Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, the 2022 reimagining, is right here and accessible on PC. Like 2019’s Modern Warfare, the sequel is a masterclass in PC gaming tech and graphics, however it will probably nonetheless take a toll in your system. If you need the best body charges, you want the very best settings for Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2. 

I’ve spent the previous week benchmarking the sport, dialing in the very best settings, and deciphering the variations between the sport’s numerous upscaling modes. It’s a extremely optimized sport that may run on a variety of {hardware}, however you’ll nonetheless have to tweak some graphics settings if you’d like a aggressive body charge.

I’m specializing in graphics settings right here, however be certain to learn our information on the greatest settings for Call of Duty Warzone if you wish to optimize your gameplay choices.

Best settings for Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 on PC

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 has a ton of graphics settings. Frankly, I like to recommend you persist with no matter settings the sport recommends to your {hardware}. The advice system is fairly good, although it leans a bit heavier on efficiency than picture high quality. If you need to optimize, take a deep breath — listed here are the very best settings for Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2:

• Render decision: 100
• Anti-aliasing: Filmic SMAA T2X
• Anti-aliasing high quality: High
• Video reminiscence scale: 85
• Texture decision: High
• Texture filtering anisotropic: High
• Nearby degree of element: High
• Distant degree of element: Low
• Clutter draw distance: Short
• Particle high quality: High
• Particle high quality degree: Normal
• Bullet impacts and sprays: On
• Shader high quality: High
• Tessellation: Near
• Terrain reminiscence: Max
• On-demand texture streaming: On
• Allocated texture cache measurement: 32
• Streaming high quality: Normal
• Volumetric high quality: Medium
• Deferred physics high quality: Low
• Water caustics: Off
• Shadow map decision: Normal
• Screen area shadows: Low
• Spot shadow high quality: Medium
• Cache spot shadows: On
• Particle lighting: Normal
• Ambient occlusion: Static objects (GTAO)
• GTAO high quality: Normal
• Screen area reflections: Normal
• Weather grid volumes: On
• Weather grid quantity high quality: Normal
• Nvidia Reflex: On
• Depth of subject: On
• World movement blur: Off
• Weapon movement blur: On
• Film grain on: 0.25

That’s 38 settings, even earlier than you get to any show settings or upscaling. Like Call of Duty Vanguard, you’ve gotten a ton of bandwidth to optimize your efficiency, and numerous settings to tinker with. The draw back is that numerous the settings don’t symbolize an enormous distinction in efficiency, which might waste so much when making an attempt to dial the sport to what you want.

Starting with the settings that don’t make an enormous distinction, you possibly can depart bullet impacts on (no distinction in efficiency), in addition to weapon movement blur. World movement blur is a hair extra demanding, as is depth of subject, however all three of those settings largely come right down to visible choice, not efficiency.

Image high quality primarily hinges on texture high quality, degree of element, anti-aliasing, and shadow decision. Even at excessive texture high quality, I pulled simply over 5GB of video reminiscence with these settings (a lot lower than the not too long ago launched Uncharted Legacy of Thieves assortment). Keep these settings excessive when you have above 4GB of video reminiscence.

For anti-aliasing, you’ve gotten the choice between SMAA TX2 and “filmic” SMAA TX2, together with an related high quality degree. Both mix SMAA with temporal tremendous sampling (learn our anti-aliasing explainer to see how these two approaches work), however the filmic model seems to be a lot better, in order that’s what I like to recommend. It softens aliased edges, making them appear as if they’re coming by way of the lens of a digital camera. If that’s not your jam, SMAA TX2 works, nevertheless it’s simply as demanding because the filmic model.

Another fascinating setting to name out is water caustics, which appears to make use of some type of ray tracing to recreate how gentle refracts in water. It could make a distinction within the marketing campaign, however I’m nonetheless recommending most individuals depart it off. Some experiences say that it received’t work on GPUs with out ray tracing {hardware} as nicely.

Finally, shader high quality. I left this setting on excessive, although you possibly can bump it down a tick should you’re working into efficiency points. The necessary factor is to let Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 compile shaders in your GPU. The sport ought to do that routinely, however I like to recommend poking into the graphics settings and restarting shader optimization everytime you first load up the sport and when you put in a brand new graphics card driver.

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 PC system necessities

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 comes with 4 units of system necessities (much like Marvel’s Spider-Man), however they’re somewhat obscure. Each of the configurations offers you an concept about body charge, however not decision, which is the limiting consider many circumstances. The benchmarks I’ll get to within the subsequent part shed a bit of sunshine on the resolutions the sport is focusing on, although.

Scalability is the secret, so that you don’t want a lot to really run Modern Warfare 2. At a minimal, the sport requires 2GB of video reminiscence and 4 lively threads, be these by way of Intel’s Hyperthreading or 4 bodily cores on a first-gen Ryzen CPU. The sport advantages from extra cores, nonetheless, so I like to recommend a quad-core at minimal, with six cores being preferrred.

On the graphics entrance, there’s a big disparity between the decrease two configurations and the upper two. Make no mistake, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 is demanding in your GPU. However, with choices to cut back VRAM load and a number of upscaling choices, there are methods to squeeze out 60 fps even on ageing {hardware} just like the GTX 1060.

The extra fascinating level is storage, which is cut up between the area the sport takes up and a high-resolution belongings cache. The sport lists 72GB and 125GB for cupboard space elsewhere (for what it’s value, the sport is presently taking on 55GB on my laborious drive previous to the multiplayer and Warzone bits dropping). Storage area is dynamic with any Call of Duty launch, although. Expect 100GB+ at launch and doubtlessly as much as 200GB as the sport continues to obtain updates. That’s not extraordinary for a current Call of Duty sport, particularly with Warzone put in.

You even have extra area taken up by the high-resolution belongings cache. This is non-obligatory, and you’ll outline how a lot area the cache takes. The sport will stream in larger decision textures as you play, given you’re related to the web (you want to be to play the sport) and you’ve got sufficient area. 32GB ought to be fantastic, even for 4K, however be at liberty to dedicate more room when you have the room to spare and also you’re working at a excessive decision.

One remaining word: The sport requires a CPU with AVX directions. Don’t confuse that with AVX-512, which has been not too long ago publicized as a function Intel disabled on its Twelfth-gen CPUs. AVX directions are supported on practically all CPUs launched within the final decade, so should you meet the minimal CPU necessities, you’re fantastic.

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 PC benchmarks

Onto the benchmarks. I examined Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 with the three most up-to-date architectures from AMD, Intel, and Nvidia throughout 4K, 1440p, and 1080p. All of my checks have been accomplished with an Intel Core i5-13600K and 32GB of DDR5 reminiscence. I additionally stored Resizable BAR turned on, as it’s best to with most GPUs.

I stored upscaling off and used the optimized settings above as nicely, because it’s stunning how nicely these midrange playing cards held up. Even the least highly effective GPU I examined, Intel’s Arc A750, was in a position to handle a mean body charge above 60 fps at 1440p, whereas the RTX 3070 might virtually hit 60 fps at 4K. AMD’s RX 6600 XT did nicely, too, delivering body charges able to driving a excessive refresh charge monitor at 1080p.

One fascinating word is the Arc A750’s 4K efficiency. It’s a lot nearer to the RX 6600 XT than decrease resolutions, which is a conduct I’ve seen with Arc prior to now. It delivers higher body charges than it ought to because the decision climbs, which permits the Arc A750 to compete with the RX 6600 XT at 4K, even when it’s clearly behind at decrease resolutions.

It depends upon the decision and body charge you’re focusing on, however I’d suggest a minimum of a GTX 1060 for 1080p if you’d like above 60 fps. An RTX 3060 Ti ought to ship above 60 fps at 1440p, whilst you might have an RTX 3070 Ti to succeed in a secure body charge at 4K. Thankfully, Modern Warfare 2 helps a number of upscaling options, so you’ve gotten numerous room to spice up your body charge even should you’re exterior your efficiency goal.

Onto body instances, you possibly can see that Modern Warfare 2 may be very secure. My benchmark run right here with the RTX 3070 confirmed just one spike, indicating the sport doesn’t have stuttering points as a result of engine like Gotham Knights confirmed. This is one purpose why I like to recommend compiling the shaders in your GPU previous to enjoying the sport. If you dive in with out doing so, you’ll see some stutters because the shaders are optimized.

There are some fascinating notes whenever you consider upscaling, too.

In Performance mode for FSR, DLSS, and XeSS, each DLSS and XeSS confirmed a quick spike in body time each 5 seconds. The spikes have been a lot larger with XeSS, although this knowledge wasn’t gathered with an Intel Arc GPU (I’ll clarify why within the subsequent part). These spikes don’t destroy the expertise of enjoying the sport — likely received’t even discover them — nevertheless it’s nonetheless fascinating to dissect these body time spikes to see the place the upscaling must catch up.

XeSS, DLSS, and FSR in Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 is full of upscaling choices. It helps Intel’s XeSS, Nvidia’s Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS), and AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR). There’s additionally an possibility for Nvidia Image Scaling (NIS) within the graphics menu, in addition to built-in dynamic decision possibility. Basically, anybody enjoying Modern Warfare 2 could have entry to upscaling in some kind or one other.

They’re not all constructed equally, although. FSR is locked to its 1.0 model, which is way worse than FSR 2.0, and DLSS makes use of simply the Super Resolution function (not the Frame Generation function accessible in DLSS 3 for the RTX 4090). Modern Warfare 2 helps a ton of upscaling choices, which is nice, however not all of them are utilizing the newest and best variations.

Above, you possibly can see an outline of efficiency with the RTX 3070. With XeSS, remember that it adapts to the {hardware} accessible. It runs its greatest with XMX cores on Intel Arc GPUs, and it’ll fall again to an easier AI upscaling mannequin when additional AI processing energy isn’t accessible. Even with the RTX 3070, although, it’s fairly a bit behind FSR and DLSS (which we additionally noticed in Death Stranding and Shadow of the Tomb Raider).

I haven’t been in a position to check Intel Arc GPUs attributable to a wierd bug on an earlier driver and construct of the sport. I haven’t seen some other experiences of this challenge, so it’s nothing it’s best to fear about. But I’ll have to circle again to retest XeSS with correct XMX cores to see the way it stacks up.

FSR beats out DLSS in efficiency on the extra aggressive high quality modes, however picture high quality suffers. As you possibly can learn in our FidelityFX Super Resolution overview, the primary iteration has some points with picture high quality on the extra aggressive presets, and people points present up in Modern Warfare 2. 

In the best high quality mode, DLSS wins out at preserving particulars within the grille towards the center of the display screen and the bricks on the buildings within the background. XeSS and FSR are simply barely behind right here, although. Keep in thoughts that that is XeSS with out the complete good thing about Intel’s XMX cores.

The most aggressive high quality mode reveals bigger variations. FSR is clearly the worst of the lot, as you possibly can see with the delicate leaves within the bushes. XeSS is simply a hair behind in native decision, whereas DLSS seems to be a bit sharper as a result of aggressive sharpening Nvidia applies. The home windows behind the tree are extra fascinating, although. FSR fails to render the strains within the window, whereas XeSS and DLSS render them completely.

DLSS is the best choice when you have entry to it, each when it comes to picture high quality and efficiency. Still, XeSS is a shock hit right here. It’s not practically as performant as FSR, nevertheless it additionally maintains a lot better picture high quality, even with out an Arc GPU. Hopefully, Modern Warfare 2 will get an FSR 2.0 patch finally. Right now, FSR is a non-option in Modern Warfare 2 contemplating what number of different upscaling choices you’ve gotten.

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