Best Escape From Tarkov Settings – 0.12.12 Patch

Escape from Tarkov is growing in popularity thanks to its rugged hardcore gameplay and realistic gun mechanics.  One thing holding Escape From Tarkov back though is its poor optimisation.  Luckily, that is where I come in to try and help you guys out.

I have created this quick guide after lots of testing to show you what I found to be the best Escape from Tarkov settings for squeezing out as much fps as possible.

Unless of course, you play shoreline in which case, good luck.

Jokes aside, I have a fair amount of hours in the game and I have done a lot of tinkering around to try and get my settings to be as optimal as possible.  This provides me with a balance between good visuals and solid performance.

Escape From Tarkov streamer settings you ask?

There is a section towards the end of the guide that includes a few of the popular streamer’s settings.  Check that out if your interested in Sequisha, Deadly Slob, Klean, Smoke or Kotton’s Escape from Tarkov settings.

So if you are are interested in grabbing a few more frames in Tarkov follow the simple steps below.

Before I get into the settings here are my pc specifications:

Remember that the settings I am about to show you have been tweaked a lot so that they give me the best performance using this rig.

This is important as your rig might be better or worse and you should change the settings in line with what your specifications can handle. I will try to give you a few hints and tips on certain settings that I think are important.

Please remember these are just guidelines and the game is not completely optimised so they might not work as well for you.

Lets get stuck into the guide so we can squeeze out as much FPS out of your rig as possible!

Best Escape From Tarkov Settings Step by Step

I am going to go into more detail as some of the settings in Escape from Tarkov have a few quirks that should be taken into account.

First things first, please complete the following step as it could give you a small performance boost.

1. Open up a windows explorer window.
2. Navigate to where you installed Escape From Tarkov. This is usually in your program files.
3. From there right click BsgLauncher -> Compatibility Settings ->
4. Under Settings ensure the ‘Override high DPI scaling behaviour’ checkbox is checked and ‘disable full-screen optimisations’ is checked. Some of you may not have these settings which is fine, just select the ones you do have.
5. Click Apply.

Screen Resolution & Aspect Ratio – Native

Screen resolution and aspect ratio do not require much discussion, these should be set to your native display settings.  If you are really struggling for FPS you can try and turn the resolution below your monitor’s native resolution.

Just remember that by doing this you are greatly sacrificing visual quality and fidelity so it is a significant trade-off.

Vsync – OFF

Vsync is not required since it can cause input lag. If your graphics card cannot produce the frame rate that matches your monitors refresh rate then Vsync will knock your frame rate down by half to ensure your frames are synced.

Whether you are playing Escape From Tarkov or any FPS game you should never have VSYNC turned on.  The input lag in creates can set you at a significant disadvantage.

Overall Graphics Quality – Medium

In the testing I have done there doesn’t seem to be a huge difference between high and ultra. There is a little extra gun fidelity and slightly crisper image overall but I don’t think it is worth the drop in performance.

Switching to ultra has given me huge FPS drops compared to high and especially medium. My rig isn’t really powerful enough for ultra anyway so it doesn’t necessarily apply to me as much.

Be aware that if you change this slider, it will change all your other settings since these are presets. So be careful when changing these after you have gone and customised all your settings.

Texture Quality – Medium/High

This comes down to personal preference. If you want maximum FPS possible then put this to low. I think the game looks great so I like to put this on high. I also think putting textures and shadows to low makes it easier to see people and bodies.

Shadows Quality – Medium/High

The higher your shadows the harder it is to see players in shadowed or dark areas. If you want pure FPS and visibility then turn shadows down. I like medium as it is a balance between visibility, quality and performance.

UPDATE

It feels as though BattleState Games have changed this and that setting shadows on low doesn’t make much difference towards seeing players.  I would still recommend leaving this on medium.

Object LOD Quality – 2

LOD or level of detail is where an object’s mesh is less dense the further away that object is from the player. It is supposed to improve rendering performance. I have had the most success setting this at 2. I don’t think it is worth increasing it regardless of your rig.

Overall Visibility – 1000

Overall visibility is fairly self-explanatory but I would recommend not having this up to the maximum. I initially had it on max but it feels like it has too much impact on my rig so I have it on a nice middle ground.

If you have it on max it will render out lots of additional objects that are really far away.  Unless you are rocking an RTX then I really don’t see the point in having this anywhere above 2000.  1000 is probably more than enough though.

Shadow Visibility – 100

Shadow visibility basically dictates how far you have to be before shadows start to disappear.  This makes a lot of difference

HBAO – Off

HBAO or Horizon-Based Ambient Occlusion is basically a better version of the SSAO (screen space ambient occlusion).  It makes the game look more realistic but eats up resources so turn it off.

SSR – Off

Screen Space Reflections are reflections that are created from what is in view of the player’s screen. Turn this off, it isn’t worth having it on.

Antistropic Filtering – Off

Anisotropic Filtering affects how sharp textures look at a distance, especially textures that viewed from tight angles. I like to have this on as I find some things in Escape from Tarkov can look a bit ‘off’. For the best FPS results you should turn it off but I haven’t noticed it having too much of an impact.

Antialiasing – Off

Antialiasing has been improved even further with the new patch.  I recommend setting it to TAA High if your rig can handle it as it really improves the visuals of the game and removes that ‘jagged edge’ look that Tarkov has.

If you notice frame drops at TAA you will need to turn it down slightly as this setting is demanding.

Sharpen – 0.4

I have played around with the sharpen setting a lot and have settled at around 0.4. I don’t think this affects FPS at all so just use whatever you feel looks best.

Lobby FPS Limit – 60

Obviously, this one isn’t really going to affect your in-game FPS performance.  However, if you overclock your CPU and GPU then you could actually limit this below 60 if you wanted to give your components a break while you Tetris out your stash.

If you have adequate cooling then this won’t make much difference anyway.

Game FPS Limit – MAX

Please don’t have this anything below the max that is available.  At the moment this is 120 FPS so keep it at that.  This means that if your CPU and graphics card can handle the game then you will be guaranteed at least 120 FPS.

You want the most FPS possible right?  Leave it at max.

Z-Blur – Off

Z-Blur is basically the blurring of an image when turning your head or sprinting. I would recommend turning this off as it doesn’t provide any advantage to have it on in the first place.

Chromatic Abberations – Off

Turn this off, it adds unnecessary noise to your image clarity and provides no benefit. It can only help to turn it off if you don’t want the image blur.

Noise – Off

Noise adds the ‘film grain’ effect to your image. Therefore I recommend turning it off as it does nothing but decrease your image clarity which can be important towards spotting players.

Grass Shadows – Off

This just adds visual noise making it harder to spot people prone.

Extra Tips to Improve Performance And Visuals

I am going to try and constantly update this section with different methods to try and improve your performance.  There are a lot of suggestions out there on Reddit and the like that can have a positive impact.  If you have any please comment below and I will add it here.

Don’t Put Textures On Low

I haven’t seen it 100% confirmed by Battlestate but a lot of people state that if you put your textures and shadow to low the game starts to request more resources from your CPU.

This can mean that you end up not getting the most out of your graphics card.  If you have a higher tier graphics card compared to your CPU this will greatly hinder your performance and FPS.

I would recommend always having the textures and shadows on medium or high.

Disable Flux Slow Transitioning

If you have Flux installed on your machine please disable the slow transitioning setting.  If you don’t know what Flux is then you are missing out!  Check out Flux here.  For more information on how to do this you can check my guide I wrote on how flux affects your fps.

High Can Be Better Than Low

There is a well-known issue regarding some GTX cards and Escape From Tarkov.  Some people actually experience better performance on higher settings than low.  So it is worth trying to crank your settings up and compare or benchmark your findings.

Best Settings For Visibility

If you want the very best visibility then remember to turn your shadows down medium.  Also, ensure that you follow the settings I have explained above regarding smoothing edges and reducing noise and blur on the screen to improve your image quality.

The noise and blur effects just create a less crisp image which makes it harder for me to see people I find.

Overclock Your CPU & GPU

This is more general advice but if you have an unlocked CPU you really need to overclock it providing you have adequate cooling.

If you don’t overclock then you are losing value from your components that you have paid for.  There are lots of guides on how to overclock that you can find online as this exceeds the scope of this article.

Escape from Tarkov is fairly CPU intensive so you benefit significantly from more CPU resources.

Get More RAM

Escape From Tarkov is a highly RAM intensive game.  Upgrading my RAM was one of the most significant changes I did to upgrade my overall performance.  Obviously upgrading your GPU or CPU would do even more but these are more expensive options.

If you want a fairly ‘budget’ upgrade then adding an extra stick of RAM is a great choice.  I would only recommend this if you are currently running Tarkov with only 8GB of RAM.

The extra 8GB of RAM is a great upgrade particularly if you are playing Tarkov for long sessions due its memory leak issues.  This leads me nicely onto an alternative if you can’t afford a new RAM stick.

Use A Memory Cleaner

I haven’t used this method myself as I have 16GB of RAM so don’t need it.  Tarkov now also has its own memory cleaner setting in the options menu you can try.  There are alternative third party memory cleaners though.

Many players on the subreddit have had good experiences with this particular cleaner.  There is also this alternative.

As I say I haven’t used these myself so I can’t comment on their effectiveness.  Definitely check out the Escape From Tarkov subreddit for guides and feedback on these tools.

To reiterate you don’t need a memory cleaner if you have 16GB of RAM.

Streamer Escape From Tarkov Settings

Here are a few screenshots of some of the most popular Escape From Tarkov streamers.  Remember these settings are for their setup so bare that in mind when copying them.

Sequisha Escape Tarkov Settings

Deadly Slob Tarkov Settings

Klean Tarkov Settings

Kotton Tarkov Settings

Kotton also said that the ‘set process afinity to logical cores’ setting caused him to lag and have frame drops more often so he doesn’t have that enabled.

Smoke Tarkov Settings

Conclusion

So there you have it my quick and easy guide for the best Escape from Tarkov settings. Hopefully, you will see a tiny increase in your performance as that makes writing this post worthwhile.  Don’t forget to sign up to my mailing list in the sidebar so you receive instant updates to my guide as new patches roll out.

Let me know anything you have done to improve your performance in the comments below.

See you in Tarkov. Cheeki Breeki.