The ULTIMATE Video Settings Guide & Best Video Settings for Competitive Rocket League

A Rocket League guide about explained Video Settings, their impact on gameplay and which are the best video settings for competitive.

Introduction

When I started playing Rocket League, I was looking for a Video Settings guide but there was nothing good on the entire Internet so I had to learn everything by myself at that time. Now, after I've got some experience, I want to help people who have the same question as I had before.

• I used a lot of sources from the internet and my experience in the game aswell to write this, so, I don't have all of the credit for this.
  
• Any suggestion or advice is welcomed and will help to improve this post.
  
• Every news after an update of this guide will be posted in comments.
  
• You can ask me anything in comments and, when I will have time, I'll answer 100%. So don't add me to your friends list for that because I'll decline your request.

Window Settings

Resolution

You should use the native resolution of your screen. There is no real benefit to gain from using different resolutions or aspect ratios in this game. However, if you are having troubles getting to a stable frame rate, you might want to consider lowering this setting.

Display Mode - Fullscreen

Here, the best choice is Fullscreen. Windows 10 has a form of Vertical Sync on desktop that you can't turn off, which will apply to your game if you run it in Borderless. There are also reports of Borderless bringing input-lag, which we obviously want to avoid at all costs.

Vertical Sync - OFF

Synchronizes your framerate with your display's refresh rate. Reduces screen tearing but may increase input delay.

Vertical Sync or "VSync" synchronizes your GPU with your monitor's frame rate. In simple words, it limits the FPS to the Hz of your monitor. This keeps frames from display evenly and prevents screen tearing. I recommend having it always deactivated (unless the screen tearing is utterly unbearable that you cannot play the game any longer), since VSync causes input-lag and we want as many FPS as possible.

Basic Settings

Anti-Aliasing - OFF / FXAA Low / FXAA High

Smooths out jagged lines, but can result in a blurred image. Enabling this can reduce performance.

There are only 3 viable options: OFF, FXAA Low, FXAA High. MLAA takes up a huge chunk of performance and it doesn’t make the game look all that much better when compared to FXAA.
A lot of pro players (ex: Ferra, Squishy) prefer to have this setting set to OFF because they don't want to see things blurred. The graphical differences between off and FXAA is huge.
If you want to go with an Anti-Aliasing effect, there isn't a big difference between FXAA Low and FXAA High in graphical terms. If your system can handle it, I suggest to choose FXAA High but if you want to maximize your FPS, then keep it at FXAA Low.

Render Quality - High Quality

Reducing this setting increases performance by rendering at lower resolution, then upscaling to your display.

If you're not playing with this setting on High Quality you're playing another game, my friend. Anything lower will make your game look like !@#$ and, while there is something to be said about looks vs performance, you also don't want your game to look too grainy. Change this setting only if it's your last option in terms of FPS.

Render Detail - Custom

Controls the level of multiple rendering settings. Decreasing this may improve performance.

This option just let you choose from different presets for the Advanced Settings. We want to have this on CUSTOM because we're going to adjust the following settings by ourselves.

Max FPS - Maximum (250)

Limits the maximum framerate the game can run at.

Set this to the highest possible option. The more FPS you get, the smoother your game will be and the better it'll respond to your input.

Advanced Settings

Texture Detail - 100% Player's Preference

Adjusts the quality of displayed textures.

The difference of performance between High Quality and High Performance is minimal, so feel free to set this to High Quality if you want. I could say this setting is based on this question: "How much detail do you want on the textures?". Some people find distractions on High Quality. From my point of view it's 100% player's preference. Personally I have it set to High Quality.

World Detail - Performance

Adjusts the level of visible detail rendered in the world.

This is another setting that won't have too much effect on your system performance. The lower you go the less "distractions" there are on and around the field though. Basically, how much unnecessary !@#$ do you want around the map? You can see some less trees, the grass on the field is cut more neatly, less mist in the background etc. I feel like the game becomes less cluttered. A lot of pro players choose Performance to avoid the distraction of additional background details.

High Quality Shaders - ON

Enables high quality material rendering. May reduce performance.

Leave it ON unless you absolutely have to squeeze out performance since we lose a lot of quality and we will not gain much FPS by deactivating it. The game looks very grainy and flat with this setting off though.

Ambient Occlusion - OFF

Enables more realistic shadows and lightning. May reduce performance.

This just provides extra shadows. Its effect isn't all that noticeable. Aesthetics for the price of FPS performance. I would recommend to turn this OFF.

Depth of Field - OFF

Enables a depth of field blur effect.

This causes things that are far away to look blurry, making them harder to see, and makes objects closer to you appear sharper. Turning it off makes every object in the game world look equally sharp so you want to turn this setting OFF for clarity.

Bloom - OFF

Increases the luminosity of light sources.

Bloom brings more life into the lights of the game, making them look less flat. Looks fine, but I'd rather be without it, for maps with a lot of lights, like Neo Tokyo, it can be distracting. Turn it OFF. It’s more of an aesthetic change then FPS related.

Light Shaft - OFF

Enables light shafts in the world.

Beams of light that blind you every time when you try to do an aerial. It doesn't have a FPS performance affect, but it may cause game play issues, since on certain maps when you do aerials, the sun will not allow you to see well.

Lens Flare - OFF

Enables lens flares from light sources in the world.

Similar to Light Shafts, this is the "blinding" effect you get when staring directly into a light source. While this might make the game feel more realistic, it also limits your vision, so turn this setting to OFF, no matter how good your system is.

Dynamic Shadows - ON

Enables shadows cast by moving objects in the world.

This handles the moving shadows in the game. In a game such as Rocket League this can be of massive help (ex: you can see the shadow of an opposing player above you) but it does come at a relatively large cost performance wise. Turn this off if you need the FPS but otherwise I’d say it’s worth the tradeoff of leaving it ON.

Motion Blur - OFF

Enables visual blur to simulate realistic motion.

There is no FPS performance impact but we don't want to see blurry things when we're in supersonic speed. We want maximum clarity possible so just disable this setting.

Weather Effects - OFF

Enables weather effects like rain and fog.

It’s only purpose is to make the game prettier. It distracts you when playing and has affects FPS. It looks nice, but in competitive play all I care about is optimizing and keeping my FPS from dropping.

Transparent Goalposts - ON

Enables see-through walls when inside or near a goal.

Turn this ON because when you're in a goal you will want to see where's the ball without the indicator.

My Personal Video Settings

Last Words

Thanks for your attention!
If you have any suggestions or questions, feel free to post them as a comment.
If this guide helped you out, please, don't forget to rate it up and mark it as favorite!
Also make sure to Follow me for future guides I will create for other games.

[trek star]

great guide, thanks

[squib]

@Billy The Dog RIP to another brother who doesn't understand refresh rates, monitors that refresh above 60hz, or VSync's effect on input lag. F

[boc]

ty

[C00lkidd]

@Captain Butthurt I would try turning VSYNC off, and capping your FPS at 144-160, and see how it goes. If it is buttery smooth, then that is what you want, even if the numbers look worse.

[An Atari 2600]

This is a great guide but there's just one thing I think you should mention. FXAA is Nvidia's implementation of anti-aliasing and although it's advanced, all it really does is slightly blur the output image. To do this it forces V-sync on so it can take the frames out of the framebuffer; I would advise leaving this off as well and using something like your monitor's sharpness settings if you really can't deal with crisp pixels. Unless of course Nvidia have recently updated FXAA to work differently. MLAA is a similar thing but AMD's implementation; it uses a bit of AI to also judge what pixels should be where, but it too also forces V-sync on and adds that input delay.

You can also completely disable the frame cap by editing the config files in your My Documents folder for Rocket League. I think the line was Allowperframesleep or something. Doing this will result in 100% GPU utilisation which some people don't like (my 580 whines loudly when doing that so I leave it capped).

[Kronix]

A helpful guide !

[ChrisTy]

@Billy The Dog: I understand your opinion and I'll try to explain some things to you. As you might already know, there are 240Hz monitors on the market. Also, it's always recommended to increase your FPS limit beyond your monitor's Hz capacity. I tried it myself and I recognized a huge difference. VSync causes input-lag which is horrific in a fast-paced game like Rocket League. Unless you experience insane screen tearing is recommended to turn VSync off. There aren't a lot of good 4K monitors with a high refresh rate on the market and my guide is focused on competitive Rocket League. Also, before assuming someone's condition, I recommended you to get informed before. You can check my peripherals and hardware on my profile, if you're interested. Next time, please, try to come with solid arguments and better grammar if you want to make a point, thanks!

[George Abitbol - Bac+2]

Totally stupid. "you need as fps as possible > you are stupid. No need to have 250 fps if you play on an 60Hz screen. "put V-sync off > incredibly stupid. Play in your native resolution : I play in emu 4k, the difference is so huge, so much better. I guess your graphic card can't afford to have high graphics options, so you are frustrated. The most useless tutorial of RL erver.

[ChrisTy]

@ÏDF ツ, @GodlyEliteVideosGamer, @Liberate Tutame: Thanks!
@Synque: I talked about it in comments: "Particle Detail comes along with new visuals that have been added to some of the arenas in order to better flesh out the colors of the opposing team. Try it by yourself and decide based on your preference."

[Dy.]

What about particlce detail?