Fortnite's New Performance Mode Significantly Boosts Performance on Low-End Hardware

[Uskompuf]

Beginning December 15th, we're launching a new performance mode on all PCs that meet Fortnite's minimum specifications. Available in Alpha, Performance Mode will be selectable through the in-game settings menu and offers significant performance gains by trading out visual quality to lower memory usage and lighten the load on CPU and GPU. For players already on low scalability settings or less powerful hardware, this mode will allow the game to run better than ever before and maintain a smoother framerate.

Performance Mode is opt-in for most users and will launch with support for Battle Royale and Creative mode only. Users running on older hardware will see a prompt pushing them to the mode to try it out as the recommended way to experience the game. Performance Mode can be enabled or disabled at any time through the in-game settings menu and restarting the game.





While Performance Mode will offer improvements for all users that opt-in, there are certain hardware requirements that can offer a significantly smoother experience. For users on older machines, having the game run from an SSD or providing 6 GB of RAM or higher will allow the game to better fit in memory and reduce overall hitches and stutters. A dedicated GPU is not required but will also help balance system load and give a much smoother experience.

Performance mode is made possible by lowering in-game visual quality to increase framerate and is a great way for users to hop in and experience the game as long as they meet the Fortnite system requirements. Along with the option to uninstall high resolution textures, players can now get in quicker than ever before and still enjoy the game as intended.

Below are a couple of examples of the typical FPS values seen by laptops running with the existing low scalability mode in a standard Squads match, compared to the same match running in Performance mode using 720p during both runs.



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[henok.gk]

I personally don't like this game. But this looks much more useful for people who play it than say added raytracing support since it's a battle royale and more frames are preferred than better visuals.

 

[bobsled]

In a competitive title, I'm all for locking the graphics settings completely, especially when it comes to terrain and foliage modelling - people will just run the game in even more potato mode.

 

[Baum]

yay another "no textrure" advantage mode

would be interresting to que people with lower hardware together on "performance"-servers so noone gains from no smoke or long range visibility...

as long as it is just baseline textures its a nice addon

 

[Cheeseball]

This is pretty sad when the 2018 and 2020 iPad Pros (A12X and A12Z) can run the game at 120 FPS on what seems to be the equivalent of the medium preset.

 

[watzupken]

In my opinion, this is just an attempt by EPIC to get more people to try out Fortnite. Those who don't really game are mostly using laptops/ desktops with integrated graphics. So by providing this performance mode just opens up an opportunity for some to try.