Best Battlefield 6 settings for PC and Steam Deck

If you're overwhelmed by the countless settings available in Battlefield 6, we're here to take away the guessing game and bring you the best Battlefield 6 settings to maximize your frame rate. The open beta has been incredibly popular with players so far, even surpassing the all-time highest player count for Call of Duty. A second open beta window is live right now and offering one final chance to play the game before its launch later this year.

The Battlefield 6 system requirements aren't overly intimidating, but gamers with older PCs and laptops may need to finally invest in some upgrades. Don't be alarmed, though, as you won't need one of the best graphics card picks from our helpful buying guide to get decent performance in Battlefield 6, unless you want to play at 4K with high graphical settings.

Graphics Settings

• Texture Quality: High
• Texture Filtering: High
• Mesh Quality: High
• Terrain Quality: High
• Undergrowth Quality: Medium
• Effects Quality: Medium
• Volumetric Quality: Medium
• Lighting Quality: Medium
• Local Light & Shadow Quality: Medium
• Sun Shadow Quality: Medium
• Shadow Filtering: Medium
• Reflection Quality: Medium
• Screen Space Reflections: Medium
• Post Process Quality: Medium
• Screen Space AO & GI: GTAO Medium
• High Fidelity Objects Amount: Medium
• Field of View: 100
• Vehicle 3rd Person Field of View: 80
• Weapon Field of View: Wide
• World Motion Blur: 30
• Weapon Motion Blur: 30
• Camera Shake Amount: 75
• Chromatic Aberration: On
• Film Grain: On
• Vignette: On

Upscaling settings

• Fixed Resolution Scale: 100
• Frame Rate Limiter: Off
• Dynamic Resolution Scale: Off
• NVIDIA Reflex Low Latency: Enabled + Boost (if available)
• Anti-Aliasing: TAA
• Upscaling Technique: Off
• Frame Generation: Off
• Future Frame Rendering: Off

Using the above settings on our RTX 4070 testing rig, we achieved an average frame rate of 138fps with 1% lows of 109fps at 1,920 x 1,080. At 2,560 x 1,440, the average frame rate was 129fps with 1% lows of 99fps. A big drop comes when we move to 4K, where the average frame rate was 69fps with 1% lows of 59fps.

Battlefield 6 was very playable at all resolutions, with our testing being done in live PvP matches. Naturally, if you're going to aim to play at 4K, you're facing the reality of having to upgrade your graphics card, as tinkering with individual graphics settings or applying aggressive upscaling isn't an effective workaround.

We opted to steer clear of upscaling and frame generation tech because these technologies can introduce image ghosting and input lag, which isn't ideal for a fast-paced, competitive first-person shooter.

Battlefield 6 isn't the kind of game where you'll get much time to stop and smell the roses, especially when playing online, so in terms of the graphics settings we chose, they prioritize clear, high-quality textures and environments, but take a step down on lighting, shadows, and reflections, which aren't as important in fast-paced gameplay.

HUD settings

• Show HUD: On
• Soldier Hud Motion: On
• Vehicle HUD Motion: On
• Show Vehicle Seat: On
• Show Soldier Overlays: On
• Show Vehicle Overlays: On
• Show Outlines On Friendly Targeted Soldiers: On
• SOVIS Filter: On
• Show Kills Made By: Squad
• Kill Feed Icons: On
• Minimap Size: 80
• Minimap Background Opacity: 60
• Cone Opacity: 15
• Cone Edge Opacity: 40
• View Rotation: On
• Close Minimap View Distance: 40
• Medium Minimap View Distance: 100
• Far Minimap View Distance: 150
• Dynamic Minimap: Off
• Bigmap Opacity: 70
• Simplified Squad List: Off
• Show Compass Multiplayer: Off
• Show Compass Other: On
• Compass Opacity: 80

Many of the HUD settings will be down to preference, but it's well worth tinkering with them, as you may find that the default settings aren't ideal for you. I found this to be the case with some of the sizing and opacity of various HUD elements, which interfered with my view, but aren't as intrusive after making a few simple changes.

Battlefield 6 accessibility settings

There are comprehensive accessibility settings available in Battlefield 6, including the expected menu narration, subtitles, and colorblind options. However, the game also offers tinnitus settings, motion blur, and camera movement settings, as well as a wealth of toggle vs hold options.

It's well worth checking out some of the toggle vs hold options, as they could have an impact on anyone who chooses to use them. This includes the revival skipping, steady scope, weapon zooms, and revive requests, all of which are hold inputs by default.

Also included in the accessibility settings is a range of tutorials, which can be turned off if you don't want to deal with the frequent pop-ups. For controller players, you can adjust the vibration intensity using a slider or pre-determined profiles. Finally, a text-to-chat option is also available.

Battlefield 6 graphics presets

There are four total presets available in Battlefield 6: low, medium, high, and ultra. Thanks to a VRAM calculator in the graphics menu, which not only details the amount of memory needed but also breaks down each setting into high or low usage for CPU, GPU, or VRAM resources, we're able to see exactly how much VRAM is required for each preset.

You can see in the image below that there are some big differences between the low and ultra graphics presets. The lighting is far more natural, along with reflections, and detail at a distance is far crisper, with detail being much clearer all the way down the firing range with the ultra preset. You can right-click on the comparison image below and open it in a new tab to take a closer look at the full-size image.

Best Battlefield 6 settings for Steam Deck

Battlefield 6 will not run natively on the Steam Deck thanks to the inclusion of the Javelin anti-cheat system, which is not compatible with the Linux operating system.

We found this out in our Battlefield 6 interview with Vince Zampella and Byron Breede from the dev team. In fact, Zampella went as far as to state that handheld platforms in general are "probably not the best way to play the game."

Due to Javelin anti-cheat requiring Secure Boot, even if you were to create a Windows partition on your Steam Deck, Battlefield 6 still won't work, as the option isn't available in the Steam Deck BIOS. While there have been ways around this system that are reported to work with Valorant, gamers have had no such luck with Battlefield 6 yet.

Our best hope is to wait and see if Battlefield 6 lands on a cloud streaming service, such as Nvidia GeForce Now, which would mean you can run the game using the native Steam Deck app.

How we tested Battlefield 6

At PCGamesN, we use dedicated gaming rigs to test the best settings for performance and gameplay in the latest releases. The test rig used to play Battlefield 6 includes the following components: Intel Core i7-11700F, Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 12GB, 32GB of DDR4 3,200MHz RAM in dual-channel configuration, and an MSI B560 motherboard. We also test using Windows 11 64-bit.

We always run our testing first at 1,920 x 1,080 to identify the best settings for this entry-level resolution, then again at 2,560 x 1,440 using the same setup to gauge the difference in performance. Finally, we also test in 4K. We use CapFrameX to capture frame data and compare testing sessions.

Does Battlefield 6 need an SSD?

Battlefield 6 does not require the use of an SSD, but the developer does advise using one if you're targeting the recommended specs. This means the game can be downloaded and booted from a traditional hard drive, but if you want to get the fastest game-loading times, it's recommended to upgrade to an SSD.

If you are interested in upgrading from an old-school mechanical drive or just need some extra storage space, you can find our current SSD recommendations in our best gaming SSD guide.

How to monitor performance in Battlefield 6

If you want to keep an eye on performance in Battlefield 6, we have an easy method that works whether you're using an Nvidia or AMD graphics card.

For Nvidia cards, ensure you have the Nvidia App installed and the in-game overlay enabled, and then hit ALT + R in-game to bring up your performance monitor. With AMD cards, you can enable performance monitoring via the Radeon overlay using the shortcut CTRL + SHIFT + O.

Alternatively, you can download free software such as CapFrameX or Nvidia FrameView, to get a cleaner, more simplified benchmarking tool that works with any graphics card.

With handheld gaming PCs, most will have a dedicated button to access a quick menu from which performance monitoring, sometimes called real-time monitoring, can be accessed.

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