What Settings Should You Use on gaming PC for Best FPS?

Quick Answer

For the best FPS on a gaming PC, drop shadows and volumetric effects to low, keep textures medium-high, turn off motion blur and depth of field, and enable DLSS or FSR in Quality mode. SA gamers on fibre should also cap framerate just below their monitor's refresh rate to stop tearing without forcing V-Sync input lag.

The Settings That Actually Move FPS

Not all graphics options are equal. Shadows, volumetric fog, screen-space reflections and ambient occlusion are the heaviest hitters in 90% of modern titles. Setting these to low or medium typically reclaims 20-40 FPS with almost no visual penalty. Textures, on the other hand, are mostly free if you have 8GB+ of VRAM, so leave them at high. Anti-aliasing wants TAA or DLAA on modern GPUs, while older cards do better with FXAA.

Resolution, Upscaling and Refresh Rate Tuning

Native 1440p is gorgeous, but DLSS Quality on an RTX 4060 or FSR 3 on an RX 7700 XT looks nearly identical and can boost frames by 30-50%. If you're on a 1080p 144Hz panel (the most common SA setup), set your in-game cap to 141 FPS and enable G-Sync or FreeSync in your monitor's OSD. That combo kills tearing and stutter without forcing V-Sync delay. For 4K, upscaling isn't optional, it's the price of admission.

Driver, Background and Power Tweaks for SA Setups

Pop into the NVIDIA Control Panel or AMD Adrenalin and switch the global power management mode to Prefer Maximum Performance. Set Windows to High Performance or Ultimate Performance power plan. Close Discord overlays, browser tabs and any RGB software you don't need. With loadshedding messing about with PC restarts, a 1500VA UPS keeps your driver settings and game saves intact through Stage 4. Evetech ships pre-built rigs with these tweaks already dialed in.

Frequently Asked Questions

What settings give the biggest FPS boost?

Shadows and volumetric effects, hands down. Dropping them from Ultra to Medium often nets 30+ FPS in titles like Cyberpunk 2077, Hogwarts Legacy and Starfield with barely any visible difference during gameplay.

Where can I buy a gaming PC in South Africa?

Evetech stocks pre-built gaming PCs with Ryzen and Intel chips paired with RTX 4060 through RTX 4090 GPUs, all with local warranty, ZAR pricing and nationwide delivery.

What gaming PC specs matter most for SA gamers?

GPU and RAM speed matter most for FPS. A R20,000 build with an RTX 4060, Ryzen 5 7600 and 32GB DDR5-6000 outperforms a R25,000 build with a slower CPU and DDR4 in nearly every modern title.