PUBG Update 43.1 Best Settings (2026) – Maximize FPS Now

PUBG: Battlegrounds Update 43.1 landed in early October 2026, bringing Unreal Engine tweaks that shifted the performance profile for mid-range and high-end GPUs. Players running RTX 40-series and Radeon RX 7000 hardware saw mixed results — some settings that were free wins in 43.0 now carry unexpected frame-time spikes, while formerly expensive options became cheaper. If you haven't touched your config since the patch, you're leaving FPS on the table.

This guide delivers the best settings for Update 43.1 based on measured benchmarks across current-gen GPUs and competitive requirements. We'll cover the high-impact toggles first, then walk through resolution-specific recommendations for 1080p and 1440p, and close with autoexec tweaks that survived the patch. You can also run a free playbook for your exact GPU to get a personalized config in under two minutes.

What Changed in Update 43.1

Update 43.1 applied engine-level optimizations to shadow rendering, dynamic object culling, and texture streaming. On paper that sounds like a blanket FPS gain, but the actual outcome depends heavily on your GPU's VRAM and architectural generation. RTX 40-series cards with 12GB or more saw the biggest uplift — measured by BetterFPS, an RTX 4060 at 1440p now averages 148 FPS on optimized settings, up from around 132 in 43.0. Older GPUs like the GTX 1660 Ti saw smaller gains and even frame-time instability at higher texture quality.

The shadow changes are the most visible: Medium shadows now look nearly identical to High but cost significantly less. Post Processing also got cheaper — the difference between Low and Ultra shrank from about 18 FPS to 11 FPS on an RTX 3070 at 1440p, meaning you can push it to Medium without the old penalty. Effects quality, on the other hand, became more expensive at Ultra — explosions and smoke particles hammer frame times harder than before. If you copied a pro player's 43.0 config that ran Effects on High, expect stutters in firefights unless you drop it.

Competitive Settings Priority Order

Competitive PUBG demands two things: spotting enemies at distance and maintaining 144+ FPS for smooth input response. These goals conflict — cranking render distance and view distance helps vision but kills frames, while nuking all quality settings can hide prone players in foliage. The trick is knowing which settings actually affect competitive visibility and which are pure eye candy.

Must-Keep Settings for Competitive Play

• View Distance: Ultra — this controls how far out players and vehicles render. Dropping below Ultra hides enemies beyond 400 meters, a non-starter for long sightlines on Erangel and Miramar.
• Textures: Medium minimum, High preferred if you have 12+ GB VRAM — Low textures make ghillie suits and certain camo patterns blend into terrain geometry at mid-range, a measurable disadvantage.
• Anti-Aliasing: Medium (TAA) — Very Low introduces shimmering on distant players that obscures pixel-hunting. Medium balances clarity and cost; Ultra is overkill.
• Sharpen: 80–100% — compensates for TAA blur without an FPS hit. This is a pure win; leave it maxed.

Safe to Drop for FPS

• Effects: Low or Medium — explosions and muzzle flash look flashier on High/Ultra but provide no tactical info. Medium keeps tracers visible; Low is fine if you need every frame.
• Foliage: Very Low — grass and bush density drop, but player visibility at distance improves slightly. This is standard in competitive configs.
• Shadows: Medium — Update 43.1 made Medium shadows nearly identical to High while saving 12–15 FPS on most GPUs. Ultra adds ray-traced contact shadows that look nicer but offer no gameplay edge.
• Post Processing: Low to Medium — lens flare and motion blur are disabled regardless of this setting if you have Motion Blur off in advanced options. Medium adds slight depth-of-field that some players like for spotting scope glint; Low is the safer FPS pick.

Resolution-Specific Configs

PUBG scales hard with resolution — the jump from 1080p to 1440p costs 30–40% of your frame rate on most GPUs, and 4K is borderline unplayable for competitive use unless you're on an RTX 5090. Most serious players stick to 1080p or 1440p with render scale at 100%. Dropping render scale below 100% saves frames but introduces enough blur to offset the FPS gain in practical gunfights.

1080p High-Refresh Config

Target: 165+ FPS on RTX 4060/RX 7800 XT or better. Measured by FrameCoach, an RTX 4070 at 1080p with these settings hits 153 FPS average on High preset with tweaks. An RTX 3070 at 1080p High measured 137 FPS, and at Ultra preset 180 FPS — showing you can afford to push a few settings up if you have headroom. Set View Distance and Textures to Ultra, Shadows to Medium, Effects to Medium, Foliage to Low, Post Processing to Low, Anti-Aliasing to Medium. Turn off Motion Blur and V-Sync. Enable sharpen at 90–100%. This config prioritizes frame stability over visual polish — you'll notice jagged edges on distant wires and fences, but player models remain crisp.

1440p Balanced Config

Target: 120+ FPS on RTX 4070/RX 7800 XT. Measured by BetterFPS, an RX 7800 XT at 1440p optimized settings hits 123 FPS average; an RTX 4060 at the same resolution and settings reaches 148 FPS, showing Nvidia's edge in this title. Measured by Evetech Performance Pulse, an RX 7800 XT at 1440p High preset hits 120 FPS, confirming the headroom. An RTX 4070 at 1440p High measured 92 FPS by FrameCoach — showing that preset needs trimming. Drop Shadows to Medium, Effects to Low, Foliage to Very Low. Keep View Distance Ultra, Textures High (or Medium if you're on 8GB VRAM and see stutters), Anti-Aliasing Medium. Post Processing can stay at Medium here without much cost thanks to Update 43.1's optimizations.

Advanced Tweaks and Autoexec

PUBG still reads custom launch options and GameUserSettings.ini tweaks, though Update 43.1 locked down a few exploits that let players disable certain visual effects entirely. The core performance tweaks still work and can net another 5–10 FPS if you're willing to edit config files.

1. Navigate to %localappdata%\TslGame\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor and open GameUserSettings.ini in a text editor.
2. Under [ScalabilityGroups], confirm sg.ResolutionQuality=100 unless you intentionally want render scaling. Anything below 100 makes the image too soft for competitive play.
3. Set sg.ViewDistanceQuality=3 (Ultra), sg.ShadowQuality=1 (Medium), sg.TextureQuality=2 (High) or 1 (Medium) depending on VRAM, sg.EffectsQuality=1 (Medium), sg.FoliageQuality=0 (Very Low), sg.PostProcessQuality=1 (Medium).
4. Under [/Script/TslGame.TslEngine], add or confirm bSmoothFrameRate=False to disable the engine's frame-rate smoother, which can introduce input lag.
5. Save as read-only to prevent the game from overwriting your changes on launch.

Launch options in Steam: right-click PUBG in your library, Properties, Launch Options. Add -USEALLAVAILABLECORES -malloc=system -lowmemory. The first forces the game to recognize all logical cores (useful on Ryzen 9000 chips where the game sometimes ignores extra CCDs). The second bypasses Unreal's default memory allocator, which can reduce stutter on systems with 16GB RAM or less. The third is only worth it if you're actually on 16GB or below — it tells the engine to be more aggressive about unloading assets, trading a bit of pop-in for smoother frame pacing.

NVIDIA & AMD Specific Settings

Control Panel and driver-level settings can add a small FPS bump and reduce input lag. For NVIDIA (RTX 40/30-series), open NVIDIA Control Panel, Manage 3D Settings, Program Settings, select PUBG. Set Low Latency Mode to Ultra (adds Reflex support even if the in-game toggle is off), Power Management to Prefer Maximum Performance, Texture Filtering Quality to Performance. Turn off all forms of Anti-Aliasing here since PUBG handles it in-game.

For AMD (Radeon RX 7000-series), open AMD Software, Gaming, PUBG tile, Graphics tab. Enable Radeon Anti-Lag 2 if your card supports it (RX 7800 XT and above) — this cuts input latency by 8–12ms in CPU-limited scenarios, which is most city fights. Set Texture Filtering Quality to Performance, turn off any override for Anti-Aliasing or Anisotropic Filtering since the game manages those. If you're on an RX 7800 XT or 7900 series, enable Radeon Chill with min 120 FPS / max 165 FPS to prevent the GPU from burning power rendering frames you can't display, which also keeps thermals down during long sessions.

Automating Updates with Patch Watch

PUBG patches every 4–6 weeks, and each one shifts the performance profile slightly — what worked in 43.1 might cost extra frames in 43.2 or introduce new bugs. Manually re-testing settings after every patch is tedious. That's the problem Patch Watch solves: subscribe once, and every time PUBG updates, we regenerate your playbook automatically for your exact GPU and resolution. You get a notification with the new config, already tested and optimized. It's $4.99/month or $49/year and covers every game we support, not just PUBG.

If you want the full layer — custom autoexec, registry tweaks, and streamer-specific configs for dual-PC setups — Performance Pro adds that for $9.99/month or $79/year. But if you just want settings that work and update themselves, Patch Watch is the faster path. You can also try a free playbook right now to see the format before committing.

Frequently asked questions