The Overwatch 2 beta is rolling, permitting gamers to leap in and relive the glory of the early days of the unique Overwatch. To assist you to get probably the most out of the beta earlier than it ends on May 17, I jumped in and examined the title to seek out one of the best settings for Overwatch 2. 
The sport is constructed on the bones of the unique, so there’s nothing too stunning. Still, I rounded up my optimized graphics settings, some gameplay settings that you must change, and a few benchmarks throughout the varied presets to offer you an thought about efficiency. Here’s learn how to get probably the most out of your Overwatch 2 beta expertise.
The finest settings for the Overwatch 2 beta

Overwatch 2 has a ton of settings. I’ve all the graphics settings and some gameplay settings that you must tweak to get your sport operating proper. First, let’s begin with one of the best graphics settings for Overwatch 2: 

Texture high quality: Medium
Texture filtering high quality: 8x
Local fog element: Medium
Dynamic reflections: Low
Shadow element: Ultra
Model element: Low
Effects element: High
Lighting high quality: High
Antialias high quality: Low – FXAA
Refraction high quality: High
Screenshot high quality 1x decision (set the way you need)
Ambient occlusion: Off
Local reflections: On
Damage FX: Default

I’ve a mixture of settings to optimize for gameplay and visuals above. Starting with gameplay, shadow element stays at Ultra to let you see the shadows of enemy gamers, whereas mannequin element is Low to take away some further parts that present up at greater settings. Ambient occlusion is ready to off as properly, which might make some scenes a little bit flatter for higher visibility.
Otherwise, I optimized for visuals. I saved anti-aliasing at FXAA as a result of it’s a lot sooner and appears about pretty much as good as SMAA in Overwatch 2. I bumped down texture high quality, lighting high quality, and native fog element to avoid wasting frames as properly, however be happy to show up these settings when you’re nonetheless hitting a excessive body price.
By default, Overwatch 2 makes use of AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR), which dynamically adjusts the decision to enhance your body price. I’d suggest leaving it on until you’re operating on significantly highly effective {hardware}. It’s not too dangerous on picture high quality, and it’ll let you focus your settings extra on gameplay over graphical high quality.

Beyond graphics, there are some show settings you need to tweak within the Overwatch 2 beta:

Limit FPS: Display-based
Nvidia Reflex: Enabled + Boost (if out there)
Triple buffering: Off
Reduce buffering: On
VSync: Off
Field of View: 103

The essential settings listed below are Nvidia Reflex and the decreased buffering setting. Overwatch 2 usually has a single-frame buffer; meaning you’ll at all times be on a one-frame delay whenever you play. It’s not an enormous deal, however the decreased buffering setting removes the buffer for decrease enter lag. On the flip facet, it’s extra demanding in your PC.
There’s a trade-off right here primarily based on what system you have got. You ought to flip the scale back buffering setting on, but when it tanks your body price under the refresh price of your show, go away it off.

Finally, I’ve a couple of gameplay settings to regulate when you’re on PC:

Waypoint opacity: 50%
Respawn icon opacity: 75%
Ability timer ring opacity: 100%
Enable excessive precision mouse enter: On

Opacity settings are nice to regulate to offer you higher visibility, and the waypoint icon is usually probably the most distracting. Adjust these settings the way you need, although. Otherwise, at all times activate the allow excessive precision mouse enter setting. With mice just like the Corsair Sabre RGB Pro Wireless, you possibly can entry polling charges of as much as 8,000Hz. This setting updates the sport at a sooner price to offer you extra possibilities to shoot between updates.
Overwatch 2 beta system necessities

Overwatch 2 doesn’t have steep system necessities, which isn’t stunning. The beneficial necessities from Overwatch have basically been transported to the minimal necessities, whereas the brand new beneficial spec requires a barely extra highly effective rig.
Minimum

CPU: Intel Core i3 or AMD Phenom X3 8650
GPU: Nvidia GTX 600 collection or AMD Radeon HD 7000 collection
RAM: 6GB
Storage: 50GB

Recommended

CPU: Intel Core i7 or AMD Ryzen 5
GPU: Nvidia GTX 1060 or AMD R9 380
RAM: 8GB
Storage: 50GB

The sport can get by with as little as 2GB of video reminiscence whereas nonetheless hitting the beneficial spec. Basically any PC from the final 5 years will hit (and sure surpass) Blizzard’s necessities, whereas PCs courting again a decade can nonetheless meet the minimal spec. If you run Overwatch with out issues, you gained’t have any points with Overwatch 2. 
The solely odd necessities are for the CPU. Blizzard vaguely lists lessons of a CPU as a substitute of explicit generations. From what’s listed, it seems to be like a dual-core is ok for the minimal spec, whereas a quad-core meets the beneficial spec. Your CPU shouldn’t play a lot of a job in any respect, although. The minimal AMD Phenom X3 8650 is 14 years outdated, in spite of everything.
Overwatch 2 beta benchmarks
I haven’t had the prospect to run Overwatch 2 benchmarks on a variety of one of the best graphics playing cards, so I hopped into the beta and examined a number of the presets on my private rig to see how they scale. You can see my outcomes with an RTX 3090 and Core i9-10900Okay at 1440p under.

Although it’s no shock that an RTX 3090 rips by means of Overwatch 2 (particularly at 1440p), the scaling is attention-grabbing. There are massive jumps between the Epic, Ultra, and High presets, whereas every part else shrinks up across the Medium and Low presets. This is basically due to dynamic reflections, which drop right down to Low on the High preset.
If you don’t need to mess with all the settings above, I’d suggest sticking with the High preset. It presents one of the best steadiness of efficiency and picture high quality, although some settings, comparable to texture filtering, are unnecessarily turned down.
Overwatch 2 beta preset picture high quality

Overwatch 2 is misleading in relation to picture high quality as a result of whenever you’re truly taking part in the sport, you’ll be hard-pressed to note the variations. I took some screenshots with the Low, High, and Epic presets within the coaching space to point out the variations (my testing above was completed in actual matches).
There are some massive variations, even when they’re robust to identify with out the side-by-side comparability above. With the Low preset, the bullet marks on the wall are lacking, as are the lights which are preset within the High and Epic presents. The discount in texture high quality is obvious across the edges of the steel plate within the middle, as is the loss in shadow high quality. You can see how a lot blurrier the big shadow on the suitable is with the Low preset in comparison with Ultra.
What’s attention-grabbing is that the Epic presets appear to allow some extra lighting as evidenced by the room on the high proper. The greatest distinction for Epic, nevertheless, are the reflections. The steel plate on the underside is at all times reflective. But on the high of the steps, solely the dynamic reflections within the Epic preset present that.
Blizzard
There are variations, however the excellent news is that Blizzard was clearly cautious to scale the picture high quality down in a wise manner. Aliasing solely reveals up on distant objects (see the poles within the background), and it’s not distracting in any respect. Similarly, texture high quality takes successful, but it surely actually solely reveals up in tremendous particulars. You’re not looking at low-resolution textures with the Low preset.
Even after trying on the picture high quality, my advice to stay with the High presets. It loses a couple of beautifying parts in comparison with Epic, but it surely additionally represents round a 65% enhance in efficiency. Low isn’t dangerous, both, although it trades much more picture high quality for a modest 13% efficiency enhance over the High preset.

Editors’ Recommendations