVIDIA DLSS, if you have an RTX-series NVIDIA GPU
- NVIDIA DLSS: Balanced
- Dynamic 3D resolution: Off
- Nanite virtualized geometry: Off
- Shadows: Off
- Global illumination: Off
- Reflections: Off
- View distance: Medium or far
- Textures: Low
- Effects: Low
- Post-processing: Low
- Hardware ray tracing: Off
Advanced graphics
- Show FPS: On
- Use GPU crash debugging: Off
- NVIDIA reflex low latency: On + boost
Best graphics settings (low-end setups)
Fortnite can run at great performance levels on many low-end gaming PCs. Our low-end Fortnite settings are best for gaming PCs with graphics cards and CPUs over several years old, less than 8GB RAM, and less than 2GB VRAM. We’re also assuming the reference setup for these settings doesn’t include an RTX-series NVIDIA GPU (or AMD equivalent).
Display
- Window mode: Fullscreen
- Resolution: 1080p
- Vsync: Off
- Frame rate limit: Set at the FPS option one level above your monitor’s refresh rate. For example, set to 160 FPS in Fortnite if you have a 144 refresh rate monitor.
- Rendering Mode: Performance
Graphics
- Brightness: 100%
- User interface contrast: 1x
- Colorblind mode: Off
- Colorblind strength: 0
Graphics quality (performance mode) & Advanced graphics
- 3D resolution: 100%
- Nanite virtualized geometry: Off
- View distance: Near
- Textures: Low
- Meshes: Low
- Show FPS: On
- Report performance stats: Disabled
Fortnite system requirements
| Requirements | CPU | GPU | VRAM | RAM | Operating System |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Minimum | Intel Core i3-3225 | Intel HD 4000 | – | 4GB | Windows 7/8/10 64-bit |
| Recommended | Intel Core i5-7300U, AMD Ryzen 3 3300U | NVIDIA GTX 960, AMD R9 280 | 2GB | 8GB | Windows 10 64-bit |
| In-house tested model | Intel Core i7-12700KF | NVIDIA RTX 3070ti | 8GB | 32GB | Windows 10 64-bit |
Recommended Fortnite FPS
If your gaming rig is struggling to push out more than 60 FPS in Fortnite, then it’s a good idea to adjust your settings. Otherwise, you’ll be at a disadvantage to other gamers who can more quickly and accurately target enemies with smooth gameplay.
We suggest aiming for at least 144 FPS in Fortnite, which can require some visual sacrifices to achieve on lower-end setups.
Pro tip
It’s important to remember that running at an FPS far higher than your monitor’s refresh rate is like driving a Ferrari in the slow lane.In these scenarios, it may be good to adjust some visual settings to a higher quality for a more appealing experience since you’ve got the visual performance headroom.
Settings with the biggest FPS and latency impacts
There are a seemingly endless number of Fortnite graphics settings you can choose from. If you want to improve FPS and reduce latency, a select number of those options can move the FPS and input latency needle the most. The below items are the essential graphics settings to focus on for the biggest impact on FPS and latency.
- Window mode
- Resolution
- Rendering mode
- Anti-aliasing and super-resolution
- 3D resolution
- Shadows
- Textures
- Effects
- Post processing
- Hardware ray tracing
- NVIDIA reflex low latency
Narrowing this list down further, resolution and raytracing are two critical settings that can impact Fortnite’s performance. Disabling raytracing is a trend among pro players prioritizing FPS over visual, which is a key theme in how we determined our low-end and high-end Fortnite settings.
Other optimizations to consider
NVIDIA DLSS
We included suggested NVIDIA DLSS settings for our high-end setup since many gamers use NVIDIA GPUs. But it’s worth diving into slightly more detail here to understand how NVIDIA DLSS works within Fortnite.
Firstly, NVIDIA DLSS at its core takes low-resolution images and makes them look better. That’s the layman’s explanation, and we’ll keep it at that level of detail for this guide. The benefit to gamers is significantly higher FPS while retaining quality visuals. This is one reason why NVIDIA GPUs are so popular.
Within Fortnite, you can choose from three DLSS settings, performance, balanced, and quality. Performance prioritizes FPS whereas quality prioritizes visuals. We recommend balanced for most gaming PCs that have DLSS capabilities.
Fortnite lag
Our suggested settings configurations are helpful to increase FPS and reduce latency to give you a competitive edge. But these settings won’t fix Fortnite lag, which players occasionally experience for many reasons. Busy servers and slow internet connections are common causes.
Turn off background apps
Turning off background apps can reduce your CPU and GPU overhead and improve FPS in Fortnite. This step is only necessary for low-end setups struggling to reach the desired FPS.
You can turn off unnecessary background apps in Windows by typing “Startup Apps” into the search bar and opening it. After doing so, you’ll see a list of apps running in the background and their level of impact on performance. Now you can turn off apps directly unrelated to Epic Games Launcher.
