# Best Deadlock Settings for FPS & Visibility (2026)
> Setting-by-setting Deadlock graphics, Options, reticle and camera choices for higher FPS, lower input lag and clearer enemies, with a low-end PC column. It also covers the City Never Sleeps accessibility and health bar options the source video predates, such as Auto Move, Auto Mantle and Enemy Damaged Color.
- **Game:** Deadlock
- **Category:** Getting Started
- **Author:** ItzMaze (https://guides-factory.com/authors/itzmaze)
- **Difficulty:** Beginner
- **Reading time:** 15 min
- **Published:** 2026-11-01
- **Updated:** 2026-11-01
- **Tags:** FPS, Graphics Settings, PC Settings, accessibility
- **Adapted from:** [The New Best Settings For Deadlock 2026 (Increase FPS)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5phEOb6zeAg)
- **Canonical URL:** https://guides-factory.com/guides/deadlock-settings-guide
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## 🎯 The core idea
> Most of Deadlock's FPS and visibility gains come from a handful of switches: turn off screen space AO, distance field shadows, VSync, area lights and depth of field, keep fog on Low, use NVIDIA Reflex, and cap the frame rate at your monitor's refresh rate. Then set Camera FOV to 90, disable themed hero reticles, and look at the new City Never Sleeps accessibility options like Auto Move and Auto Mantle.
- free costs nothing
- cheap small cost
- setup needs preparation
- grind pays off slowly
- skip the thing to stop doing
This guide is built on FPS Capital's settings video from September 28, 2026, one day before the City Never Sleeps update (September 29–30, 2026). The menu screenshots below come from that video, so they show the menu as it was just before the update. The graphics, Options, reticle and camera menus they show are the ones covered here. City Never Sleeps then added its own accessibility, HUD and health bar options, and those have their own section further down.
## Display settings: resolution, aspect ratio and window mode
free Under **Display**, keep **Aspect ratio** on 16x9 unless your monitor is 16x10 or 21x9 (the other two choices in the row). Set **Resolution** to your monitor's native resolution. In the video that is 1920x1080 at 165 Hz. Running below native resolution is a blunt way to raise FPS, and the upscaler in the next section does the same job with much less blur.
**Window mode** offers Full Screen, Window and Borderless Window. The video recommends Borderless Window if you alt-tab often and says Full Screen is also fine. Whichever you choose, press **Apply Settings**, because the display block does not save until you do.
## Upscaling technology: Stretch, FSR, FSR2 or DLSS
free The first row under **Performance** (with **Advanced settings** ticked) is **Upscaling technology**, with four choices: Stretch, FSR, FSR2 (TAA) and NVIDIA DLSS. Below it is a **Render Quality** slider, set to 100% in the video. Deadlock supports both DLSS and FSR2 upscaling.
- **Stretch** at 100% Render Quality renders at full resolution with no upscaling. This is what the video uses on a strong PC.
- **NVIDIA DLSS** (RTX cards only) is the video's choice when you need more frames. It renders below native resolution and rebuilds the image, which is usually the cleanest way to boost FPS in Deadlock.
- **FSR2 (TAA)** is the option for AMD or older NVIDIA cards. The in-game tooltip says FSR2 uses temporal anti-aliasing and lists its performance cost as "moderate/consistent".
- Plain **FSR** is the older spatial upscaler. Try it only if FSR2 looks too soft in motion.
To increase FPS on a low end PC, lower Render Quality step by step with DLSS or FSR2 until your FPS is stable, before you cut anything else.
## Anti-aliasing: keep FXAA on
free **Anti-Aliasing** only offers None or FXAA. The tooltip calls it a post-process effect that applies "when FSR2 is disabled", with a small, consistent performance cost. The video leaves FXAA on because it barely affects FPS, and switching it off just adds jagged edges to every hero outline. With FSR2 (TAA) selected, FSR2's own anti-aliasing takes over.
## Screen space AO and distance field shadows: turn both off
skip These are the two expensive settings that do little in a fight. **Screen space AO** has Off, Low, Med, High and Ultra. **Distance field shadows** has Off, Low and High, and its tooltip says it approximates soft contact shadows from characters and dynamic objects, with a "moderate/varies" cost. "Varies" usually means it costs the most in big teamfights, which is exactly when you need frames. The video turns both **Off**, and that is the biggest single FPS boost in this guide for most systems.
**Shadow quality** (Low/Med/High/Ultra) is on Med in the video, with Low as the option if you need more frames. City Never Sleeps also changed hero drop shadows so they now fall straight down instead of following the sunlight. The patch notes say this improves performance and makes enemies easier to track, so the shadows that remain are more useful than before.
## Fog quality and texture quality
free **Fog quality** has only Low and High. The tooltip says lower settings reduce volumetric fog resolution to help lower-end systems. The video keeps it on **Low** for the best visibility as well as FPS, because less fog makes heroes stand out at range. This is the one setting where the faster option also looks clearer, so set it to Low on every PC.
**Texture quality** (Low/Med/High) mainly uses video memory. The video keeps it on High and drops it to Low only for extra frames. If your graphics card has plenty of VRAM, High costs very little, while a card with little VRAM can stutter on High as textures stream in. That stutter is a common reason for drops in the first minutes of a match.
## Competitive settings at a glance
The video's full Performance block is visible in one shot. Here it is as a table, with a low-end column for PCs that still struggle:
| Setting | Video (good PC) | Low end PC |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Upscaling technology | Stretch, 100% | NVIDIA DLSS or FSR2, lower Render Quality |
| Anti-Aliasing | FXAA | FXAA |
| Screen space AO | Off | Off |
| Distance field shadows | Off | Off |
| Shadow quality | Med | Low |
| Fog quality | Low | Low |
| Texture quality | High | Low or Med |
| Post process bloom / Effects bloom | On (looks) | Off |
| VSync | Off | Off |
| Area lights / Depth of field | Off | Off |
| In-game maximum FPS | Monitor refresh rate | Monitor refresh rate, or a stable lower value |
These are competitive settings: they trade a bit of eye candy for frame rate and clarity, not for raw ugliness.
## Bloom, VSync, area lights and depth of field
cheap **Post process bloom** and **Effects bloom** stay on in the video simply because the game looks nicer. The bloom tooltip says it bleeds light from bright parts of the image, with a small, consistent cost. For the best FPS and visibility, turn both off: ability effects and bright signs then glow less around enemy models.
skip **VSync** goes off because it adds input lag. **Area lights** and **Depth of field** also go off in the video for better visibility. Depth of field blurs whatever you are not focused on, which in a shooter is often the enemy.
## In-game maximum FPS and the fps_max launch option
free The video recommends setting **In-game maximum FPS** to your monitor's refresh rate. The slider in the video tops out around 244. The tooltip explains that higher values can be set with the `+fps_max` launch option, and that a value outside the slider's range disables the slider. So if you have a 360 Hz monitor or want an uncapped frame rate, set it in Steam (see the launch options section) rather than in the menu. Capping at or slightly below your refresh rate keeps frame times even and cuts down on stutter. Deadlock's input lag is lowest when your GPU isn't pinned at 100%, which a cap helps with.
## Rendering API and NVIDIA Reflex
free In the **Options** block, **Rendering** shows Direct3D 11 (-dx11) in the video. The creator's advice is to keep DirectX 11, and this guide has no wiki or patch-note data comparing the other renderer in the dropdown, so treat a switch as something to test yourself, not a known FPS gain.
**NVIDIA Reflex** offers Disabled, Enabled and Enabled + Boost. The video uses Enabled, which reduces input lag on NVIDIA cards. Enabled + Boost also keeps the GPU clocked higher, which mostly helps when your CPU is the bottleneck.
## G-Sync, Reduce flashing effects and the other Options toggles
The video sets **NVIDIA G-Sync** to Disabled, saying it adds a bit of input lag. Read the tooltip before following that advice. It says G-Sync gives a smoother picture, works only on certain displays, is most effective when your frame rate is below the display's maximum refresh rate, and can be enabled outside the game in the NVIDIA Control Panel. If your FPS often drops below your refresh rate, G-Sync combined with Reflex and a frame cap a few FPS under the refresh rate is a reasonable alternative to turning it off. That last part is general GPU advice, not something the video or the wiki tests.
The same block holds **Minimize on focus loss**, **Dashboard maximum FPS** (239 in the video, the cap for menus) and **Reduce flashing effects**. That last one is an accessibility option worth switching on if flashes bother you. The video skips the HUD and audio blocks as personal preference.
## Reticle: turn off themed hero reticles
free In the **Game** settings, the first reticle row is **Themed hero reticles**. Its tooltip says it uses predefined, themed reticles for each hero instead of the basic one. The video turns it off because a few hero crosshairs are hard to aim with. Once it is off, the rows below it (Line Width, Line Height, Line Gap, Line Opacity, Line Border and so on) let you build one crosshair you can use on every hero. Third-party coverage of City Never Sleeps also mentions separate fill and border color controls for the reticle, which help it stand out against the reworked map.
## Camera FOV 90 and mouse settings
free Under **Camera**, the video sets **Camera FOV** to 90, and the slider sits at its far right end there, so 90 looks like the maximum. A wider FOV shows more of the fight around you, which is the best visibility setting after fog. Mouse sensitivity, Y-axis scaling, Zoom sensitivity ratio and Zoom-lock are personal preference. The video shows 1.25 sensitivity with both ratios at 1.
## Steam launch options: -novid and -preload
setup In Steam, right-click Deadlock, choose **Properties**, and the **General** tab has a **Launch Options** box. The video types:
`-novid -preload`
The `-novid` launch option skips the intro video, which saves a few seconds on every launch and nothing more. The video says `-preload` preloads some textures so the game runs smoother. Neither the wiki nor the patch notes document this for Deadlock's Source 2 engine, so treat it as the creator's claim, not a guaranteed stutter fix. Add `+fps_max 0` (uncapped) or `+fps_max ` here if you want a frame cap the menu slider can't reach. Separate the options with spaces.
## New City Never Sleeps accessibility, HUD and health bar options
The video is one day older than City Never Sleeps, so it covers none of the options below.
**Accessibility options.** Valve's update summary lists "accessibility options" among the update's additions, but the wiki's patch-note copy doesn't name them. Third-party update coverage (games.gg, GameRiv, Mobalytics) lists:
- **Deadlock Auto Move**: double-tap Move Forward and your hero keeps running without holding the key. Pressing forward or back again cancels it.
- **Deadlock Auto Mantle**: climbs ledges automatically as you move into them, without a separate jump press.
- **Auto Fire**: makes firing a toggle instead of a hold.
- **Reduced camera shake** from hits and explosions, plus subtitles for in-game voice lines.
- **Custom Enemy UI Colors**: lets you recolor enemy health bars and other enemy UI. The September 30 follow-up patch made enemy trooper health bars use your custom enemy color too, and added an **Enemy zipline color** to the custom UI colors.
These accessibility settings are useful for competitive players as well. A high-contrast enemy color is a visibility setting, and Auto Mantle removes a missed-jump mistake on the reworked streets. See the [movement guide](/guides/deadlock-movement-guide) for what is still worth doing by hand.
**HUD and health bar options** (wiki patch notes, September 29–30, 2026):
- A new option hides player names above health bars or replaces them with hero names. Names now fade out from 25 m and are fully gone at 35 m.
- **Enemy Damaged Color** for health bars was added to the accessibility settings, with yellow as the default.
- An **inset HUD** option for 21x9 monitors.
- Rebinding for **Avoid Hero** (for mice without a middle button) and for **Down Dash**.
- New settings rows now show an indicator until you dismiss the new-setting notice, and sliders show a pip marking the default value.
**Do the menu names still match?** We have no post-update screenshot of the graphics menu. The patch notes list no renamed or removed graphics options, and the "new setting" indicator only marks additions, so the video's Performance and Options names should still apply. If a row looks different, the default-value pip on each slider shows you where the game's default sits.
## How this guide was fact-checked
- **Menu names, options and tooltips** (Upscaling technology choices, FXAA, the distance field shadow and fog tooltips, the `+fps_max` note, Reflex modes, the G-Sync tooltip, Themed hero reticles, Camera FOV 90, the Steam Launch Options box) were read from frames of FPS Capital's video, recorded just before City Never Sleeps. One frame shows Steam's "Minor Update - 09-16-2026", which dates the footage.
- **City Never Sleeps changes** (drop shadows, inset HUD, health bar names, Enemy Damaged Color, enemy zipline color, trooper health bars, setting indicators and default pips, Avoid Hero and Down Dash rebinding) come from the deadlock.wiki patch-note pages for September 29 and September 30, 2026. The wiki has no dedicated settings or launch-options page.
- **Auto Move, Auto Mantle, Auto Fire, reduced camera shake and subtitles** are not named on the wiki's patch-note copy. They come from third-party update coverage, as stated in that section, so their exact menu location is not confirmed here.
- **Corrections and caveats on the video:** the G-Sync tooltip describes smoother visuals, not the input-lag cost the video mentions, so this guide presents G-Sync as a choice. `-preload` has no documented effect in Deadlock and is attributed to the creator. The video calls the first upscaling option "stretch", which matches the menu: it is the no-upscaler setting.
- No frame-rate numbers are given for any setting, because the video shows only a before-and-after FPS counter, not measured gains per setting.
## What this guide doesn't answer
- **Exact FPS gains per setting.** These depend on your CPU and GPU, and the source doesn't measure them.
- **Driver-level tweaks** (NVIDIA Control Panel, AMD Adrenalin, Windows game mode). They are outside Deadlock's own menu.
- **Keybinds and HUD layout.** The video calls these personal preference, and there is no single best layout.
- **Audio settings.** They have no effect on FPS and deserve a separate guide.
- **Network lag fix.** Rubber-banding from ping or packet loss is a connection problem, which graphics settings can't fix.
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## FAQ
### What are the best Deadlock settings for FPS?
Turn Screen space AO and Distance field shadows off, set Fog quality to Low, Shadow quality to Med or Low, and switch off VSync, Area lights and Depth of field. Keep FXAA on, enable NVIDIA Reflex, and set In-game maximum FPS to your monitor's refresh rate. If you still need frames, switch Upscaling technology to NVIDIA DLSS or FSR2 and lower Render Quality.
### Should I use DLSS or FSR in Deadlock?
Use NVIDIA DLSS if you have an RTX card, and FSR2 (TAA) on AMD or older NVIDIA cards. The in-game tooltip says FSR2 brings its own temporal anti-aliasing. If your PC already runs well, leave Upscaling technology on Stretch at 100% Render Quality for a native image.
### What launch options should I use for Deadlock?
In Steam, open Deadlock's Properties, then General, then Launch Options. -novid skips the intro video. -preload is suggested by the source video but its effect isn't documented for Deadlock. Add +fps_max followed by a number to set a frame cap above the in-game slider's range, which stops at about 244.
### What is the best FOV in Deadlock?
Set Camera FOV to 90 in the Camera settings. In the video the slider sits at its far right end at 90, so it appears to be the maximum, and the wider view shows more of a fight around you.
### Where are Auto Move and Auto Mantle in Deadlock?
They are accessibility options added in the City Never Sleeps update on September 29, 2026. Auto Move keeps you running after a double-tap of Move Forward, and Auto Mantle climbs ledges without a separate jump. The same update added Auto Fire, reduced camera shake, custom enemy UI colors and an Enemy Damaged Color for health bars, which defaults to yellow.