If you’re wondering how to get the maximum FPS out of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and retain the good looks of the game, you’ll want to change the PC settings for quality, view, and display. So, here are the best settings for PC players on MW2, with a quick explanation of each.
These days, new PC games come with countless video settings to tinker with, and while some might be self-explanatory, you may be scratching your head as to what FidelityFX CAS is, and other confusingly named settings.
To help, here are the best PC settings for Modern Warfare 2, to ensure you get a buttery smooth frame rate no matter what GPU you have, while still keeping the game looking as good as possible while you play.
Alternatively, if you’re looking to enhance your experience in Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2, here are the best weapons and loadouts that can give the best results in-game.
Best PC settings on MW2 for max FPS
For a fast-paced shooter like Modern Warfare 2, you’ll want to make sure you’re harnessing your GPU for the most frames per second possible, even if that comes at the expense of some shadows and reflections.
But, some graphical settings can be beneficial on a higher setting from a gameplay perspective, so you don’t want to simply turn everything to ‘low’ and call it a day. Here are the best settings to use.
Display Settings for Modern Warfare 2
- Display Mode: Fullscreen Exclusive – Best for latency reduction
- Display Monitor: Choose your primary display with the highest refresh rate
- Display Adapter: This is just your graphics card
- Screen Refresh rate: Maximum for your monitor (144hz, 240hz, etc.)
- Display Resolution: Set this to 1080p – If you have a very high-end GPU, you could use 1440p, but 1080p will be better for FPS. 4K is not recommended as it will significantly impact FPS.
- Dynamic Resolution: Off – this can change the resolution of the game at unexpected moments, which can be distracting
- Aspect Ratio: Automatic (16:9)
- V-Sync Gameplay: Off – V-Sync on can cause increased latency
- V-Sync Menu: Off
- Custom Frame Rate Limit: Custom
- Gameplay Custom Frame Rate Limit: 300
- Menu Custom Frame Rate Limit: 90
- Out of focus Custom Frame Rate Limit: 30
- Display Gamma: 2.2 (sRGB)
- Brightness: Preference
- Focus Mode: Off
Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest updates on Esports, Gaming and more.
Quality Settings
- Quality Presets: Custom
- Render Resolution: 100
- Upscaling / Sharpening: FidelityFX CAS (Note: A bug may reset this option for some players)
- FidelityFX CAS Strength: 65 – This will make the game sharper without impacting FPS much at all.
- Anti-Aliasing: SMAA T2X
- Anti-Aliasing Quality: Normal – Setting this to Low will improve FPS marginally, but the quality improvement of Normal is probably worth it.
- Video Memory Scale: 90 – You want to use the max VRAM available.
- Texture Resolution: Normal
- Texture Filter Anisotropic: High – FPS barely affected by this higher setting
- Nearby Level of Detail: Low
- Distant Level of Detail: High – Optimized for gameplay experience
- Clutter Draw Distance: Short
- Particle Quality: High – High can improve performance, will almost never reduce FPS
- Particle Quality Level: Low
- Bullet Impacts & Sprays: On – Important for multiplayer gameplay
- Shader Quality: Medium
- Tessellation: Off
- Terrain Memory: Max
- On-Demand Texture Streaming: Off
- Streaming Quality: Low
- Volumetric Quality: Low
- Deferred Physics Quality: Low – Only affects water
- Water Caustics: Off – Only affects water
- Shadow Map Resolution: Low
- Spot Shadow Quality: Low
- Cache Spot Shadows: On
- Spot Cache: Low
- Cache Sun Shadows: On
- Particle Lighting: Low
- Ambient Occlusion: Off
- Screen Space Reflections: Off
- Static Reflection Quality: Low
- Weather Grid Volumes: Off
- Nvidia Reflex Low Latency: On – Significantly improves latency. If you are CPU-bound, use the ON+BOOST option.
- Depth of Field: Off
- World Motion Blur: Off
- Weapon Motion Blur: Off
- Film Grain: 0.00
View
- Field of View: 100–110 – This is up to you, but around 100 should give the best balance between visibility and performance. Higher values also make distant enemies harder to see.
- ADS Field of View: Affected
- Weapon Field of View: Default
- 3rd Person Field of View: 80-100
- Vehicle Field of View: Default
- 1st Person Camera Movement: Least (50%)
- 3rd Person Camera Movement: Least (50%)
- 3rd Person ADS Transition: Your Preference
- Default Spectator Camera: Your Preference
Those are the best Modern Warfare 2 settings on PC, in order to maximize your FPS while still enjoying good graphical fidelity and no gameplay disadvantages.
Of course, one obvious way to also increase your FPS is to get a more powerful graphics card, so check out our list of the best GPUs here. You should also make sure you have the latest graphics drivers installed.
Modern Warfare 2 also has a built-in benchmark tool, so you can tweak your settings and select the benchmark playlist to test the results.
So, there you have it — that was a rundown of some of the best MW2 settings on PC. For more on Modern Warfare 2, be sure to check out our other guides:
Modern Warfare 2 new equipment guide: Lethals and Tacticals explained | How to Slide Cancel in Modern Warfare 2 | How to unlock Oni Operator & Blueprint in Modern Warfare 2 | All Modern Warfare 2 Killstreaks | What is Modern Warfare 2 Spec Ops mode? | All Modern Warfare 2 perks | All Modern Warfare 2 Field Upgrades