Settings
Best Marvel Rivals Settings for Competitive Play
For competitive Marvel Rivals, turn Motion Blur, Depth of Field, and V-Sync off, set NVIDIA Reflex to On plus Boost, keep Shadows on Low rather than Off, run Textures on Medium, and cap your frame rate a few frames below your monitor's refresh. Those values maximize enemy visibility and minimize input lag, which is what actually wins duels on the ranked ladder.
The best competitive settings are not the ones that look nicest. They are the ones that let you see an enemy a fraction of a second sooner and act on it a fraction of a second faster. Everything below is built around those two goals, clarity and responsiveness, and there is a full baseline table you can copy. Starting from a stock install? Run through our increase FPS guide first so you have the frames to spare.
Which settings improve enemy visibility?
High FPS is worthless if you cannot pick a flanker out of a busy teamfight. Marvel Rivals throws a lot of particle effects, destruction, and ultimate visuals on screen at once, so your competitive settings should strip the noise that hides enemies while keeping the detail that reveals them.
- Motion Blur off. Blur is the enemy of tracking. Turn it off and never look back.
- Shadows low, not off. Low shadows are cheap, and enemies still cast a shadow you can read around corners. Turning them fully off can remove that tell.
- Textures medium. Enough to keep hero silhouettes crisp without overflowing VRAM.
- View distance medium. Far enough to spot a diving flanker, not so far it wastes frames on scenery.
How do you reduce input lag?
Responsiveness is the other half of a competitive config. The gap between moving your mouse and seeing the result on screen is input lag, and several settings quietly add to it.
- Turn V-Sync off. It trades latency for tear-free frames, which is the wrong trade in a shooter.
- Turn NVIDIA Reflex on with Boost. It keeps your GPU from building a backlog of frames, which is the biggest latency win on NVIDIA cards.
- Cap your frame rate a few frames below your monitor's refresh so the GPU keeps headroom instead of running maxed out.
- Play in Fullscreen, not borderless, for the most direct path to the display.
A competitive baseline to copy
Start here and adjust to your hardware. This baseline targets a steady, high frame rate with the visibility and latency a ranked player wants.
| Setting | Value | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Resolution Scale | 80% (native for input feel) | Sharp targets, still cheap |
| Upscaling | FSR or TSR | More frames for a slightly softer image |
| Texture Quality | Medium | Clear models without VRAM stutter |
| Shadow Quality | Low | Cheap, and enemies still cast readable shadows |
| Anti-Aliasing | TAA Low | Cleans edges without smearing |
| Motion Blur | Off | No smear during flick shots |
| Depth of Field | Off | Whole scene stays in focus |
| View Distance | Medium | See flankers without wasting frames |
| V-Sync | Off | Removes a layer of input lag |
| NVIDIA Reflex | On + Boost | Lowest possible click-to-photon latency |
There is one more lever outside the in-game menu. The RivalsFPS.gg app has a Quality tab that trades texture quality for frames by writing NVIDIA's own per-game profile for Marvel Rivals, so it needs an NVIDIA graphics card. On AMD and Intel the tab still opens and explains why it cannot work there: AMD's driver has no equivalent for DirectX 12 games, so in-game low settings plus FSR stay the answer on those cards. No game files are touched and nothing else on your PC changes. There are three tiers, biggest gain first: Ultra Potato, Potato and Standard. You arm one in the tab, the app writes it when you press its Launch button, and it is put back when the game closes, so starting the game any other way runs stock.
Be realistic about the size of it. In our own benchmarks the gain was moderate, around 3 percent more FPS on a high-end card with Ultra Potato. Cards with less VRAM and lower-end GPUs typically gain more, and most of it shows up in the 1% lows, meaning less stutter, rather than in headline FPS. That is the part a ranked player actually feels, since a dropped frame in a duel costs more than an average one. There is a cosmetic price: Ultra Potato can turn some floors invisible on a few maps and Potato leaves a few slightly raised, so Standard is the tier that keeps every map intact.
Stretched resolution, if you want it
A lot of competitive players run a stretched resolution: a 4:3 mode stretched to fill a widescreen display. Enemy models render roughly a third wider, which some players find easier to track. The tradeoff is a squashed field of view, so you see less to your sides. It is a personal preference, not a straight upgrade.
The RivalsFPS.gg app has a Stretched Resolution toggle under Settings that sets the 4:3 mode in your GPU driver and lets GPU scaling stretch it back to full width, so you can try it without editing driver profiles by hand.
Tuning without breaking fair play
There is a line between optimizing and cheating, and it usually runs through visibility. Stripping fog or shadows to values the game never intended can reveal enemies who should be hidden, which is exactly the kind of edge anti-cheat and other players will not tolerate.
The RivalsFPS.gg app does not edit engine configs, so it is not a route to that. What it has instead is two ways to make the picture easier to read. Color Correction grades the frame with vibrance, contrast, midtones and black level, and a live preview on a real game frame shows you the result before anything is installed. Above the Graphic Packs library, setting the layer selects to Competitive swaps foliage, visual effects, decals and shadows for simpler versions, so there is less on screen competing with a hero silhouette.
Both are third-party modifications, and NetEase's published rules put them in the prohibited category, so treat running them as your call rather than something we can sign off. What we can tell you is what was tested on our own rig: the color correction pass does not trip Marvel Rivals' modification warning in game, and pressing End switches the effect off instantly mid-match. The Color Correction page has the live previewer on it if you want to move the sliders before you download anything.
Set it once and climb
Set clarity first, kill your input lag second, and lock your frame pacing third. Do that and your settings stop being a variable. Every loss is on your positioning and aim, which is exactly where you want the blame so you can actually improve.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best graphics settings for competitive Marvel Rivals?
Motion Blur off, Depth of Field off, and V-Sync off; NVIDIA Reflex on with Boost; Shadows Low; Textures Medium; Anti-Aliasing TAA Low; View Distance Medium; and Resolution Scale around 80 percent with FSR or TSR upscaling. Cap your frame rate a few frames below your monitor's refresh so the GPU keeps headroom. These values prioritize enemy visibility and low input lag over looks.
Should I turn shadows off in Marvel Rivals?
No, keep shadows on Low rather than Off. Low shadows are cheap on performance, and enemies still cast a shadow you can read around corners. Turning them fully off removes that tell without saving many frames.
How do I reduce input lag in Marvel Rivals?
Turn V-Sync off, set NVIDIA Reflex to On plus Boost, cap your frame rate a few frames below your monitor's refresh so the GPU is not maxed out, and play in Fullscreen instead of borderless for the most direct path to the display.
Does stretched resolution give an advantage in Marvel Rivals?
Stretched resolution renders enemy models roughly a third wider, which some players find easier to track, but it squashes your field of view so you see less to your sides. It is a personal preference, not a straight upgrade. The RivalsFPS.gg app has a Stretched Resolution toggle under Settings that sets the 4:3 mode for you.
Can changing my settings get me flagged by anti-cheat?
Normal in-game graphics settings are fine. The risk is editing engine configs to push fog or shadows below their intended values to reveal hidden enemies.