This guide focuses on how to optimize Windows, Drivers, and in-game settings so that you can get the best performance in Call of Duty: Warzone Season 3.
Following its release, Warzone became a smash hit due to the franchise’s massive fan base worldwide, eager for battle royales. The game was developed using Infinity Ward’s Modern Warfare engine, which introduced new gameplay mechanics such as tactical sprinting, slide canceling, customizable loadouts with unique attachments, weapon mounting, etc. Call of Duty fanbase was pleased with Warzone because it was a far superior experience to CoD’s previous attempt at the battle royale genre.
With the release of Warzone, the player count quickly surpassed one million in less than a week. Players really like the title and its well-designed Verdansk map. Since then, the game has been integrated with later titles such as Black Ops Cold War and Vanguard.
Warzone was built based on the Modern Warfare(2019) franchise, providing the most polished CoD experience since Black Ops 3. Modern Warfare (2019) is a game that has a whopping 100+ gigabytes of game files. After the launch of Warzone, it crossed 140 gigabytes. The enormous file size and graphical details make Warzone one of the most CPU and GPU-intensive games in the Battle Royale genre.
With each update, new game resources are added to the game files. The addition of new game files gradually adds to the size of the game. The massive size of the game takes a heavy toll on gaming performance. Moreover, Infinity Ward’s Modern Warfare engine is notorious for its performance issues in-game.
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However, by fine-tuning your PC and tweaking some in-game settings, you can drastically improve your PC’s performance and get the best experience in Warzone.
Call of Duty: Warzone Performance Tuning for Low, Medium, and High-End PCs
In this guide, we’ll show you how you can fine-tune your Windows, in-game settings, and game files to get the best gaming experience in Call of Duty: Warzone with low, medium, and high-end PCs. The guide will help increase the overall FPS and improve the game’s visual clarity and performance.
Windows Settings
First, we’ll show you how you can tweak your Windows 10 for a better experience in Call of Duty Warzone.
1. Enable Ultimate Performance Mode
Windows OS limits your system to run at a balanced state to save power and keep your computer from overusing resources. However, if you want to play video games such as Call of Duty: Warzone on your PC, you should turn Ultimate Performance mode on to get the maximum output out of your system.
By default, it is set to High-Performance mode. To enable Ultimate Performance mode, you need to unlock it first manually.
To enable and activate Ultimate Performance mode:
1. Type CMD in Search option> Run Command Prompt (CMD) as an administrator mode.
2. Copy the command below and paste it into CMD, and press enter:
powercfg -duplicatescheme e9a42b02-d5df-448d-aa00-03f14749eb61
3. Type Power Plan in the search option> click Edit Power Plan
4. Click Power Options
5. Check the Ultimate Performance option
2. Disabling Visual Effects (For Low and Medium End PCS)
By default, Windows 10 have some features and options that increase visual clarity and are optimal for regular everyday use. However, these features can somewhat affect your PC’s performance. So you can disable these visual effects to increase your gaming performance. As it only increases your Warzone FPS and performance by a small margin, it is recommended not to disable these features on higher-end PCs.
To disable Visual Effects on Windows 10:
1. Type Advanced System Settings in the search option and click on View Advanced system settings
2. Click Settings
3. Click Adjust for best performance> press OK
3. Disable Unnecessary Startup Applications
When you boot your PC, many applications automatically start with your Windows. Most of these applications are there that you don’t even use. So, disabling those applications will save resources from your PC and boost Warzone’s performance.
To disable Startup Applications:
1. Right-click on your Windows Taskbar and select Task Manager
2. Go to the Startup tab. Here you will see many applications with Enabled/ Disabled status. You need to find the applications with Enabled status. After that, right-click on the applications that you don’t want to start automatically whenever you start your PC and click Disable. It will disable those applications from startup.
However, you can still manually turn on these applications whenever you want to use them.
4. Set Call of Duty: Warzone Graphics Performance Preference to High
Windows 10 has a built-in feature for gamers to get optimal performance while in a game. When turned on, Windows will allocate maximum resources to Call of Duty: Warzone. As a result, you can smoothly play the game even if background processes are running.
To set Graphics Performance Preference for Call of Duty: Warzone:
1. Type Graphics Settings into the search option and click on it
2. After the Graphics settings window pop up. Select Browse> find the location where you installed Call of Duty: Warzone (For example: D:\Games\Call of Duty Modern Warfare)> find Modern Warfare Launcher.exe and select it> click Add
3. After adding Modern Warfare Launcher.exe, Call of Duty: Warzone will pop up under the Graphics performance preference section. Click on Modern Warfare Launcher> Options. A new dialogue box will pop up named Graphics Preference. Here you will select the High-Performance option and press Save.
5. Turn On Game Mode
Game Mode works similar to High-Performance mode. This mode will allow windows to allocate your computer’s resources appropriately so that you don’t have to face lags and stuttering while playing games.
To turn Game Mode on:
1. Type game mode in the Windows 10 search option and click on Game Mode settings
2. After the Game Mode window opens up, Press the Game Mode option to On.
6. Delete Temp Files
Windows needs to save temporary files in order to maintain the normal operation. However, after a certain period, it no longer requires the temporary files to function properly, and they become junk files, taking up a lot of disk space and slowing down your PC. As a result, it is recommended that you delete the Temp files regularly to keep your PC clean.
To remove Temp files from Windows 10:
1. Type Run in the Windows search option and click on it.
2. A dialogue box will pop up. Type %temp% in the dialogue box and press enter.
3. After that, the Temp folder will open up. Press backspace on your keyboard or go one page back by clicking the Local folder from the top.
4. After that, select Temp folder> right-click > delete. After that, a confirmation dialogue box will pop up. Press continue. It will delete your temp files from your PC.
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Third-Party Applications
Even though Windows 10 has great built-in features and options to optimize your PC for better performance in Warzone, it has its limitations. So these third-party applications can help you fine-tune your PC’s performance to the next level.
Intelligent Standby List Cleaner (For Low and Medium End PCS)
Intelligent Standby List Cleaner or ISLC is a great tool to free up your RAM. When you are using browsers like Google Chrome or doing any other work on your computer, RAM temporarily stores that information inside its memories. As a result, a massive chunk of your RAM stays occupied, and it may result in lag and stutter in Warzone, especially if you have a low or medium-end PC with 4, 8, or 12 GB of RAM. So, having ISLC running in your background will help you clean up your ram without any issue, and it is entirely safe to use.
To free up your RAM:
1. Download ISLC from here and Install it.
2. Open the ISLC application from your desktop or installation folder.
3. After the application opens up, check the two boxes on the bottom left corner so the application starts every time you boot your windows.
4. Now, fill up the “Free memory is lower than:” box with half the amount of your ram size. For example, if you have 4 GB ram, fill 2048 MB. For 8 GB ram, fill 4096. I have 12 GB of ram, so I have put 6144 in the box. After that, press start, and you are done.
How to Change Call of Duty: Warzone Video Settings
No matter what you do, you need to optimize your in-game video settings correctly to get the best performance out of Call of Duty Warzone.
Below we will show you the best video settings for Call of Duty Warzone on Low, Medium, and High-End PCs. However, Call of Duty Warzone does not degrade much visual clarity, even with low graphics. So, whether you have a High or Medium End PC, you can still use the same video settings used for Low-end PCs.
Best Video settings for Warzone
Display Settings
- Display Mode: Fullscreen
- Screen Refresh Rate: This depends on the refresh rate of your monitor.
- Render Resolution: 100 (1920×1080)
- Dynamic Resolution: Disabled
- Custom Framerate Limit: Custom
- Brightness: 55.00
Quality Settings
- Field of View: 110. The higher your FOV, the more you see on your screen. Test the FOV for yourself to see what suits you best.
- Below Field of View, select “Advanced” and toggle the ADS Field of View to Independent. This will zoom in your weapon to the default FOV (80), allowing for better vision when aiming down on players.
*Field of View is a personal preference. It does not decrease your FPS that much. However, for Low-end PCs, it is recommended not to exceed 90 FOV. For Medium and High-End PCs, you can play with your FOV however you see fit.
- Camera Movement: Least – 50%.
- Streaming Quality: Low
- Texture Resolution: Low*
- Texture Filter Anisotropic: Normal
- Particle Quality: High
- Bullet Impacts & Sprays: Disabled
- Tessellation: Disabled
- Dismemberment & Gore Effects: Disabled*
- On-demand Texture Streaming: Disabled*
- Filmic Strength: 0
- Film Grain: 0
- NVIDIA DLSS: If you have an RTX graphics card, you will have the option of enabling DLSS to allow for better performance at the cost of resolution. Give it a shot to see if you like it, but we usually leave this disabled.
- Anti-Aliasing: Off
*For Low-End PCs, it is recommended to keep the Anti-aliasing to none. For High and Medium End PCs, the Anti-Aliasing feature in Nvidia Control Panel alone is sufficient to increase visual clarity in Call of Duty Warzone.
- Depth of Field: Disabled
- World Motion Blur: Disabled
- Weapon Motion Blur: Disabled
- Shadow Map Resolution: Low*
- Cache Spot Shadows: Enabled
- Cache Sun Shadows: Enabled
- Particle Lighting: Normal
- DirectX Raytracing: Disabled
- Ambient Occlusion: Disabled*
- Screen Space Reflection (SSR): Disabled
*You can keep this Enabled for Medium to High-End PCs.
When you’ve finished configuring the graphics settings, don’t forget to click the “Apply Settings” button at the bottom. In settings, navigate to “Interface” and scroll down until you see the “Frames Per Second (FPS) Counter.” Enable it and launch a game to see how many frames you get.
Comparison Between the changed video settings vs. Maximum video settings
The screenshots below will help you understand the comparison between the changed Video Settings and Maximum Video Settings. As it is visible, there are no major differences. In fact, the game with optimized video settings looks sharper, which will help you spot enemies from far distance clearly and boost your FPS and performance.
Call of Duty: Warzone with Changed Video Settings
Call of Duty: Warzone with Maximum Video Settings
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Modify Game Files
You can modify some files from the game folder and config folder to boost FPS in Warzone and make the game feel more responsive. Additionally, these modifications are entirely legal, and Call of Duty: Warzone allows these modifications for better performance.
Disable Full-screen Optimization
Disabling full-screen optimization eliminates problems with performance overlay not working and improves input lag. So, for exclusive fullscreen, turning the fullscreen optimizations off for Call of Duty: Warzone can enhance your PC’s gaming performance.
To disable full-screen optimization of Call of Duty: Warzone
1. Go to your Call of Duty: Warzone game directory. (For example: D:\Games\Call of Duty Modern Warfare)
2. Right-click on Modern Warfare Launcher.exe and go to properties.
3. Go to Compatibility> Check Disable fullscreen optimizations> Change settings for all users> Check Disable fullscreen optimizations> Click OK
Change Nvidia Control Panel/ AMD Radeon Settings
By tweaking Nvidia Control Panel or AMD Radeon settings, you can improve visual clarity, lower input latency, and increase the responsiveness of Warzone.
To change Nvidia Control Panel settings for Call of Duty: Warzone.
1. Right-click on your desktop and go to Nvidia Control Panel.
2. After the Nvidia Control panel window opens, go to Manage 3D settings> Program Settings> Find/ Locate Call of Duty: Modern Warfare from the “Select a program to customize.”
3. Change these mentioned settings:
- Anisotropic filtering: Application-controlled
- Antialiasing – FXAA: (For Low & Medium End PCs= Off, For High End PCs= On)
*Turning it On for High-End PCs will improve visual clarity in the game; however, it will cost a negligible FPS.
- Antialiasing – Gamma correction: Off
- Antialiasing – Mode: Off
- Antialiasing – Transparency: Off
- Background Application Max Frame Rate: Off
- CUDA – GPUs: All
- Low Latency Mode: Ultra
- Max Frame Rate: Off
- Monitor Technology: G-Sync
- Multi-Frame Sampled AA (MFAA): Off
- OpenGL rendering GPU: NVIDIA GeForce
- Power management mode: Prefer maximum Performance
- Preferred Refresh rate: Highest available
- Shader Cache: On
- Texture filtering – Anisotropic sample optimization: On
- Texture filtering – Negative LOD bias: Allow
- Texture filtering – Quality: High Performance
- Texture filtering – Trilinear optimization: On
- Threaded optimization: On
- Triple buffering: Off
- Vertical Sync: Off
- Virtual Reality pre-rendered frames: 1
4. Click Apply.
To change AMD Radeon settings for Call of Duty: Warzone
1. Right-click on your desktop and go to AMD Radeon Settings
2. Go to Gaming> Select Call of Duty: Warzone and change these settings
- Anti-aliasing Mode: Use application settings
- Anti-aliasing Method: Multisampling
- Morphological Filtering: Off
- Anisotropic Filtering Mode: Use Application settings
- Texture Filtering Quality: Performance
- Surface Format Optimization: On
- Wait for Vertical Refresh: Always off
- OpenGL Triple Buffering: Off
- Shader Cache: On
- Tessellation Mode: Override application settings
- Maximum Tessellation Level: Off
- AMD FreeSync: AMD optimized
- Frame Rate Target Control: Disabled
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Recommendation
If you follow the guide, you will notice a significant improvement in your performance while playing Warzone. However, there are limitations to how much this tuning guide will help you as Warzone is a GPU and CPU-intensive game.
So experiment with these tweaks one by one and see what helps you the most. Some of these settings might not be preferable to you. If you find anything unuseful, you can opt out of those settings, as it will just slightly impact your performance. However, it is recommended to follow these steps completely to get the best result out of your PC while playing Call of Duty: Warzone.
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