This section takes a close look at the graphical options in the game, 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 (Ultra) and turning only the setting in question down to the lowest (Very Low) while leaving all others untouched.
Quality
Quality is a combination of presets of the other settings. Changing this setting will automatically adjust the other settings. If you don't want to mess with the detailed settings, simply use this to find a good balance of visual quality and performance.
Performance Impact: Up to 50% between Very Low and Ultra
Drag the bar to compare Quality on Very Low and Ultra.
Resolution
Resolution affects the display size and therefore detail of the game. Higher resolutions will perform worse than lower, but show additional detail up to your monitor’s native display resolution.
For example, as long as the CPU is not a bottleneck, 1600x900 can perform 30% better than 1080p. 1080p can perform up to 4x better than 4K.
Post Processing
Post Processing is a setting that controls a number of ‘final touches’ to the displayed visuals of the game, including more precise lighting calculations, character details, depth blurring, and more.
Performance Impact: ~18-20% between Very Low and Ultra
Drag the bar to compare Post Processing on Very Low and Ultra.
Shadows
The shadows setting controls the precision, realism, and anti-aliasing of all of the shadows in the game (from players to structures). This setting has one of the more noticeable differences in visual quality while playing PUBG, due to the constant exploration of uninhabited houses in broad daylight.
Performance Impact: ~10-20% between Very Low and Ultra
Drag the bar to compare Shadows on Very Low and Ultra.
Textures
This setting controls the level of detail present on the surfaces and objects in the game. Changing the texture quality has little impact on performance, until the point where the textures are too much to fit in the RAM on your graphics card. At that point, the performance impact becomes high. If you have 4GB or more VRAM on your graphics card, you can set textures to ultra. If you have 3GB, high or medium should work well for you.
Performance Impact: ~4-20% between Very Low and Ultra
Drag the bar to compare Textures on Very Low and Ultra.
Anti-Aliasing
Anti-aliasing is the process of making sharp lines and edges look less jagged (less ‘pixelated’) and more smooth.
Performance Impact: ~5-10% between Very Low and Ultra
Drag the bar to compare Anti-Aliasing on Very Low and Ultra.
Foliage
The foliage setting controls the display resolution of the trees and bushes in the game. In testing, it seemed at first as though this setting had no effect whatsoever, simply because the difference between Ultra and Very Low settings is very subtle. Pay close attention to the bush on the right in the comparison below to see the difference.
Performance Impact: ~4-6% between Very Low and Ultra
Drag the bar to compare Foliage on Very Low and Ultra.
View Distance
The view distance setting determines how far out from your current position the game will show structures and objects. The minimum allowed by this setting is quite far from the player (likely to stop players from gaining an advantage by turning it down to see through walls), as shown below.
Performance Impact: ~4-6% between Very Low and Ultra
Drag the bar to compare View Distance on Very Low and Ultra.
Motion Blur
Motion blur turns objects into streaks if they are moving. Some players prefer it because it may smooth out rough details, whereas others think it hurts fidelity. It has no discernible performance impact, so turn it on or off according to your personal preference!
Performance Impact: Negligible