Apex Legends

Apex Legends

94 ratings
(04/30/2023) Apex Legends Competitive Configuration For Lowest Latency
By Dr. Islam Ghonaym
Rate up! 🤷 help others! 😉

04/30/2023: Removed the whole FPS cap sections, and even sync settings, because the latest NVIDIA Reflex API have became very good at handling latency as the game became very good at frame to frame pacing making it a lot smoother than before. We also found different behavior for RTSS on different systems increasing latency sometimes when the FPS cap is set, or sync settings are applied. A lot of things have changed and info have not been updated from quite sometime. I can say that the game have became waaay better than before and there is no need to do anything from that anymore and all previously written sections are now meaningless 🙂
03/05/2022: Finally laptop configurations are completed! Added Custom Resolution Utility for laptop users
10/18/2021: Added Intel Speed Shift Disabling Section.
05/26/2021: Removed Audio Section since it does not make things right with everyone depending on many variables.
05/16/2021: Updated Finding FPS Cap section.
03/31/2021: Added a note for 8 GB RAM users in Windows Version Section + Geforce Experience Settings.
03/27/2021: Updated Sync settings for 120 FPS 60Hz configurations.
03/26/2021: Added 120 FPS 60Hz configuration.

Before we start: better gaming rig will always mean higher FPS + higher resolution and so lower latency and better viewing experience. you won't get the game well running on trash..... but the guide is here to give you the best experience possible on your specific system.

If you have a modern high end machine that you know it can deliver max frame rates at maximum settings currently then you already have a stable low latency. just read "TCP Optimization section" and "Geforce Experience Settings" immediately and skip all others...

This game may gain a lot of performance from memory overclocking on old and lower end CPUs:
1- Memory OC can be done on low end motherboards and locked CPUs
2- It does not use more power >> no higher temperatures >> no extra cooling needed (free overclock)
3- Memory OC can take very long time to verify stability>> it could be long term project over a week and could be fast to be done in hours >> could be fun for some people and boring for others
4- It can make the game massively better!
5- You can shrink your memory timings even if you can't change Memory clock speeds on lower end Intel motherboards. also overclocking your Intel CPU totally worth it if your gaming rig supports overclocking.

Head over here for more details about memory OC:
https://github.com/integralfx/MemTestHelper/blob/oc-guide/DDR4%20OC%20Guide.md
Experienced overclockers have written this guide. still not the best guide in my opinion, I may suggest edits there later, but that is what is available for free somewhere on the web.

You may use Inspectre.exe found in the link bellow to disable meltdown and spectre security if you are on an old Intel CPU (avoid doing this with AMD CPUs). The program itself is able to tell you that if the security batch is taking over performance or not so that you can decide at your own risk whether you should disable it or not (DO IT AT YOUR OWN RISK, I DON'T TAKE RESPONSIBILITY IF HACKERS RIPPED OFF YOUR PC):
https://www.grc.com/files/InSpectre.exe

The guide is suitable for every user from the low end to the high end.
You can skip paragraphs to tips immediately as you are not going to read the whole guide anyway because it gives tips for different systems and you are going to pick yours only.
The guide is a subject to change over time. I will keep updating it whenever better or more tips found. I will inform about major updates by changing date so make sure to check the guide every once in a while.

For notebook users I didn't address thermal issues that you may have causing your frame rates to drop.
You can also use MSI Afterburner as a reliable OC or tweaking tool to undervolt your GPU and lower temperatures. You can also monitor your CPU temperature and make sure your CPU is not overheating to take the proper actions in case it does.

be aware that your system maybe affected by faulty driver update so make sure you are not on a buggy driver version.

Don't get yourself into using autoexec files and Nvidia Inspector or any other texture remaking tool. these are all considered cheats. developers managed to disable almost all of them. if anyone is showing an autoexec file in his guide then he is probably don't know what he is doing and never knew that none of these commands do anything.

Don't get yourself into disabling overlay of steam thinking that it is going to help make the game run with higher frame rates. it is important to understand that your CPU is not like a peace of can whenever you fill it with something it gets overloaded. the story is not as simple as that and there is a room for different kinds of loads in the CPU so disabling your useful software may not enhance your frame rates by a fraction of a frame.

Don't use commands to uncap frame rates (those who does don't know what they are doing and they are unable to tell how the good experience could be). other command lines like -high or -forcenovsync and others are useless and they are more likely to cause issues. At least in 2 situations on different systems we found -high command causing issues in game frame times.

Don't disable full screen optimization: the input lag difference that they claim to reduce is next to none. for general users this can only make your game performance worse (It has been reported to me by 2 people having worse frame timings with that disabled and I experienced that on a certain system once). FSO is meant to give you snappier control over your system while gaming without any performance fine. The same story for Windows 10 Game Mode... you should not disable any useful stuff in your windows made to give you good experience thinking that it is a problem because someone did a fancy Youtube video about it.

There are also a lot of misleading tips that makes your game much worse around the web like those who recommend setting your frame rate cap in Nvidia control panel instead of ingame engine limiter thinking that it is going to give lower latency while the fact is that any 3rd party frame rate cap other than any game engine limiter itself can only give the same or worse latency. there is no case that 3rd party limiters could be better than in game engine frame rate limit. much much more of misleading tips that we don't have anymore time to mention....

Is it possible to reach Master or Predator on low frame rate count as 60 FPS? answer is yes...., but only if you are too good strategist in a very good team as the game is becoming more and more team dependent. I know a predator playing on a PS4 60 FPS against PC players with almost 93 ms ping, but that was sometime in the past.... that guy have left the game. Although idk about latency of PS4 at 60 FPS (never measured that), but theoretically it can't be much different than 60 FPS on PC so you got the idea.

Sincerely Good Luck! ranking up in the game with current ridiculous foolish netcode 😜.
   
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Introduction
Apex Legends is one of the games that are built on an outdated source engine a reason why the game have a lot of frame rate variation across the game so you may have high frame rates in the game but at the same time experience is not smooth because of frame to frame time variation. having a lot of frame rate variation is going to effect your learning ability to adapt with different situations making it harder for you to aim properly and track your targets. this brought us here with this guide trying to achieve the best experience from low latency to stable frame times and finally smoother and no tearing experience.

Nvidia Reflex feature is meant to lower and reduce latency variation, but unfortunately even that feature alone is not enough because of the massive frame rate variations.



Basically in this guide we have gone through everything that we found useful and ignored everything from other guides that appeared to be useless at least in our experiments.
Windows 10/11 Version and Settings
First of all we want to make sure we are on Windows 10 2004 or later OS version. this is not going to help Apex Legends only but generally every other game with the newer Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling and other bug fixes to improve your windows experience.

Back in 2017 and 2018 Windows 10 had a lot of problems caused by new added and updated features that not all of us are Interested in using them causing less frame time stability in certain games, but this story is not on Windows only. basically any game or software update brings it's down side and sometimes the downside is so bad making the older versions even better.

Generally speaking updates to your software or your game is meant to be an improvement and any issue that could be brought with it would be fixed in later updates so we can't say that: don't update your Windows 10 or use unofficial lite version that lakes the ability to get enhancements and bug fixes of future updates.

If you have 8 GB or less Memory then you definitely have to check out this guide from Tech Yes City about how to customize your own official Windows 10 as that will help Apex Legends a lot (works for Windows 11 as well) AND DO NOT INTEGRATE UPDATES, DIRECT X OR RUNTIMES C++. DOING THAT WILL MOST LIKELY BRING ISSUES TO WINDOWS. only remove useless built in software:

https://youtu.be/AmGk-AAo3EQ

To check your Windows version and enable Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling:
1- Go to Windows Settings >> System >> About >> Windows Specifications >> Version



It should be 20H2, 21H1 or 21H2 (20/21 is the year and H1/2 is the first or second half of the year). if it is something else then go head and update your Operating system before you proceed to the rest of the guide

2- Go to: Windows Settings >> System >> Display >> Graphics settings
Enable Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling and restart your system


Clean Up System Background Services
Now we want to clean system background services and start up applications that "may" effect our game frame rates.

As we said earlier it is important to understand that your CPU is not like a peace of can whenever you fill it with something it gets overloaded. the story is more complicated than that and there is a different room for everything a reason why disabling your useful software may not enhance your frame rates by a fraction of a frame. you should not just disable anything you need, you are not going to disable your steam overlay. also you can't close your streaming or recording software even if they effect your game performance.

1- To do that: Press Win + R >> type: msconfig and click OK >> Go to Services tap >> Check Hide all Microsoft services box and disable every service you don't need or you don't know about



2- Go to: Startup tap >> Open task manager and disable every startup software that you don't use every time you start your PC

Disabling Intel's Speed Shift
Speed Shift is an Intel power saving technology that have been there since Skylake days. it is more like an auto core ratio adjustment based on the amount of CPU workload. this technology could be a competitive gaming experience destroyer for some people at certain core stepping type from Intel leading to more frame rate variation and introducing higher and more varied input latency!

This power saving feature alone have raised discussions in the past about people claiming that Ryzen gives smoother experience than Intel and even lower input latency. while that have been proven to be wrong, the reason behind this could be that those people was using Intel processors with Speed Shift enabled which have damaged their experience very well enough to investigate the issue thinking that it was Intel architecture design or Intel processors in other words.

There are many ways to disable Speed Shift through OS or directly from the BIOS.

- Some systems have an option in the BIOS to disable Speed Shift Technology so you have to look for that option in your BIOS settings and disable it

- Some systems don't have such an option in their mainboard BIOS settings (ex: some laptops) so they have to do that through their Operating System and these tips are how to do that

1- Download stable version of ThrottleStop from TechPowerUp then move it to your Desktop
https://www.techpowerup.com/download/techpowerup-throttlestop

2- Open it up and go to options then check Minimize on close and Start minimized



3- Make sure ThrottleStop is turned on

You should see "Turn On" button. if you see "Turn Off" then it is turned off. However once throttlestop closed to tray, the green icon means it is "Turned On" and the red icon means "Turned Off"

Try Disabling Speed Shift from this check box as shown. (all cores' ratios should be maxed if successfully disabled) then click on Save




If that didn't work then click on TPL (Thermal Power Limits) and try disabling Speed Shift from here by following the instructions shown by the application and don't forget to click on Save when you are done



If neither of this works then "Enable" and "Set" Speed Shift Value to 0 then click on Save (that should work 🤷‍♀️ and if not then you probably have to try restarting your system)



3- Now we need to set a startup schedule for throttlestop so that we don't have to open it up every time we startup our system
Press Win + R and Type taskschd.msc then click on Create Basic Task



Type any name you want then click on Next



Choose When I log on



Start a Program



Browse for ThrottleStop (mine in Program Files (x86))



Check Open the Properties dialog for this task when I click Finish



Check Run with highest privileges



In Settings tap uncheck Stop the task if it runs longer than... and If the task is not scheduled to run again, delete it after..... then click on OK



Alright now if everything is set correctly, throttlestop will auto start every time system starts up and if not then something went wrong and you have to recreate the task
TCP Optimizer (we are not using it mainly for TCP protocol optimization...)
This could be a critical part of the guide depending on your type of internet connection and your ISP settings. it may not do a thing for almost all of you as it may eliminate some people frustrations with online games. this section used to be hard because in the past users had to edit system manually using command lines and Registry Editor. luckily that is not the case anymore when TCP optimizer tool has been released.

1- Head to this link to download the tool:
https://www.speedguide.net/files/TCPOptimizer.exe

2- Run the tool as Administrator and set your connection "download" speed in the slider up then set choose settings in the bottom to Custom and finally set all settings as shown exactly in the image bellow (don't change MTU to 0)



3- Now go to Advanced settings tap and change only these settings inside the red border exactly as shown



4- Now go to MTU/Latency tap and check your largest MTU then copy the MTU value and paste it in General Settings then click on apply



5- The tool will ask you to make a registry backup so you may back it up or not doesn't matter then restart your system.
Nvidia / AMD Control Panel Settings
In this section we are going to set proper settings to insure better gaming performance by disabling certain settings on the driver level so that we can make sure they don't appear in the game when we disable them later from game settings:

1- Right click on your desktop and open Nvidia Control Panel >> Go to Adjust image settings with preview >> click on Use the advanced 3D image settings >> click apply >> click on take me there



2- We want to enable GPU scaling globally (Unfortunately most laptop users don't have this option so u may lose some of the intended experience here, but it is fine) .

GPU scaling is stretching rendered frame on the GPU to match your monitor native resolution before pushing it out to the monitor. it can be useful if your monitor have a bad built in scaling making the stretched image blooming and lose a lot of details when you change your resolution bellow your native resolution. this option is also used with Image sharpening that's why they are together in settings. note that these considered as post processing effects so they don't effect latency like some fools claim, however they can effect your maximum frame rates in games which means they effect your minimum latency not your average or maximum latency which we care about. in other words GPU scaling can only be useful so we are setting it to ON



3- Now go to Program Settings tap and choose Apex Legends then set these settings exactly as shown



If you are on AMD GPU then disable Enhanced Sync, and Radeon Boost. Also if you are on older than GTX 900 series from Nvidia then set Low Latency mode to On (don't set it to Ultra)


Nvidia Ultra Low Latency (NULL) and AMD Radeon Anti-Lag are the same thing. these 2 tweaks aims to resolve the problem of higher latency when the graphic card is maxed out (98-100% GPU usage). When your CPU works ahead of your GPU pushing frames fast to render queue the GPU will start buffering increasing the input lag significantly so these 2 tweaks from both Nvidia and AMD reduce that delay by removing the render queue completely so every frame the CPU prepare would be pushed out to the GPU immediately. this scenario create a CPU extra load in order to lower the input latency. this of course comes with it's own downsides. First this can lead to more frame rate variation which is something we don't like to happen. The second problem is when you get into CPU or memory bottleneck while your GPU is not maxed out (less than 98% usage) increasing the input lag further rather than reducing it.

The reason why we set it to Ultra here is that we have Nvidia Reflex technology on Nvidia cards that are from GTX 900 series or newer. Nvidia Reflex is AMAZING feature overriding all input lag variation issues and it does that by even lowering the input lag.

Nvidia Ultra Low Latency have something to do with Variable Refresh Rate technologies (G-sync and FreeSync) lowering the additional input lag they introduce so if you happen to have a monitor that supports VRR then you may get lucky getting it to work correctly with Apex Legends on the frame rate cap that we will find out later without having to enable V-sync which does not play nice with apex legends increasing latency.

The thing is that most steam users are using the GTX 1060 and more than 42%! of users are on 4 cores/threads (at the time of writing this guide) and these general specs create a dual bottleneck scenario in Apex legends so most of the time the game would be CPU bottlenecked and other times it would be in GPU bottleneck situation so if we have low latency modes enabled then you can guess how bad the experience would be from the more varied frame rates to more varied input lags and weird none smooth experience.
Geforce Experience Settings
If you use Nvidia Geforce Experience to record your gameplay then you may have something that considerably effect your input lag while recording or streaming which is the ability to capture the desktop being enabled.

With that option disabled, shadowplay will use frame buffer capture which does not (in theory) add input lag, since the game doesn't need to wait for Shadowplay to capture the frame.

If you want to research this yourself, the two modes are "Inband Frame Readback" (NVIFR) for desktop capture (has overhead), and "Frame Buffer Capture" (NVFBC) for exclusive fullscreen capture (no overhead.)

To disable that:

1- Open GE overlay with: ALT + Z and go to settings
2- Scroll down to "Privacy control"
3- Disable Desktop capture
Preparing Custom Resolutions (720p may not be low enough for you 🫤)
it is important to note that your input lag does not negatively scale linearly with higher frame rates so for example if you have a 90 FPS instead of 100 FPS it does not mean your input lag is 11% higher. that's completely fake. higher FPS means less input latency always, but that does not tell anything by how much less and why. the higher FPS you get the less input lag advantage you would achieve.

For example: going from 50 FPS to 60 FPS (20% more FPS) in a certain game may lower your input lag by 15% but by going from 100 FPS to 120 FPS (another 20% more FPS) in the same game may lower your input lag by 5% (on the same monitor).

1- Go to Nvidia Control Panel again >> Change resolution >> Customize >> Create Custom Resolution

  • For notebook users, your Integrated Intel or AMD GPU controls built in monitor resolutions so you need to set the custom resolution there (it won't be visible in Nvidia control panel). However your system may not support custom resolution so you will have to use "Custom Resolution Utility" to inject the resolution into the monitor driver.
    https://www.monitortests.com/forum/Thread-Custom-Resolution-Utility-CRU



  • For laptop users: Install CRU and run it, add the custom resolution in the "Detailed resolutions", OK and close then run restart.exe and restart64.exe



2- To find out your custom resolution take 66 as a custom multiplier and multiply it by your monitor ratio. the outcome should be lower than 700,000 pixel so for example if you have a 16:9 monitor then multiply the 66 with 16 outcomes 1056 and the 66 with 9 outcomes 594 and if you have a 16:10 monitor ratio then do the same thing: 66 by 10 outcomes 660 and 66 by 16 outcomes 1056

66 x 16 = 1056
66 x 09 = 594
Resolution is: 1056 x 594
1056 x 594 = 627,264 pixel

66 x 16 = 1056
66 x 10 = 660
Resolution is 1056 x 660
1056 x 660 = 696,960 Pixel

Whatever your monitor ratio find the resolution that suits you using even numbers only ex: 66, 68, 70... 78... etc
3- Test the resolution and if it is applicable save it, apply and close the control panel. you may use these low resolutions if your hardware are very crap
In Game Settings
Before we open the game and config settings we are going to delete settings files and make the game regenerate them. this trick may fix some of those weird issues that you may have reinstalled the game and changed your platform from Steam to Origin or from Origin to steam to solve them without success.

1- Go to: (C:\Users\[Username]\Saved Games) and delete Respawn folder
2- Open the Game and go to settings >> Video: set texture streaming budget to match your GPU vRAM
3- Make sure Nvidia Reflex is set to Enabled + Boost
4- Set every other setting to Low, OFF or Disabled
5- You may increase your field of view from 90 to 100 or 110 (regardless the performance this could be important to your gameplay. mine is set to 110 and I am not playing on 1080p either!)
6- Close the Game


Setting Custom Resolution (for crappy hardware)
- Now in the same folder Open Videoconfig.txt file and set the custom resolution as shown and bare in mind that this resolution will revert back to 720p every time you change anything in game settings.

I have to note here that changing your lod or CSM ragdols or whatever to lower values is not going to enhance your frame rates by any means and can only degrade your view without any benefit.

Performance on different values in these settings does not scale linearly so 0.6 lod is the low settings and 1.0 is the high settings.
when you set in game Model details to low you will get higher frame rates for sure so from 1.0 to 0.6 there is a performance gain to mention, but going lower than that is not gonna do a thing so don't think that you are doing it correctly by lowering that to 0.35 as some people suggests because that is not gonna bring 1% improvement to your frame rates and if you got above 1% then you probably playing on bellow 50 FPS on average and this is so bad because you are using much higher resolution than what your GPU can handle. this won't happen if you follow my guide so don't do it. keep that ♥♥♥♥ at 0.6

here is an explaining small graph 📉 to show the relation between performance and Model Detail settings (other options follow the same shape) so relation will look like this



developers have set 0.6 as low and they know what they are doing. there is always a trade off between performance and details so it seems that optimal values are between 0.6 and 1.0
I hope that this clear things.
15 Comments
Dr. Islam Ghonaym  [author] 21 Jun, 2022 @ 9:09am 
Sync settings needs to be updated using bars much easier than observing the tearing lines by the human eyes, but I am too lazy for that currently 🥱
n#n#m# 21 Jun, 2022 @ 8:32am 
Really useful, endorsed.
Dr. Islam Ghonaym  [author] 7 Jun, 2022 @ 4:09am 
because no meme stuff here :D
Olkris 6 Jun, 2022 @ 6:12pm 
Man, why good guides like these don't get the points they deserve ?
HellStib 28 Mar, 2021 @ 9:55pm 
good
Dr. Islam Ghonaym  [author] 27 Mar, 2021 @ 9:49pm 
Currently sick... Can't go contaminate others outside 🤦
teaqw 27 Mar, 2021 @ 1:20pm 
go outside
Dr. Islam Ghonaym  [author] 27 Mar, 2021 @ 8:40am 
The guide is always usefull. If you believe that your system is powerfull enough to run the game maxed out maxed FPS then apply sync settings. Your 5700 still can't laugh very well without it 😜
Dr. Islam Ghonaym  [author] 26 Mar, 2021 @ 9:24am 
because almost every GPU would be able to hold that. however it is for testing (temporary)
pasta omega 26 Mar, 2021 @ 1:27am 
what is the reason for not having more than 700,000 pixels on screen?
I've never heard of any game where something like that matters for input lag specifically. seems like not a worthwhile trade-off for clarity.