Borderlands 3 PC Performance Review and Optimisation Guide

Graphical Settings Comparison Low, Medium, High, Ultra and Badass

Borderlands 3 can look good under most of the game’s presets, with even Medium offering respectable levels of graphical quality at a relatively low performance cost.  

This game’s Very Low Preset is the only one that we would recommend that gamers stay clear from. It makes too many cuts in too many areas and gives the game a very last-gen appearance. Very Low should only be used on low-end hardware setups, and even then we recommend turning on some form of AA to help eliminate aliasing.  

(Very Low VS Low)
  

  
Moving from Low to Medium, we can see that a lot of extra detail has been added to the game world in both the short and medium distance and some extra objects have been drawn in the distance and some level geometry has been changed.

Medium is the preset of choice for those who what the best balance between performance and graphical fidelity in most cases. We recommend turning Borderlands 3 to Medium and adjusting settings from there. To eliminate Aliasing, we recommend turning on TAA within the game at Medium and then activating FidelityFX to help resharpen the image. 

(Low VS Medium)
  

 
At High settings, we can see changes to scene lighting and increased geometric detail in distant objects. Shadows near the player are also sharper, but overall the changes in Borderlands 3’s graphics are subtle and not transformative. 

The main benefit offered by Borderlands 3’s High settings is the presets use of TAA, which helps to eliminate aliasing within Borderlands 3. 

(Medium VS High)
  

 
In the screenshots below, the difference between High and Ultra are almost negligible. The only major difference that we see is a gain in shadow detail, but that only impacts the shadows of the tree in front of the player. Is this gain worth an FPS drop of over 9 FPS in this scene? 

(High VS Ultra)
  

 
Again, Ultra and Badass have little to no difference in visual quality. This is due to the minimal graphical impact of Borderlands 3’s Volumetric Fog and Screen Space Reflections settings. 

(Ultra VS Badass)