The official system requirements for Borderlands 3, according to Gearbox, are as follows:

Minimum System Specifications (1080p Gaming):

• CPU: AMD FX-8350 or Intel i5-3570
• Graphics Card: AMD Radeon HD 7970 or Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 2GB
• RAM: 6GB
• Storage Space: 75 GB
• DirectX: 11+
• OS: Windows 7/8/10 (latest service pack)

Recommended System Specifications (1440p Gaming):

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 2600 or Intel i7-4770
• Graphics Card: AMD Radeon RX 590 or Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 6GB
• RAM: 16GB
• Storage Space: 75 GB
• DirectX: 11+
• OS: Windows 7/8/10 (latest service pack)

At first glance it might seem like you can run Borderlands 3 on a potato, but the recommended specs don’t necessarily reflect the reality of playing at a minimum of 60 FPS. In order to achieve a the maximally solid experience with high frame rates, settings, and maybe even resolution, you’ll need a somewhat better rig.

It should be noted that different parts of the game will require more processing and graphics power—other parts will require less. We’ve used some relatively early parts of the game to provide comparison shots in the settings guide below, but later environments might impact performance differently. This is the main reason we provide a range of FPS percentage changes you might expect. Put simply, these FPS percentages should provide a baseline of what you can expect each setting to bring about. Your results might be a tad different.

These builds should provide adequate graphics and processing power for playing Borderlands 3 at 60+ FPS at 1080p, 1440p, or 4K resolution.

If you don’t know what resolution you want to play at (or for a comparison of each resolution), check out our monitor resolution explanation page.

If you’re unsure what frame rates you should be aiming for, need to know what frame rate means, or want to see a comparison of multiple different frame rates, take a look at our FPS explanation page.

1080p 60 FPS [Low Settings] Borderlands 3 Build ($590)

1080p 60 FPS [High Settings] Borderlands 3 Build ($850)

1440p 60 FPS / 1080p 100 FPS [High Settings] Borderlands 3 Build ($1200)

4K 60 FPS / 1440p 100 FPS [High Settings] Borderlands 3 Build ($2100)

This section takes a close look at the graphical options in Borderlands 3, and their effects on the game’s performance.

The “performance impact” in each subsection below is the measured difference in average FPS between playing the game with all settings at their highest and turning only the setting in question down to the lowest (or off) while leaving all others untouched.

It is also worth pointing out that the performance impact is not necessarily cumulative. So if disabling one setting increases FPS by 10% and disabling another increases FPS by 10%, disabling both would not be expect to increase performance by 20%. Instead, the increase would likely be somewhere from 12-18% total.

Graphics Presets / Overall Quality

Borderlands 3 comes with six graphics presets: Very Low, Low, Medium, High, Ultra, and Badass. These are great if you don’t want to spend a large amount of time tweaking different settings.

Performance impact: ~40% between Very Low and Badass

Anti-Aliasing

Anti-aliasing smooths out jaggedness on the edges of objects. In the screenshots below, the difference is most visible on the grass and gun details. This setting is less important at resolutions above 1080p.

Performance impact: ~5% between None and Temporal

FidelityFX Sharpening

This feature adds extra clarity on detailed portions of a scene. It's very subtle, as you can (or can't) see...

Performance impact: No noticeable difference

Camera Motion Blur

This adds motion blur to camera movements.

Performance impact: No noticeable difference

Object Motion Blur

This adds motion blur to fast-moving objects in a scene.

Performance impact: No noticeable difference

Texture Streaming

Texture streaming adjusts the speed at which objects will stream into the scene (starting at low-resolution textures and working up to the correct appearance). Higher levels mean textures will stream in faster to their intended level of detail. Pay attention to the signs on either side of the hallway in the screenshots below.

Performance impact: ~2% between Low and Ultra

Anisotropic Filtering

This setting enhances image quality of textures that are at an oblique angle to the camera, such as street surfaces or buildings. Notice the slight loss of detail in the weapon.

Performance impact: ~3% between Trilinear and 16X

Material Complexity

This changes the complexity of materials in a scene. High levels will render materials with additional details to improve visuals. Notice the details in the floor textures, and the shadows in the distance.

Performance impact: ~10% between Low and High

Shadows

This changes the quality of the shadows in the scene.

Performance impact: ~3% between Low and Ultra

Draw Distance

Draw distance changes how far into the distance objects are rendered. Higher levels mean objects continue to appear farther out toward the horizon. Notice the density of details in the center distance.

Performance impact: ~10% between Low and Ultra

Environmental Detail

This changes the level of detail on surrounding objects. Notice how the holes in the wall in the distance change shape.

Performance impact: ~8% between Low and Ultra

Terrain Detail

This affects how far out the detail of the terrain appears on the scene.

Performance impact: No noticeable difference

Foliage

This sets the quality of foliage in a scene. Higher settings will increase the density and distance for rendered foliage. Notice how the grass disappears.

Performance impact: ~5% between Low and Ultra

Character Detail

This changes the level of detail for character models in-game.

Performance impact: No noticeable difference

Ambient Occlusion

This has to do with how light interacts with objects and casts shadows. It can affect performance in large areas with lots of detail. Note in the comparison how the shadows on the walls lose detail with AO off.

Performance impact: ~3% between Off and Ultra

Volumetric Fog

This sets the quality of fog volumes in an area. Notice how the TV’s light is diffused in fog.

Performance impact: ~25% between Off and Ultra

Screen Space Reflections

This changes the quality of reflections in a scene. Notice how there’s more nuance to the reflections in the ice covering everything when set to Ultra.

Performance impact: ~8% between Low 2 and Ultra 2

If you’re already hitting your desired framerates, then we recommend leaving your settings where they’re at.

However, if you’re getting sub-optimal framerates (usually below 60 FPS), or if you have a gaming monitor designed to play at higher refresh rates, there are a few settings you can tweak to make Borderlands 3 run better without sacrificing detail or resolution.

As mentioned above, changing these settings won’t necessarily have an additive effect—i.e. if you reduce one setting to improve frame rates by 10%, and reduce another that ordinarily yields 10%, changing both settings does not give 20%; more likely it will between 12-18%.

Improve FPS considerably with little to no impact on visuals

• Turn off Screen Space Reflections
• Use “High” preset instead of “Badass.” This can increase FPS by up to 20% and still look pretty darn good.

Improve FPS by larger amounts with moderate impact to visuals

• Turn off Volumetric Fog and Anti-Aliasing
• Set Foliage and Environmental Detail to Low
• Use “Medium” preset

Last Resorts

• Set Draw Distance and Material Complexity to Low
• Lower remaining settings to Medium
• Use “Very Low” preset

If you try all of the above and still can’t run the game as smoothly as you would like, you may need to upgrade your hardware.

The benefit of Borderlands 3’s unique cel-shading art style is that it looks great with a variety of settings turned down to medium.

Higher details and settings can really make the visuals pop, but a budget gaming PC can still run Borderlands 3 at high frame rates with a few settings tweaked. If you’ve tried all of the settings above and still experience issues, it might be time to upgrade your GPU or CPU.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask in the comments below, or email us at contact@logicalincrements.com.

Alex is a contributing writer for Logical Increments, and has been writing in the technology and gaming industry for nearly a decade.

When he's not writing build and game guides here, he's the lead editor for travel publisher Lonely Planet.

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