Marvel Rivals, with its dazzling visual effects and intense superhero battles, is undoubtedly a visually impressive hero shooter. However, this graphical fidelity can come at a cost, often putting a significant strain on your Graphics Processing Unit (GPU).
High GPU usage can lead to undesirable consequences such as elevated temperatures, increased fan noise, and noticeable performance drops. For players aiming to maintain system health, reduce power consumption, or simply achieve a smoother, more consistent gameplay experience, several proven strategies can effectively lower GPU load.
Optimize In-Game Settings: The First Line of Defense
The most immediate and impactful way to reduce GPU usage is by adjusting the game’s internal graphics settings.
A strategic approach to these options can yield significant performance gains without necessarily sacrificing too much visual quality:
- Global Illumination: This advanced lighting setting is a notorious performance hog. Setting it to SSGI Low or Off can drastically cut down on GPU workload.
- Reflection Quality: High-fidelity reflections are GPU-intensive. Opting for Screen Space Reflections on Low will ease the strain.
- Model Detail: Lowering this setting to Medium or Low (depending on your GPU’s VRAM) reduces the complexity of character and environmental models.
- Post-Processing, Shadow, Effects, and Foliage Detail: These settings have a substantial collective impact on GPU performance. Setting all of them to Low will provide a significant boost.
- Texture Detail: While this can often be kept at Medium or High if your GPU has ample VRAM, reducing it further can be beneficial for lower-end graphics cards.
- Anti-Aliasing & Super Resolution: Utilize modern upscaling technologies like DLSS (for Nvidia GPUs) or FSR (for AMD GPUs) in Performance mode. These technologies render frames at a lower internal resolution and then intelligently upscale them, delivering higher frame rates at a reduced GPU cost.
Display and Performance Tweaks: Fine-Tuning Your Experience
Beyond the core graphics options, certain display and performance-related settings can further optimize GPU usage:
- Display Mode: Always set your game to Fullscreen. This allows the game to take exclusive control of GPU resources, often leading to better performance than windowed or borderless modes.
- V-Sync: Generally, it’s advisable to Turn Off V-Sync. While it prevents screen tearing, it can introduce input lag and increase GPU workload if your frame rate fluctuates. Only re-enable it if screen tearing becomes unmanageable.
- Frame Generation: If available, Turn Off Frame Generation. While it can boost perceived frame rates, it often comes with increased input lag, which can be detrimental in a competitive shooter.
- Limit FPS: Capping your frame rate to a value your system can consistently achieve (e.g., 60, 120, or 144 FPS) is crucial. This prevents your GPU from working harder than necessary to render frames beyond your monitor’s refresh rate or your system’s stable capabilities.
Windows and Driver Optimizations: Beyond the Game Itself
Your operating system and graphics drivers play a significant role in overall GPU performance:
- Enable Hardware-Accelerated GPU Scheduling: This Windows feature can offload certain tasks from your CPU to the GPU, potentially improving overall efficiency and sometimes leading to lower average GPU usage.
- Game Mode: Ensure Windows Game Mode is enabled. This feature prioritizes gaming performance by dedicating more system resources to the game you’re playing.
- Update GPU Drivers: Always keep your graphics drivers up to date. Nvidia and AMD frequently release new drivers with optimizations specifically for popular games, including performance enhancements and bug fixes.
- Set Power Management to Maximum Performance: Within your GPU’s control panel (Nvidia Control Panel or AMD Radeon Software), set the power management mode to “prefer maximum performance.” This ensures your GPU consistently operates at its optimal clock speeds, preventing unnecessary fluctuations and ensuring stable frame rates.
System and Background Process Management: Freeing Up Resources
What’s running in the background can also impact your game’s performance:
- Close Background Apps: Use Task Manager to identify and shut down any unnecessary programs or applications running in the background. These can consume valuable CPU, RAM, and even GPU resources.
- Set Game Priority: In Task Manager, you can set Marvel Rivals’ process priority to “High.” This tells your operating system to allocate more resources to the game. However, monitor your system for instability, and revert if any issues arise.
- Disable Windows Game Bar: This overlay feature can sometimes consume resources or cause conflicts. Disabling it can free up resources and prevent interruptions.
Advanced Tips for the Enthusiast
For those looking to squeeze out every last bit of performance:
- Enable Resizable BAR (ReBAR): If your hardware (CPU, motherboard, GPU) supports it, enabling Resizable BAR can significantly improve performance and efficiency by allowing the CPU to access the entire GPU memory at once
- Memory Optimization Setting: If your system has 16GB of RAM or less, consider enabling Marvel Rivals’ in-game “Memory Optimization” setting. This can help reduce stutters and lower overall GPU and system memory usage
- Update Windows: Keeping your operating system current ensures you benefit from the latest performance improvements and bug fixes from Microsoft
In conclusion, maintaining optimal GPU usage in Marvel Rivals is a multifaceted endeavor that combines smart in-game graphics settings, strategic system optimization, and diligent driver and operating system updates.
By systematically applying these steps, players can significantly reduce the load on their graphics hardware, leading to smoother gameplay, cooler system temperatures, and an overall enhanced experience without having to make drastic compromises on visual quality.
Written by:
Christian