Best Borderlands 3 Settings

Developed by Gearbox Software, Borderlands 3 is an iconic role-playing first-shooter game that emerged as one of the best Multiplayer games in 2019. Its feature, which allows players to compete in both single-player and multiplayer, is brilliant, but it has a few problems. Now, let’s identify the logic before going into the Borderlands 3 Settings.

Best Borderlands 3 Settings

I’ve tested Borderlands 3 heavily for a few days and concluded that the following are the best Settings on PC.

Summary of The Best Borderlands 3 Settings

Volumetric Fog: Disabled

During our benchmarks here at eXputer, we noticed a 30% FPS difference while messing with this option. The Visual quality hadn’t changed drastically.

Foliage: Disabled

Similar to Volumetric Fog, this also had a huge impact on performance, while showing little to no improvement in visual sectors. If you somehow find any visual improvements and want to turn it on. Do not go far out; only keep it at low.

Anisotropic Filtering: 16x or 8x

When turning Anisotropic Filtering off, the images look very washed out, and you also don’t see clarity in distanced objects.

The performance difference between turning off and 16x was very low, and looking at the improvements; it was clear that Anisotropic Filtering had to be turned on. Players using low-end PCs should go with 8x, while those capable of generating higher frames can go with 16x.

Ambient Occlusion: Medium

For the highest possible performance in Borderlands 3, you should keep Ambient Occlusion Low. Subsequently, for a bit more optimized settings and If your System Requirements are on par with the required ones. Keeping it at Medium won’t hurt too much, especially since the trade-off with visual quality is too good.

Character Detail: High

Alongside Material complexity, the Character Detail Graphics element is also CPU-oriented. You can keep it at High for good detailing, but keep in mind; it is recommended for those using High-End Processors like Ryzen or Intel i7’s.

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Texture Streaming: High

Keeping Texture Streaming at High would help you get better and faster results. In the same vein, If you have a low-end PC, keeping it at Medium wouldn’t be too bad, and at Ultra, there is no lateral difference across all factors.

Material Complexity: High

Once again, there is not too much difference in terms of quality between High and Ultra. Likewise, Medium seems to be notably bad, and High looks to be the most optimized option. In case, you don’t know much, Material Complexity ensures that the rendered elements have added features, thus providing a more detailed look.

Material Complexity: Low

I’ve find that this setting seems to be unnecessary on 1080p/1440p. As a result, we would recommend keeping it at Low.

Screen Space Reflections: Ultra

We configured this setting and changed it to Ultra. The noisy grain present on lower presets isn’t there on Ultra. It was also apparent that the performance loss was untouchable, while the improvement was massive. My recommendation is to keep SSR at Ultra for the best possible Reflections. However, If you aren’t facing the noisy problem, go with High, because that would work too.

Character Detail: High

The Character Detailing feature was very impeccable with its benefits. We noticed major improvements across all characters and the amount of detailing in whatever they carried. Alongside that, the impact on performance was slightly lower than in other major settings, and it was apparent that Character Details were best to be kept at High.

Environmental Detail: High

Another setting that had us bugged was Environment Detail. We were unable to notice a difference in Ultra, while at High, the performance difference was relatively 20%. Environment Detail provides added geometric features that result in more depth of objects while also enhancing the fundamental factors. It does improve the overall interactivity, and as per our benchmarks, graphics looked significantly better at High.

Camera Motion Blur: Off

As always, Motion Blur needs to be turned off. My opinion on this setting hasn’t changed the slightest. It’s purely unnecessary when finding ways to increase FPS. The setting does not bring any value to the gameplay, and from it has always seemed. Motion Blur is only useful in cinematic gameplay trailers.

Terrain Detail: High

Terrain Detail doesn’t have loads of benefits, but it does help improve the detailing in specific scenes. You can certainly keep this at High, and there wouldn’t be too many performance issues.

Object Motion Blur: Off

Once again, the same problem, and no need to keep it enabled. You do not want to waste all the performance saved up for this.

Shadows: Low

Subsequent to Motion Blur, you would come across Shadows, which need to be kept High. Realistically, these are the game-changers, and with Shadows Medium or Low, you would notice very unrealistic graphics. Moreover, there will also be a slight advantage in spotting enemies through their shadows.

Draw Distance: Medium

While checking Draw Distance on Medium and Low, I only noticed a slight change in FPS while the difference in visual quality was massive.

Foliage: High

Similar to Draw Distance, the Foliage Graphical Element acts within the same meta, providing additional density and distance at which the pixels are rendered. This setting does have a slight impact on performance. Therefore, you should keep it at Medium, in the case of a Low-End PC.

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FidelityFX Sharpening: Off

It is a sharpening filter that can also be applied through AMD FreeStyle or Nvidia’s Game Filter with a guarantee that there will be no performance impact.

My Recommendation regarding FidelityFX Sharpening would be to disable it and make use of FreeStyle and Game Filter.

Windows 10 Optimizations For Borderlands 3

This section will look at numerous Windows 10 and 11 tweaks that have a slight to high impact on Borderlands 3. Similarly, once these settings are changed and improved. You will notice higher FPS in not just Borderlands 3 but across all games.

• Disable Full-Screen Optimization: This is an unnecessary feature resulting in Low FPS and Stuttery. The common reason why this happens is solely related to the weird Hybrid Borderless meta to which the feature forces. Hence I suggest you disable this feature by browsing local game files > Right-click on the game main exe > Compatibility tab > Uncheck Full-Screen Optimization.
• Switch To Ultimate Performance: This is a power plan in Windows designed to make your PC work at its 100% potential. You can enable it by entering this prompt into Windows Powershell: powercfg -duplicatescheme e9a42b02 -d5df -448d -aa00 -03f14749eb61.
• Disable Hardware Acceleration: This feature comes packed with third-party applications, allowing them to make use of your GPU to run operations smoothly. It has a huge impact on performance. I’d recommend disabling this feature from most of your applications installed.
• Delete Temp Files: Temp files or junk files aren’t just wasted files, they can also contain virus-infected leftover files that degrade your PC’s performance. To remove them, all you need to do is press the WIN + R key type “%Temp% in the run utility. You’ll see a bunch of files in the Explorer, remove as much as you can here.
• Update Windows 10 To The Latest Version: The last step is to simply update your Windows build to the latest version. You can do this by simply going into the Windows update section in settings and clicking check for updates button.

Bonus: Borderlands 3 Launch Options

I’ve come across some launch options that can potentially fix stuttering and crashing for the majority of users. Anyhow, If you were to use the following launch options, you would also get rid of the loud Gearbox Opening Movie, and see tremendous smoothness in the gameplay sector:

PROTON_NO_ESYNC=1 %command% -NoStartupMovies -notexturestreaming

1. If you are on Epic Games Store > Settings > Borderlands 3 > Checkmark “Additional Command Line Arguments.” > Paste the code shared above.
2. Steam Users can Right Click on Borderlands 3 > Properties > Paste Code in the Launch Options Tab.
3. For those who are having trouble utilizing all cores while playing Borderlands 3. It is highly recommended that you also enter the following sets of code.

-high -USEALLAVAILABLECORES

Any Performance Improvements?

I’ve had a blast playing Borderlands 3 on my PC with all settings to max at 1600p resolution. My FPS were averaging at 75-80. There were minor drops in performance, but it only occurred when there were too many enemies on my screen at once.

Other than that, the performance and stability were on point. I’m glad to report that any stuttering or performance issues players were facing in the early days of Borderland’s 3 release are all gone.

Additionally, if you are still struggling to find a fix for stuttering, I highly advise checking temperatures, background applications, and overclocks that might be overworking your GPU. Another reason why this could still happen might be related to the virus, which you can get rid of with Windows Defender.

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