When it comes to gaming, a lot of elements come into play to provide the best playing experience. The monitor of your PC or TV of your console to your controllers and peripherals all affect gaming. And it’s not just about the brands and aesthetics either. It’s also about the performance of these items. Why is this important? Because you can have all the skills and drive necessary to play the game. But if your machine doesn’t respond appropriately to your input, or doesn’t perform as needed, it will result in a wrong time.
Now usually, if you’re just a casual gamer, this wouldn’t be a problem. Or if you’re playing a single-player game adventure. After all, because you’re not competing against others or don’t care much about performance, it’s alright. A bit of FPS lag, inadequate controls, or overall sluggish gameplay won’t ruin your game.
However, if you’re a serious gamer, an aspiring pro, or just a very competitive player that loves multiplayer games, then the way your machine or rig performs is significant. A one-second lag, a slight fps drop, or a slow response from your peripherals at a crucial moment can make or break a game. It can spell the difference between winning a match or restarting altogether.
It is these reasons why it’s essential to have the proper settings when it comes to the games you play. Now, these settings were decided based on several things we will be discussing below. But what you need to know is that even with the right or top-notch hardware at your disposal, you can still get sub-optimal settings at best or wrong settings at worst.
And while your hardware might stay constant, the games will always have varied optimal settings. And it is figuring out what kind of settings each game can be played at best that will give the best results. There are many kinds of games around, like fantasy RPGs, fighting games, action-adventure games, multiplayer online battle arenas or MOBAs, first-person shooters or FPS, and battle royale games.
As mentioned earlier, game settings for single-player games aren’t that crucial if you’re a casual gamer. But for serious and competitive ones, game settings, especially for multiplayer games, become very important. And game settings are most especially important for games that are very popular and highly competitive online. And one such game that is one of the most popular multiplayer games out there today is Fortnite.
Fortnite offers a variety of game modes for the player to choose from, all very competitive at different levels. So it is vital to have the best Fortnite settings when playing this game.
But what exactly is Fortnite? Why is it accessible, and why should you have the best Fortnite settings?
What is Fortnite?
Developed by company Epic Games, Fortnite is not just a game. It’s not just the biggest game in terms of player count for the past couple of years. It has become a cultural icon and a critical part of the next generation of video gamers. Nearly everyone in the world, from elementary school kids to college frat boys and sorority girls to office workers and everyone in between, is playing this game at any point in time. Not only that, the industry of video game live streaming comprises hundreds, if not thousands of streamers, all playing this massively multiplayer online game. As of the last count, Fortnite is said to have 250 million players actively fighting and competing against each other across multiple platforms.
You read that right. 250 million. A quarter of a billion people are playing this game.
Fortnite, at its very core, can be explained very simply: it is an online survival multiplayer game that pits different people from all over the world against each other. The game’s survival aspect works by having them fight each other in a setting where they must run, collect resources, build, and shoot each other until the last person, duo, or team is standing.
Fortnite by no means is not the first game to have this kind of gameplay. There are dozens of similar games out there that people can choose to play. But what is it that made Fortnite so famous in the past two years? What made it into nearly, if not already, a household name?
Many factors contributed to Fortnite’s rapid popularity and success. It’s hard to pinpoint just one reason that brought about Fortnite’s growth to the behemoth it is today.
History of Fortnite
When Fortnite was first released, it was received just like any other game of its type. The first game mode, “Save the World,” came with the debut of the game back in 2017. It is a player-vs-environment mode wherein four players would team up to achieve different objectives in different missions. The setting of the game is that of an Earth that lost 98% of its population due to a storm. All that’s left are “husks,” which are zombie-like creatures that attack the players on sight.
The game elements that made Fortnite unique are in this mode. Like collecting resources and building traps, defending home-base shelters, and the like.
When Fortnite’s Battle-Royale mode was released, it was the turning point for the game. At the time of Fortnite’s early access release, another battle-royale game had already established itself in the genre: Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds, commonly known as PUBG. At this time, PUBG had already, in 3 months since its March of 2017 launch, sold more than 5 million copies. Epic games then realized that they could also add a battle-royale mode to Fortnite. They worked vigorously and quickly in that by the time September rolled around, Fortnite Battle Royale was finished and released.
However, Epic Games decided to make a change to the game. Whereas Fortnite Save the World was sold for a price, Fortnite Battle Royale released as a free-to-play game. It had microtransactions as a way to earn money, but for the most part, people could play the game without spending a single cent.
Because of this change, Fortnite Battle Royale became an instant hit. Within a couple of weeks, the game had amassed 10 million players. The growth was so fast that Epic Games scrambled to create different teams for their two versions of Fortnite for Battle Royale to be ready for different platforms. The platforms include Android and iOS, which cannot play the “Save the World” mode.
Fortnite Battle Mode was a financial success as well. While the game is free, its microtransactions yielded the company hundreds of millions of dollars every month, which allowed Epic Games to keep improving the game over and over. The money, in turn, allowed the addition of a lot of other vital elements that made Fortnite even more popular, attracting more players, and so on. It is a cycle of success that turned the game into a pop-culture phenomenon.
Other pop-culture stars that play the game, including rapper Drake, NFL wide receiver Juju Smith-Schuster, and many others, attracted even more players and attention for the game. And today, it is a giant in the games industry that shows no signs of stopping anytime soon.
Why Fortnite Is So Popular
As mentioned earlier, a lot of factors make Fortnite Battle Royale the popular game it is today. And here are some of those factors:
Pretty and vibrant world – unlike most games in the genre that emphasize realistic graphics, Fortnite took the other route and had the world that looks more like it came out of a Disney studios movie. The avatar models look expressively funny, the environments have cartoonish shapes, and the overall color palette is just bright and welcoming. The visuals make the game palatable to a broader audience, from kids to adults.
Unique game mechanics – Fortnite Battle Royale shares a lot of elements from its competitors and inspiration like PUBG. But it has unique offerings of its own that make it a game that stands out. For a game whose core mechanic to win is to “shoot people and be the last person standing,” you’ll find yourself doing more than just that to achieve victory. The game rewards creativity, from finding the proper sniping spots or building your own. Yes, building structures is a critical element of this game. It can take a while to understand fully. And even longer to master. But it provides a different avenue beyond the simple “point crosshair and fire” of most games.
Social interaction – the game is not always just about being the last person standing. Nor is it just about building the best structures to win. Epic Games keeps Fortnite interesting regularly by adding many different in-game events. These events unite the players under a common goal or theme and become much talked about topics of conversation in social media. Not only that, the game can be significantly personalized to reflect the players’ personalities. Options like this add layers of social interaction capabilities in the game that make it more than just an online battle royale shooter.
Because of the pervading sense of community in an otherwise competitive game, it says that there is very little evidence of toxicity in the player base. Surely there are cases of misbehaving and rudeness, as with all online games. But surprisingly, it seems like Fortnite’s players have a social bond that most online game players do not have.
Combine this with the individuality and control that the players can have in this game, then it becomes a sure recipe for success.
Free and easy to start – this is a significant factor in Fortnite’s success. You can get the game for free and try it out yourself. If it’s not your cup of tea, uninstall and go along your merry way without spending anything. If it is, then you’ll find that it’s a game that’s very easy to pick up and play. Whether it’s on a highly-advanced PC, the latest console, or your mobile device, you can install and play Fortnite anywhere, and anytime.
The Different Elements of Fortnite Settings For Competitive Play
Don’t let the fun and welcoming nature of Fortnite fool you. While it is a quirky game full of fun emotes and uniquely designed events and worlds for fun, it is still a shooter game at its core. And many players, pro and aspiring pro-gamers, take the game very seriously.
Watching a pro-gamer or a streamer play the game with the best Fortnite settings is a spectacle in itself. But what are the different elements that must be understood and tweaked to get the best Fortnite settings for competitive play?
Windowed mode – this setting is simple. It merely means whether you will be playing as a movable Windows window, or if you’ll play it in full-screen. In general, playing in fullscreen means the Windows explorer can take a back seat. Full-screen means the game processes with less latency. However, it still depends on how each game works.
Display resolution – this setting displays the number of horizontal pixels and vertical pixels to be displayed. The higher the numbers, the larger the area is made visible. However, in most cases, the higher the resolution, the more resources it uses.
Frame rate limit – put, the frame rate limit is the maximum amount of frames per second to be rendered by the GPU. At first glance, one can be tempted not to put a deadline because it might mean that the game will run smoother, especially with powerful hardware. However, rendering at too high a framerate will cause what’s called “screen tearing.” Screen tearing is when the display looks like it is tearing apart for a moment before patching itself together again. It is an annoying thing to keep seeing, especially when it happens often. Lower frame rate limits might not make for a smoother display, but it also reduces if not eliminates screen tearing.
VSync – this setting synchronizes the game’s frame rate to the monitor’s refresh rate. VSync results in more stable images and helps prevent the screen-tearing mentioned earlier that high frame rates might cause. If you are after visual fidelity in the game, then turn this option “on.” However, this can cause input lag, wherein your actions will reflect slower on screen. In a competitive or pro-environment, that is a liability.
View distance – determines how far you can see in the game. It also tells the machine how much is going to be rendered and then displayed. If your computer is not as powerful as modern ones, a lower view distance means fewer polygons and textures will be displayed. It gives a performance boost and allows your game to run much smoother. It comes at the cost of not only seeing less but also breaking some immersion in the game.
Shadows – this setting will determine if the game will render shadows and, if yes, at what quality. Shadows add to the realism of the game, especially when a lot of lights are present. It gives a sense of depth perception, at the cost of processing power. The human eye is so used to seeing shadows in the real world, that turning this off in a game can prove to be a bit jarring to some. However, in a competitive gaming scenario, turning off shadows can be the right choice. Immersion takes a back seat to performance and winning.
Anti-Aliasing – when a computer or console displays something, the edges may look jagged. It is because of how the machine renders those edges. Rough edges can make an excellent looking game terrible, as the human eye sees regular, everyday objects with clean edges. Anti-aliasing reduces the jaggedness of these edges, but at the cost of performance. There are many anti-aliasing types and levels to choose from, like SSAA and the like.
Textures – textures, or sometimes texture quality, are the “skin” of the 3d model’s “bones.” Think of it as the paint of an object. It is what makes the “shapes” of 3d models look like they are metal, wood, stone, water, vegetation, or anything. The textures can also add depth to a 3d model. Low-resolution touches will make a 3d model look blurred, but takes up fewer resources. Higher resolution textures will make the game look more lifelike and detailed but might make the performance suffer.
Effects – refers to additional visual effects such as sparks, glistening water, and so on. Set to high, and this turns the game into a genuinely lifelike creation because it is the smaller, finer details that make the most significant difference. However, higher levels of this will be more taxing on resources and will require much more powerful hardware.
Post Processing – think of post-processing as the difference between a simple carwash and auto-detailing. Sure, a carwash will clean your car and make it shine. But auto-detailing takes it one or even more steps further. It is what post-processing is. It adds another process to an image after it has rendered and made ready for display. It results in images looking softer and much easier on the eyes. But it also takes up a lot of resources and requires a lot of processing power.
Motion Blur – this setting adds a blur effect when you move the camera, especially when you touch it fast. It is an added layer of realism. Because in the real world, that’s what happens to your vision as well. Ever rode a rollercoaster so fast that everything around you seems like a blur? That’s what motion blur does. If realism is your goal, then this can be turned on. However, in a competitive environment, it can make things, and especially targets, harder to see.
Show FPS – when testing out the adjustments you made in your settings, turning this on is useful. It will show you the number of frames per second your machine is successfully delivering. It will help you fine-tune your settings to optimize it according to your needs.
Aside from these graphical settings, there are also settings for your controls. What good is running the game at the most optimum if you cannot control your character correctly?
Control settings include how the mouse performs, what keys are used to do different actions, and how big the heads up display is. Most of the critical bind settings are pretty self-explanatory, but some need a bit of explanation to be understood better.
Mouse Sensitivity X – refers to how fast your camera or mouse cursor responds to the left and right movement of the physical mouse. The higher the number, the more sensitive the response will be. The lower the number, a higher input on the physical mouse, is necessary
Mouse Sensitivity Y – same as sensitivity X, except refers to the vertical or up and down movement of the mouse. The same rules apply. In general, however, these numbers are set differently from each other. Especially when pro-gamers do it.
Mouse Targeting Sensitivity – this setting governs how sensitive your crosshairs respond to mouse movement when looking down the sights of the weapon. Its is why it is also commonly known as ADS or aim down sights. But in Fortnite, looking down the sights is different from looking through a scope.
Mouse Scope Sensitivity – this setting changes how fast your crosshairs respond to mouse movement when looking through the scope of a weapon like a sniper rifle. In most cases, players turn the sensitivity down to have more control, mainly because it zooms.
Mouse DPI – while this setting isn’t in the game itself, it is also something you should be tweaking for your taste. DPI stands for dots per inch, with the dots referring to the pixels on the screen. A mouse set at 800 DPI, for example, when moved 1 inch, will make the mouse cursor or the crosshair move 800 pixels. On average, most players and pro-players set their mouse DPI low to make the aiming much more controllable.
Polling rate – this sounds very similar to DPI or mouse sensitivity. But it is different. The polling rate dictates how many times the mouse will tell the computer its position per second. At first glance, this means that the more often the mouse reports its location, the faster and more responsive the mouse will be. And while this is true, it also means that the CPU will have a higher rate of use than if the mouse polling rate is lower.
The difference in response time is in the milliseconds. And while it doesn’t sound like a big deal at first, it is. In a game where wins and losses, life and death are by the person who pulls the trigger first, a few milliseconds difference is crucial.
HUD Scale – this sets the size of the heads up display. It is the area where you can see different bits of information, like health, ammo count, different stats, and more. Too big, and this can block off some of your views. Too small, and it makes it challenging to know essential bits of info.
Now, before proceeding to our recommendations, there is one more thing to include in the best Fortnite settings: turning off mouse acceleration.
Mouse Acceleration – mouse acceleration is an operating system’s way of making mouse usage much more comfortable and more convenient for menial tasks. It makes it so that the distance traveled by the mouse cursor, is dictated by how fast you move the physical mouse. The slower you move the mouse, the less distance the cursor travels. Whip your mouse quickly, and it will cross the screen with minimal effort.
While it may be a convenient way to browse the internet, it can be a hindrance to gaming, especially in competitive and pro-gaming. It messes with how the brain processes movement and distance. So, nearly all of the competitive and pro Fortnite gamers have this option turned off.
There are many different ways to turn off mouse acceleration, depending on your computer’s OS. In Windows, it is visible in the devices and printers portion. In Mac OSX, it will require a bit of manual coding, but it is doable. Guides on the internet make it easy to do.
In Fortnite, however, it can be quite complicated, especially since Fortnite tries to turn on mouse acceleration every time you run the game. But the extra effort is worth it, so if you want to have the best Fortnite settings, you should do this.
These are the steps to disable mouse acceleration in Fortnite:
- Go to the local AppData folder that contains the FortniteGame folder. You can easily find this by going to the C:users part of the hard drive that contains your OS. Choose your user name, then go to AppData, and then to local. If you cannot find it, you must enable the option to see hidden files in Windows Explorer. It is done by clicking “view” and allowing the “hidden items” part. In older Windows versions, right-clicking and going to folder options does the trick.
- When you enter the FortniteGame folder, you will see a file named GameUserSettings.ini. Open this file with a text editor like Notepad or Wordpad.
- Find a line that says, “bDisableMouseAcceleration=False.” Once you find it, change the “False” part to “True.” It now means mouse acceleration has been turned off.
- Save the file. Don’t make a new file if you are prompted to do so. Overwrite the GameUserSettings.ini file.
- You’re not done, however. Because the moment you open Fortnite, the game will turn mouse acceleration back on. To stop the game from doing this, go to the FortniteGame folder again. Right-click on the file and choose properties. On the window that appears, click “read-only” to turn it on. Now Fortnite won’t be able to overwrite your settings.
What Are The Best Fortnite Settings?
To be able to get the best Fortnite settings possible, a lot of things need consideration. Your hardware, for example, will dictate whether you should sacrifice visual quality for performance, or if you can handle both. Only your muscle fibers can tell you if you perform better with a higher mouse sensitivity and DPI. Only the ability of your fingers can dictate how you should bind the action keys of your keyboard.
But there are recommendations, based on how the experts and pros play Fortnite. It is their preferences that comprise the best Fortnite settings recommendations available.
Here are our recommendations that can work with high-tier and medium-tier machines:
Windowed mode – Off. Choose the Fullscreen mode. It devotes most of the machine’s resources in running the game instead of having the windows explorer ready and available.
Display resolution – 16:9 1080p (1920×1080) This gives you a full screen to play with, making you see more things that are going on.
Frame rate limit – 60 FPS. It is fast enough to make the game run smooth, but not too fast that it can cause screen tearing and can make it difficult to lock in on the action.
View distance: “Epic.” It is the highest setting possible. It will allow you to see targets and events from the farthest distance, so you can have the time to asses, aim, or retreat if needed.
Shadows – Off. Turning shadows off saves on resources and processing power. Also, the action is too fast-paced for you to care about whether or not the light should be casting shadows a certain way.
Anti-Aliasing – Off. Anti-aliasing takes up resources, especially if there’s a lot of things going on-screen, which is what tends to happen in a battle-royale scenario. Turning it off increases the performance.
Textures – Low. High-quality visuals also take up much-needed VRAM. Setting it at low increases performance noticeably.
Effects – Low. Same reason as turning Textures to Low.
Post Processing – Low. Same reason as turning Textures and Effects to Low.
Vsync – Off. It is a crucial thing to turn off and keep off, especially when playing competitively. The way Vsync works is it tells the GPU to keep a frame at bay until the display monitor is ready. It is what helps prevent screen tearing. However, the input lag happens when an input finishes at a specific frame. That frame then gets held back for a few milliseconds because your monitor isn’t ready yet. When the monitor updates a few milliseconds later, that’s the time when you finally see your input.
It may not seem much, but taking into account that other portions of your hardware could also cause input lag, minimizing it as best as possible doesn’t hurt.
Motion Blur – Off. Motion blur might look good to make the game feel more real, but it can cause difficulty in seeing details. Turning this off makes everything appear more visible.
Show FPS – On this will help in determining if you’re experiencing a frame rate drop so that you can fix it before the next game.
Mouse Sensitivity X – 0.1, Mouse Sensitivity Y – 0.1 – some pro players make their X and Y settings different. But on average, the competitive players keep it the same. It makes aiming from left to right and up to down require the same amount of effort.
Mouse Targeting Sensitivity – 0.55, Mouse Scope Sensitivity – 0.65 – these are the average settings of most competitive Fortnite players. It’s different between the two because of the nature of looking down a weapon’s sights versus looking through a scope.
Mouse DPI – 800, Polling rate – 500 Hertz – At 800 DPI, the mouse isn’t as sluggish to manipulate, but it is also not going to be too susceptible to sudden bursts of movement. 500 Hertz is also an excellent average refresh rate for a mouse’s position.
HUD Scale – 1 – No need to fiddle with the default settings.
Mouse Acceleration – Off. It is an absolute must.
Are These Really The Best Fortnite Settings?
These recommendations we made are from the average settings of competitive and pro-level Fortnite players. Your mileage may vary depending on your machine. If your GPU is not up to par, consider lowering the view distance or the resolution. If your mouse has a lower polling rate, then perhaps tweak the DPI or the sensitivities to compensate.
The best Fortnite settings will vary from player to player. For example, pro-gamer Ninja has slightly different parameters than our recommendation. Looking at the settings of the top pro-gamers in the competitive Fortnite scene is also the right way of determining which settings you should copy and get used-to.
Just remember that in the end, only you can say for yourself what the best Fortnite settings are.
