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Get Maximum Fortnite Performance: 'Epic' Mode With 10 Graphics Cards

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Graphics and Rendering Settings

Fortnite doesn't give you a ton of graphics options. However, the most important knobs and dials are easy enough to manipulate. Beyond the universal image-quality presets (Low, Medium, High, and Epic), you can individually adjust view distance, shadow quality (the most demanding graphics parameter), anti-aliasing, and texture quality. Show Grass, a resource-hungry option on lower-end graphics cards, has its own toggle.

High vs. Epic

Differences between the High and Epic presets are not obvious. Looking closely, however, the shading and lighting are slightly dissimilar. Overall, we suspect that you'll find the High setting perfectly suitable if it means enjoying a smoother frame rate on your hardware.

Medium vs. Epic

Shadow quality takes a hit under the Medium preset, while Show Grass is disabled by default. (You can turn this setting back on independently.) There is also a noticeable decrease in texture quality, as well as in view distance.

Low vs. Epic

The Low setting is clearly designed for entry-level GPUs, as far down as integrated graphics engines. Basic image quality and the complete absence of shadows wrecks the game's visual appeal. Skip this option unless you have no other choice, in which case consider upgrading your PC.

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8 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Gillerer 06 April 2018 17:03
    I have a couple of suggestion to improve the readability of the CPU load chart - and make it more informative:

    *

    1) Analyze the CPU thread loads in descending order:

    ■Record loads per CPU thread for each point in time.
    ■For each data point, assign the loads to graphs called "Highest loaded thread", "2nd highest", "3rd highest", ..., "Nth highest". (The spreadsheet function LARGE is your friend here.)
    ■Display these as you do now - only now the top bar displays how the highest loaded CPU thread - whatever thread it happened to be at the time - was doing throughout the entire test.
    I think this display would be better than the current one, because you could see the performance profile at a glance: the colors would shift from highly loaded at the top to slightly loaded at the bottom. E.g. you could easily see how much of the time 4 or more threads were highly loaded *at the same time*. The current graph doesn't show this definitely, since the high loads on the two threads may have occurred at different times in the test.

    *

    2) Change the value groups of the CPU load: 86% to 100% is much too wide of a gap. I'd like there to be a "fully loaded" group of 99 - 100% (maybe 98 - 100%, or 98.5 - 100%, depending on the precision of the data recording). I feel this is very important, since it would indicate an almost certain CPU bottleneck.
    Reply
  • Ninjawithagun 06 April 2018 19:49
    WOW! I'm impressed by the fact that the GTX970 can still hang in there with playable frame rates at 1440P :D
    Reply
  • Jamie_69 06 April 2018 22:07
    well, that's unequivocally false, but don't let that stop you posting nonsense - I'm sure it won't

    edit for context- the post i was replying to was a now deleted angry rant
    Reply
  • alextheblue 07 April 2018 00:05
    Unreal Engine 4 does seem capable of exploiting the Ryzen CPU's resources, just not in a perfectly homogeneous fashion.
    Maybe some other UE4 game. Unless by "not in a perfectly homogeneous fashion" you actually meant "unevenly taxes CPU cores and manages to use perhaps 50% of available horsepower under the very best of circumstances, using a mid-tier chip paired with a top-end GPU at settings geared for extremely high framerates".

    Fortnite is deliberately built to NOT be CPU intensive so that it can run on a wide range of systems. You turn down the eye candy until your graphics can handle it, and your CPU is not a big concern.
    Reply
  • mario.abarth89 07 April 2018 05:56
    Damn, from the title i hoped you took a mining mainboard and somehow made it work with all 10 at the same time :(
    Reply
  • jpe1701 07 April 2018 07:17
    20862675 said:
    I have a couple of suggestion to improve the readability of the CPU load chart - and make it more informative:

    *

    1) Analyze the CPU thread loads in descending order:

    ■Record loads per CPU thread for each point in time.
    ■For each data point, assign the loads to graphs called "Highest loaded thread", "2nd highest", "3rd highest", ..., "Nth highest". (The spreadsheet function LARGE is your friend here.)
    ■Display these as you do now - only now the top bar displays how the highest loaded CPU thread - whatever thread it happened to be at the time - was doing throughout the entire test.
    I think this display would be better than the current one, because you could see the performance profile at a glance: the colors would shift from highly loaded at the top to slightly loaded at the bottom. E.g. you could easily see how much of the time 4 or more threads were highly loaded *at the same time*. The current graph doesn't show this definitely, since the high loads on the two threads may have occurred at different times in the test.

    *

    2) Change the value groups of the CPU load: 86% to 100% is much too wide of a gap. I'd like there to be a "fully loaded" group of 99 - 100% (maybe 98 - 100%, or 98.5 - 100%, depending on the precision of the data recording). I feel this is very important, since it would indicate an almost certain CPU bottleneck.

    I second a change with the load charts. Maybe I am just slow but I have a hard time reading them.
    Reply
  • buzznut47 09 April 2018 20:19
    The graphics are pretty weak considering how much hardware processing power is required. Cartoonish really. I doubt that has much to do with Unreal Engine 4.

    Also the recommended specs from the game devs seem really underpowered. Would have liked to see just how low the settings would have to be under those conditions.
    Reply
  • interspool 26 May 2018 03:31
    How were you able to set core affinities in the first place? It looks as though they've patched the game and it won't allow users to set affinity in Windows 10 or Process Lasso for the Fortnite exe. I want to lock the game to 4 cores, and use my other 4 cores for streaming. Someone please help!
    Reply