Overwatch Video Settings you should Enable, Disable or Tweak – Best Overwatch Competitive Play Video Settings

As requested, this post is an addition to the overwatch pro settings and setups article we released.

We spoke about monitors, mice and  keyboards aswell as peripherals last time. If you are interested in checking them out, personally we use a BenQ XL2411Z monitor, a Razer Deathadder mouse and a KBC Poker 3 keyboard. This time around we focus more on the specific video settings in overwatch. 

Overwatch’s competitive play will be released at the end of this month. Now comes the important question – how will you optimize your video settings until competitive play comes out?

We did some research aswell as some in-game testing to provide you with the answer. The idea is to present you guys with the best optimized Overwatch competitive play video settings. After dealing with these un-fun things you can get back to shooting people in the head.

RESOLUTION  –  Set it to your monitor’s best resolution and refresh rate (Hz).

FIELD OF VIEW  –  Higher field of view results in wider vision to your right and left.

ASPECT RATIO  –  Use 16:9 since you will give up field of view to your left and right when on 16:10 – no effect on FPS.

VSYNC  –  Reduces screen tearing in trade of input lag – Only turn on if screen tearing is unbearable.

TRIPLE BUFFERING  –  Turn on only in combination with Vsync and having screen tearing and/or stuttering issues. Can cause control latency issues and/or input lag.

LIMIT FPS –  Turn off so you have the highest FPS your setup is able to produce. Reason to always aim for the highest FPS you can get is here. Only worth setting to display based when your FPS is fluctuating enormously.

GRAPHICS QUALITY  –  Refers to the following Settings.

RENDER SCALE  –  100% – Anything below looks pixellated, go lower only if you have no other settings to tweak. Should you go above 100% your FPS will decline drastically and the difference isn’t overly noticeable.

TEXTURE QUALITY  –  Turning it up all the way doesn’t make a noticeable quality difference in-game. On top of that you will drop more FPS. Keeping it on medium will give you decent looking textures without crippling your FPS. If you still need more FPS switch it to low, textures will look heavily pixellated.

TEXTURE FILTERING QUALITY  –  Change in quality not actually noticeable. When you raise it up you get a roughly 4% FPS reduction. Keep it at low – 1x.

LOCAL FOG DETAIL  –  Do you want less FPS and Fog blocking your vision?

DYNAMIC REFLECTIONS  –  Roughly 20% lower FPS when turned up. Gives no kind of advantage when used. Disable it.

SHADOW DETAIL  –  You can’t turn off shadows in Overwatch. What you can do is disable Shadow Detail. This will raise your FPS by around 30%. Shadows don’t look as detailed but the FPS yield is well worth it. But shadows of enemies only start to show when you turn Shadow Detail to atleast low. If you care about potentially seeing enemies who are around corners earlier because of their shadows then put Shadow Detail on low. Since seeing shadow of enemies is not to be taken lightly in a competitive environment the reccomended value of Shadow Detail is set on low.

MODEL DETAIL  –  Everything beyond low model detail, bushes appear in certain parts of the maps. They deter your line of sight, so put it at low. You will also have slighty more FPS.

EFFECTS DETAIL  –  Effects will still be clearly visible at low settings. Free FPS without giving up crucial information about the enemy.

LIGHTING QUALITY  –  Overwatch’s forced bloom is already really high. If you increase the Lighting Quality on top of that you will get blinded when looking at light or the parts that are covered by light. Turning it to low also boosts your FPS.

ANTIALIAS QUALITY  –  Smoother edges – FXAA is recommended since you will only experience a 3% FPS loss. In contrary to the other options, they diminish your FPS by around 10%-13%. If you still want more FPS turn it off completely, edges will look pretty bad though.

REFRACTION QUALITY  –  Refraction quality refers to the quality of light when it bends as it passes through specific conditions or objects you can see through. Because of Overwatch’s forced bloom most people have to squint in-game when looking at light or at areas that are covered by light. Since you don’t want to wear sunglasses when playing Overwatch you should lower it as much as possible. Your FPS will also rise a little bit.

SCREENSHOT QUALITY  –  Related to the quality of screenshots you take in-game.

LOCAL REFLECTIONS  –  No noticeable change except a 5% FPS loss when looking at reflections. Turn Off.

AMBIENT OCCLUSION  –  Adds a certain depth to shadows and lighting in general. Lessens FPS by roughly 15% when turned on. More FPS, so it is worth turning off.

Thanks for reading!

TL;DR Use the settings in the pictures when you want decent looking graphics while still having the highest amount of FPS possible. If you still have trouble with FPS after that, read through the article and alter some settings.