Apex Legends: Instructions on how to set up a smooth, optimal configuration

Apex Legends launched very quietly and quickly became the hottest new Battle Royale game at the moment. Apex Legends is developed on Valve’s Source engine, so it runs quite well on many computer hardware. Even modern graphics cards like the GTX 1060 should have no problem running this title.

Graphics Tuning Guide

In addition to resolution, v-sync, and aspect ratio, the game has 13 profiles you can customize.We have a maximum frame rate limit of 144fps, at least in current version of Apex Legends It’s enough for most monitors and gamers, but limits the capabilities of the most advanced GPUs and CPUs.A lot of parameters really don’t affect the smoothness of the game much, but If combined, Apex Legends will be much smoother.Here is a breakdown of each configuration parameter and their impact:

Anti-aliasing: The only two options are None and TSAA (Temporal AA), TSAA is more common. Turning on TSAA reduces game smoothness by 3%.

Texture Streaming Budget: While it says ‘Streaming’, it is merely the image quality or resolution of the image. You can adjust from None to Insane (8GB), but if you want to go higher, your computer should have at least 16GB of RAM. Reducing Insane to None improves game smoothness even more 6%.

Texture Filtering: Affects sharpness of image details and transitions between MIPMAP regions. Usually it doesn’t affect performance much on modern GPUs, but switching from 16x anisotropic filtering to bilinear filtering improves smoothness further. 6%.

Ambient Occlusion Quality: This parameter affects the game quality the most, and it affects the quality of SSAO (shadows in the corners). Reducing from high to disabled (completely off) improves approx 15%.

Sun Shadow Coverage: Seems to be controlling the amount of shadow cast by the sun, possibly general lighting. Pushing low instead of high increases the amount of frames 5%.

Sun Shadow Detail: In contrast to the amount of shadows produced by the sun, this parameter controls the detail of the shadows produced by the sun. If you put it from high to low, the game smoothness improves 3%.

Spot Shadow Details: The effect of shadow detail is caused by bright spots in the environment (i.e. not the sun or general light). Turning it off increases the amount of frames more 3%.

Volumetric Lighting: Determines when the sunbeam is generated. Turning it off improves smoothness approx 6%.

Dynamic Spot Shadows: Control the ball from the movable light. According to testing, turning off this parameter has no effect on smoothness, but in some locations, it can affect more.

Mode Details: Adjust the maximum detail of objects and characters. Lowering to low improves smoothness 6%.

Effect Details: Determine the quality of graphic effects such as explosions. This parameter is difficult to measure because during combat the graphic indicators fluctuate erratically

Impact Marks: Control the location and how many bullet holes appear. Does not affect the quality of the game much because the bullet wound is handled by the GPU quite easily.

Ragdolls: Control the accuracy of the physical movement of the corpse – this stat is difficult to measure. As described in the game, it affects the CPU load more than the GPU.

Overall, from the maximum to the lowest configuration, we improved about 65% of the frame rate with the GTX 1060 6GB at 1080p resolution. From what was learned above, if you turn off Ambient Occlusion, Volumetric Lighting, and Sun Shadow Coverage there will be a 28% increase. The more powerful GPU will take advantage of the 144fps 1080p limit, while the weaker GPU should leave the lower profile to ensure the most stable 60fps.

Initial game smoothness test

Since this is a free game, most people can download it to their computer and check it out for themselves. The game currently has a download capacity of 12.77GB.

The computer hardware to test the Apex Legnds is an i7-8700K processor and configured to the lowest 1080p, and the highest configuration 1080p/1440p/4K:

GTX 1060 6GB and RX 580 8GB nearly equal, averaging 100-115 fps at 180p at the lowest configuration. The RX 580 8GB is faster at the lowest configuration, reaching 125fps in the benchmark, but other tests give the same results (1-3 fps difference, usually the 1060 has the upper hand).

At the highest configuration 1080p resolution, the game drops to 70-80fps, close to 60fps. The highest 1440p configuration is worse, dropping to 45-50fps, with the lowest frame being 40 fps – the lowest 1440p setting is close to 60fps. And finally, 4K is almost impossible if you want to hit 60fps. Both of these cards only achieve 24fps on average, and the lowest is 16-17fps, but the lowest 4K configuration still reaches more than 30fps.

What about mid-range cards like the 1050 Ti?

Moving on to the lower series of cards, the GTX 1050 Ti just passed 60fps at 1080p with the lowest configuration, and regularly dropped below 60fps. The highest configuration 1080p dropped to about 35fps and the highest 1440p configuration only reached nearly 20fps. Basically, if you want 60fps, you need to have a more powerful card than the 1050 Ti, which is from GTX 970 or higher.

With a high-end GPU card, the RTX 2080 has the same performance as the GTX 1080Ti. 1080p always hits the 144fps limit regardless of settings. And 1440p drops to 113fps at the highest configuration, and 4K at the highest configuration reaches 63fps. Adjusting the configuration a bit at 4K will achieve a stable 60fps. For 1440p resolution, 144fps is workable.

Regarding the hardware requirements for the CPU, the article has not been verified by AMD, but the i5-8400 has the same performance as 8700K. Probably due to the 144FPS limit, but Apex Legends really doesn’t require much CPU.

summary

Overall, 60fps is completely achievable with mid-range hardware. If you have a low profile, you may have to reduce the profile to the lowest to reach 60fps. Be prepared that there will still be a slight fps drop… But in general, 40-50fps is still enough to experience Apex Legends if you are not a serious gamer about winning or losing.

According to PCgamer