With the next-generation of consoles on the horizon, developers are looking to revolutionize the way games can be played and experienced. Among shooters, Battlefield has always been one of the standout titles but its franchise’s reputation couldn’t save Battlefield 4 from a rocky launch.
DICE put in a lot of effort to improve Battlefield 4 so that it lives up to the expectations of next-gen and ever hungry PC gamers but on the technical side of things, it is still far from smooth at the moment.
If you are experiencing crashes, bugs and other technical issues, you can read our Crashes, Errors and Workarounds article.
Battlefield 4 Tweaks
Improvements in graphics and visuals mean you are going to need better PCs to run it. What if you don’t have PC that can run the game that smoothly? What to do? Well, you shouldn’t be worried as we have some tweaks for you that will improve Battlefield 4 experience on your PC.
Before you go on and try out these tweaks, make sure that you have backup of your files so that if you screw up, you can go back and replace the bugged files.
Note that the CVARS (command variables) mentioned in this guide are safe and won’t get you kicked by Punkbuster.
In-Game Settings Tweaks
Most of you might know about these setting already but if you are new to the series and you want optimal performance out of your machine, use the following parameters as such:
- Turn down post processing. It’s resource hungry feature and you will observe a major difference after turning it down.
- Try using FXAA over MSAA. This change can give you a slight boost in FPS.
- Optimally turn off AA. Antialiasing is heavy on hardware. It does make the objects look smoother but if your PC isn’t powerful enough, you may want to disable it for better performance.
- Set Mesh quality to medium. It actually affects the rendering of distant objects. It can be a useful feature in a game like BF4 but again, if the resources are the issue, you should reduce it to medium.
- Turn VSYNC off to reduce input lag. It will make the game run smoother. I don’t think screen tearing is really an issue in BF4.
- Disable depth of field. You will loose some eye candy but it will make the rendering smoother and system lags will be reduced.
- Lower the texture quality if graphics card has a low quantity of VRAM. It’s a hit and trial thing. Alter this setting depending on your GPU’s strength. If the change does not make any difference, keep it turned on.
Note: If your in-game settings are for some reason greyed out, go to
C:\Users\URNAME\Documents\Battlefield 4\settings\PROFSAVE_profile
and open the
PROFSAVE_profile
file in notepad. Search for GstRender.OverallGraphicsQuality, and change the value from “0” to “5”. Save the file and launch Battlefield 4. You should be able to change the settings now.
Config Tweaks to Increase FPS
FPS are crucial in first person games and Battlefield 4 is no different. Fortunately, with the level of freedom we have with Frostbite engine, we can use some tweaks to get optimal FPS.
First, you need to create a user.cfg in your Battlefield 4 main installation directory. It’s basically a text file (notepad file) where you can enter your custom CVARS so that they are activated whenever you launch the game. The command variables (CVARS) in the file that should be put in the user.cfg are:
GameTime.MaxVariableFps 60
PostProcess.DynamicAOEnable 0
RenderDevice.Dx11Enable 0
RenderDevice.ForceRenderAheadLimit 1
RenderDevice.TripleBufferingEnable 0
WorldRender.DxDeferredCsPathEnable 0
WorldRender.FxaaEnable 0
WorldRender.MotionBlurEnable 0
WorldRender.SpotLightShadowmapEnable 0
WorldRender.SpotLightShadowmapResolution 256
WorldRender.TransparencyShadowmapsEnable 0
These tweaks will boost FPS on your PC. Do note that in order to boost FPS we are disable a lot of visual eye candy, so if you have a top-notch PC, you can ignore these.
How to Check FPS In-Game
It’s quite simple. You need to open the console command prompt by pressing the “~” key on your keyboard. Once the command prompt is opened, enter the following command into it:
perfoverlay.drawfps 1
If you want these FPS to be shown permanently, you need to add the aforementioned command in your user.cfg.
How to Reduce Input Lag
If you are experiencing Input lag related, you should first go to C:\Users\URNAME\Documents\Battlefield 4\settings\PROFSAVE_profile and open this file using notepad. Now press Ctrl+F and find the following command line:
GstInput.Deadzone 0.000000
Change the value to zero and save the file. This should fix any input lag you may experience in Battlefield 4.
Battlefield 4 Latency Tweaks
High latency can literally take all the fun out of the game. A little optimization in this section will help you improve the experience. The network smoothing factor will look like this:
Default (mid = 50ms)
Low (far left = 0ms)
High = (far right =100ms)
If you go with the low (0ms) value, you may have lesser latency but that will affect animations. Although, it’s worth of a shot but I won’t recommend it. I will suggest that you keep this value to your normal game’s ping to keep a good balance between latency and animations.
How to Change Mouse Sensitivity
Although, you can change it in-game but if you are looking for micromanagement, you can do it by editing the PROSAVE_profile in your documents. You need to find the following parameter in the file:
GstInput.MouseSensitivity 0.030000
You can change the value as you desire.
PROSAVE_porfile Settings You Can Tweak
There are tons of other settings you can tweak in the file which are as follows:
GstAudio.AudioLanguage 0
GstAudio.AudioQuality 1
GstAudio.CarRadio 0
GstAudio.DialogueVolume 0.700000
GstAudio.MicrophoneVolume 0.500000
GstAudio.MusicVolume 0.700000
GstAudio.SoundSystemSize 20
GstAudio.StereoMode 0
GstAudio.VOIPVolume 0.500000
GstAudio.VOLanguage 0
GstAudio.VoipOn 1
GstAudio.VoipVolumeReduce 1
GstAudio.Volume 1.000000
GstAudio.YourSoundSystem 2
GstRender.AmbientOcclusion 2
GstRender.AnisotropicFilter 4
GstRender.AntiAliasingDeferred 0
GstRender.AntiAliasingPost 3
GstRender.Brightness 0.500000
GstRender.ColorBlindMode 0
GstRender.ConsoleAntiAlias 1
GstRender.Contrast 0.500000
GstRender.EffectsQuality 2
GstRender.Enlighten 1
GstRender.FieldOfView 70.000000
GstRender.FullscreenEnabled 1
GstRender.FullscreenMode 1
GstRender.FullscreenScreen 0
GstRender.HUDScale 0.600000
GstRender.LightingQuality 2
GstRender.MeshQuality 2
GstRender.MotionBlur 0.500000
GstRender.MotionBlurEnabled 1
GstRender.OverallGraphicsQuality 0
GstRender.PostProcessQuality 2
GstRender.ResolutionHeight 0
GstRender.ResolutionHertz 0
GstRender.ResolutionScale 1.000000
GstRender.ResolutionWidth 0
GstRender.ScreenSafeAreaHeight 1.000000
GstRender.ScreenSafeAreaWidth 1.000000
GstRender.ShaderQuality 2.000000
GstRender.ShadowQuality 2
GstRender.StereoConvergence 1.000000
GstRender.Stereoscopy 0
GstRender.TerrainQuality 2
GstRender.TextureFiltering 2
GstRender.TextureQuality 2
GstRender.TransparentShadows 1
GstRender.UndergrowthQuality 2
GstRender.VSyncEnabled 0
GstRender.WeaponDOF 1
GstInput.Deadzone 0.300000
GstInput.FreelookSensitivity 0.500000
GstInput.HeadtrackingEnabled 1
GstInput.HoldButtonToZoom 1
GstInput.HoldForBreathControl 1
GstInput.InputMethod 0
GstInput.IsRightHanded 1
GstInput.LeaningEnabled 0
GstInput.LeaningSensitivity 0.500000
GstInput.MouseRawInput 1
GstInput.MouseSensitivity 0.030000
GstInput.MouseSensitivityVehicle 0.300000
GstInput.Scheme0Buttons 0
GstInput.Scheme0FlipCameraY 0
GstInput.Scheme0FlipY 0
GstInput.Scheme0Sensitivity 1.000000
GstInput.Scheme0Sticks 0
GstInput.Scheme1Buttons 0
GstInput.Scheme1FlipCameraY 0
GstInput.Scheme1FlipY 0
GstInput.Scheme1Sensitivity 1.000000
GstInput.Scheme1Sticks 0
GstInput.Scheme2Buttons 0
GstInput.Scheme2FlipCameraY 0
GstInput.Scheme2FlipY 0
GstInput.Scheme2Sensitivity 1.000000
GstInput.Scheme2Sticks 0
GstInput.Scheme3Buttons 0
GstInput.Scheme3FlipCameraY 0
GstInput.Scheme3FlipY 0
GstInput.Scheme3Sticks 0
GstInput.SpeechRecognitionDialect 0
GstInput.SpeechRecognitionEnabled 1
GstInput.VehicleFreelook 1
GstInput.Vibration 1
Most of the variables above are self-explanatory. General rule is, increase the value to improve visuals and decrease the value to improve performance.
Reduce Long Loading Times
If you experience unusually large loading times, you try out the following fix:
First, open your start menu and then open the “run” box.
Type “regedit” in it to open the registry editor.
Now, you need to navigate here:
HKEY LOCAL MACHINE/SOFTWARE/WoW6432Node/EA Games
You need to change the GDFBinary & InstallDir paths to C:Program Files (x86)Origin GamesBattlefield 4.
How to Change Field of View
Field of View is an important element of gameplay and its choice is also different amongst various players. Most of the game engines allow FOV to be customized.
In Battlefield 4, if you want to change the FOV, you need to find the following command in the PROSAVE_profile:
GstRender.FieldOfView 70.000000
As you can see, the default value has been set to 70. That seems fine to me but if you want alter it, you can change the value accordingly.
