Call of Duty MW2 Settings for FPS and Competitive Play

Display Settings

• Display Mode: Borderless Fullscreen-No impact in frames per second or input lag compared to Fullscreen Exclusive;
  -Better option for overall system usage;
  -Recommend enabling “Optimization for windowed games” and “Hardware accelerated GPU scheduling” in Windows settings.
• Display Monitor: Any-Your preference.
• Display Adapter: Any-Select your most powerful graphics card;
  -Recommend checking if monitor’s HDMI/DP cable is connected to the graphics card input instead of the motherboard.
• Screen Refresh Rate: Any-Your preference;
  -If Borderless Fullscreen is selected, the game will use what you configured in Windows.
• Display Resolution: Any-Your preference;
  -Recommend chosing around 1920×1080~2560×1440~3840×2160;
  -If Borderless Fulscreen is selected, the game will use what you configured in Windows;
  -Impacts frames per second.
• Dynamic Resolution: On – Greatly increases frames per second;
  -Worsens the edges of objects and image quality overall;
  -Completely unnoticeable when combined with SMAA T2X Cinematic and FidelityFX CAS;
  -Recommend setting 5 above your frame limit, or 300.
• Aspect Ratio: Any – Your preference;
  -Recommend tweaking if you notice stretched or compressed images.
• V-Sync (Gameplay): Off – Better input lag.
• V-Sync (Menus): Off – Better input lag;
  -It also applies to Shooting Range.
• Custom Frame Rate Limit: Custom-Your preference;
  -Menu Custom Frame Rate Limit also applies to Shooting Range;
  -Recommend setting Out of Focus Custom Frame Rate Limit to 5.
• Restart Shader Optimization: Select-Good to occasionally select, specially after game/system/driver updates, and after tweaking graphic settings.
• Display Gamma: 2.2(SRGB)-Better option for monitors;
  -Improves color accuracy.
• Brightness: Any-Your preference;
  -Recommend not setting too dark or too bright.
• Focused Mode: Any-Your Preference.
• High Dynamic Range (HDR): On-Couldn’t test it;
  -Improves color accuracy.
• HDR Calibration: Select
  – Good to select, improves color accuracy.

Quality Settings

• Quality Presets: Custom
• Render Resolution:100-Recommend setting 100~90;
  -Increases frame per second if below 100.
• Upscaling / Sharpening:FidelityFX CAS-Recommend setting 50~75, decreases around 1 frame per second;
  -Recommend FSR Ultra, which increases frame per second;
  -Recommend DLSS, but couldn’t test it.
• Anti-Aliasing:SMAA T2X Cinematic-Vastly better than SMAA T2X;
  -Decreases around 1 frame per second;
  -Seems to improve graining issues.
• Anti-Aliasing Quality:Low-Almost no difference between low and high;
  -High decreases around 1 frame per second.
• Video Memory Scale:85-Recommend 85 for multitasking;
  -Recommend 90 if you only open the game, or if your graphics card is old.
• Texture Resolution:High-Noticeably better than Normal, even at 1920×1080;
  -Increases image quality a lot;
  -No impact in frames per second, if your graphics card is 6GB.
• Texture Filter Anisotropic:High-Eliminates blur from textures at some angles;
  -No impact in frames per second.
• Nearby Level Of Detail:Any-Can’t see a difference in graphics quality even at higher settings;
  -No impact in frames per second even at higher settings.
• Distant Level Of Detail:Any-Can’t see a difference in graphics quality even at higher settings;
  -No impact in frames per second even at higher settings.
• Clutter Draw Distance:Any-Can’t see a difference in graphics quality even at higher settings;
  -No impact in frames per second even at higher settings.
• Particle Quality:High-Fixes particle pixelation;
  -No impact in frames per second.
• Particle Quality Level:Low-Very Low cuts too much particles;
  -Low decreases around 5~20 frames per second, depending on the explosion.
• Bullet Impacts & Sprays:Any-Your preference;
  -No impact in frames per second.
• Persistent Damage Layer:On-Seems to improve around 2 frames per second;
  -Creates destruction effects on walls that don’t go away, for example peeling paint from the wall, will remain until the end of the matches.
• Shader Quality:Low-Noticeable decrease in graphics quality, but Low is enough;
  -Gold is nice in Low quality now;
  -High decreases around 7 frames per second.
• Tesselation:Any-Can’t see a difference in graphics quality even at higher settings;
  -No impact in frames per second even at higher settings.
• Terrain Memory:Max-Seems to improve around 3 frames per second at Max;
  -No apparent change in graphics quality;
  -There is a bug in this setting that after you save it appears blank, but the “Max” effect is still applied in the game.
• On-Demand Texture Streaming:On-Fixes weapon and player textures blurriness;
  -No impact in frames per second.
• Streaming Quality:Any-Can’t see a difference in graphics quality even at higher settings;
  -No impact in frames per second even at higher settings.
• Volumetric Quality:Low-Low is already enough;
  -High decreases around 13 frames per second.
• Deferred Physics Quality:Off-Off is already enough;
  -Low is horrible, water waves stop abruptly in a circle around you;
  -High decreases around 15 frames per second.
• Water Caustics:Off-Off is already enough;
  -Almost no difference with it On or Off;
  -On decreases around 2 frames per second.
• Shadow Map Resolution:Very Low-High fixes shadow pixelation, but you can only see shadow pixelation when you’re super close from your own shadow;
  -99% of the time you can’t even see a difference between High and Very Low;
  -Extremely noticeable worsening of shadow pixelation at Very Low on the new Shipment map, while other maps looks completely fine in VERY LOW;
  -High decreases around 6 frames per second compared to Very Low.
• Screen Space Shadows:High-Off creates fake, but sharp shadows and lighting in weapon and player hands;
  -No impact in frames per second even at higher settings;
  -High creates more real, but grainy shadows and lighting, but not too much grainy so I can recommend it.
• Spot Shadow Quality:High-Fixes grainy rooms;
  -No impact in frames per second.
• Spot Cache:Any-Can’t see a difference in graphics quality even at higher settings;
  -No impact in frames per second even at higher settings.
• Particle Lighting:Any-Can’t see a difference in graphics quality even at higher settings;
  -No impact in frames per second even at higher settings.
• Ambient Occlusion:Off-Can’t see a difference in graphics quality even at higher settings;
  -Both Ultra decreases 5 frames per second.
• Screen Space Reflections:Off-Fake, but sharp reflections;
  -Higher settings creates more real, but grainy reflections;
  -High decreases 1 frame per second.
• Static Reflection Quality:High-Sharper reflections;
  -No impact in frames per second even at higher settings.
• Weather Grid Volumes:Off-Can’t see a difference in graphics quality even at higher settings;
  -Ultra decreases 1 frame per second;
  -Previously appeared to add wet effect when diving, but is no longer doing this.
• Nvidia Reflex Low Latency:On + Boost-Improves input lag;
  -Can increase frames per second.
• Depth Of Field:Any-Your preference;
  -No impact in frames per second.
• World Motion Blur:Any-Your preference;
  -No impact in frames per second;
  -Can create an illusion of higher frame rate than it actually is;
  -Enabling this option has been reported to fix freezes when jumping out of the plane in Warzone.
• Weapon Motion Blur:Any-Your preference;
  -No impact in frames per second;
  -Can create an illusion of higher frame rate than it actually is;
  -Enabling this option has been reported to fix freezes when jumping out of the plane in Warzone.
• Film Grain:0.00-Decreases 1 frame per second if above 0.00.

Fix CPU core usage in-game

• Go to your “Documents\Call of Duty\players” folder;
• Open “options.3.cod22.cst” with a text editor;

Press CTRL + F to search for “Thread”, and you should find something in the lines “RendererWorkerCount:0.0 = “?” // -1 to 16″;Where “?” you edit to the amount of cores your CPU actually has, if you don’t know yours, just open Task Manager, go to Performance tab and click CPU, there you should see the amount of cores your CPU has;This tweak improves around 5 up to 20 frames per second, depending on how wrong the CPU core count was before.It may not be beneficial to change this settings in the file if your CPU is from Intel.

Finally…

Here’s the best Modern Warfare II setup I could come up with. The aim was not to make it visually stunning, if that’s what you’re after, just set everything to ultra. The objective was to achieve the highest frame rate without sacrificing visual quality (i.e. without making the game look broken, blurry or grainy). If you still want to increase the frame rate, there’s no magic trick, simply lower the graphics settings. To further boost your frame rate, I suggest checking out the rendering settings for your Nvidia/AMD/Intel graphics card, as there are many adjustments you can make to improve the frame rate without affecting image quality.

Last Updated on February 3, 2023