Marvel Rivals Configs: Config Paks and What Replaced Them

A Marvel Rivals config is a set of engine settings applied outside the in-game menu, by editing the game's .ini files or by packing them into a .pak in the mods folder. RIVALSFPS.GG used to install config paks and retired them in version 3.4.2 with the note "Using configs may result in bans." Installing config paks was removed completely in 4.0.0. Here is what replaced them.

• Lower Render Resolution, on the Quality tab, for the render resolution job a config pak used to do. The guide: Lower Render Resolution on any graphics card.
• Max FPS, a preset inside Graphic Pack Settings, for what the game draws. Its biggest measured part is Lights: Reduced. About 7% more FPS in testing. Every layer it changes is listed under the Max FPS preset.
• The Quality presets, which reuse the names Ultra Potato, Potato and Standard as driver presets for NVIDIA cards only. They have their own page, Marvel Rivals potato graphics (NVIDIA only).
• The game's own settings menu, which needs no app at all. A full table is in the best competitive settings.

What is a config in Marvel Rivals?

The game is built on Unreal Engine, which reads its settings from .ini files. A config is a set of those engine values chosen by someone other than the game's menu. People apply one in two ways: by editing the .ini files on disk, or by packing an engine settings file into a small .pak and dropping it into the game's ~mods folder, where it loads alongside mods. The second kind is a config pak. The ones RIVALSFPS.GG used to ship each held a single file, the engine's DefaultEngine.ini, under the names Standard, Potato and Ultra Potato.

Their main lever was internal render resolution. One was active at a time, and a Config Editor let you change the values by hand. All of that is gone from the app, not hidden behind a toggle. If you still had a config applied when 3.4.2 arrived, the update took it off and put your game back to its normal settings, and config files of your own were left alone.

Where is the Marvel Rivals config file?

The game keeps your settings in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Marvel\Saved\Config\Windows\GameUserSettings.ini. %LOCALAPPDATA% stands for the AppData\Local folder in your Windows user profile. This is the file the in-game menu saves to, and values such as your resolution, display mode and Super Resolution Mode live in it.

Two RIVALSFPS.GG features write to it for a launch from the app and put it back afterwards. Lower Render Resolution sets the Super Resolution Mode value. Stretched Resolution sets a 4:3 resolution and Borderless mode, and holds the file read-only while the session runs so the game cannot overwrite them, then puts your original settings back when the game closes.

What is Scalability.ini?

Scalability.ini is one of the Unreal Engine settings files that config tweaks edit. Unreal Engine defines its scalability groups, the quality levels behind settings such as shadows, textures, effects and foliage, in its Scalability ini files, so editing one changes what those menu levels do. This guide gives no values for it and no path to it, and RIVALSFPS.GG does not edit it. Hand edits to engine files count as modifying the client, and NetEase's published rules prohibit that.

Are Marvel Rivals configs bannable?

RIVALSFPS.GG retired config paks in version 3.4.2 with the note "Using configs may result in bans." If a .pak in your mods folder carries its own game config, the app shows it with a Config badge and the reason "Contains its own game config", and asks you to remove it before it launches the game (Remove config pak and launch). The app's own warning says Marvel Rivals shows its in-game modification warning while such a pak is installed, and that it can override the settings RIVALSFPS.GG applied.

Only NetEase decides what happens to an account that runs a config, so this page makes no promise either way. For mods in general, read Are Marvel Rivals mods bannable?

The three names came back, on a different mechanism

Version 4.1.0 added a rail tab called Quality, between Mods and Graphics. Its presets reuse the old names, Ultra Potato, Potato and Standard, and they are NVIDIA only: they change settings in the NVIDIA driver's profile for the game rather than a file the game reads as a config. On AMD and Intel cards each of these NVIDIA-only preset rows reads "Not available for your GPU."

They are not paks, but they are not file-free either. Since 5.1.1 the NVIDIA-only presets need the Signature Bypass, and the first time you activate one, map compatibility files go into your mods folder. Each one covers one launch from the app's Launch button and is undone when the game closes. If anything is ever left over from an earlier session, the tab's Reset Quality button clears it.

What lowers the render load now

Of the replacements, Lower Render Resolution is the closest to a config pak's main job, and it works on any graphics card. Instead of pushing a value past the menu, it uses the game's own Super Resolution Mode, so it only does something when Anti-Aliasing and Super Resolution Type is on an upscaler: DLSS, TSR, FSR or XeSS, since TAAU ignores it. Its strengths run from Ultra Performance through Performance and Balanced to Quality, and the app applies your pick to launches from its Launch button.

The other half of a config pak, what the game draws, moved to the Graphics tab. Graphic Pack Settings sits above the Graphic Pack Library and changes layers such as lights, shadows, foliage, decals and the far background, and its Max FPS preset turns most of them down in one pick. Below that, a colorway graphic pack repaints the map textures, and the app makes each pack on your own PC out of your installed game files. The window below shows the Graphics tab with Max FPS on top of Competitive Dark Gray.

So the old single pak is now two separate controls. Lower Render Resolution decides how sharp the whole frame is, and Graphic Pack Settings decides which parts of it get simpler. The packs themselves are covered in graphic packs and texture packs, and every layer is explained in the Graphic Pack Settings guide.

If you do not want the game to look different

Then the Graphics and Quality tabs are the wrong place, since both trade picture quality for a lighter load. The Windows Optimizations tab changes Windows instead of the game: 14 settings across network, system, GPU, power and input, each with its own Revert, and nothing about the image changes. Start with the Windows optimizations guide. For the menu side, the guide on how to increase FPS in Marvel Rivals walks through each in-game setting.

Getting rid of an old one

A config pak from an older version of the app is just a file on disk now. If it sits in the game's ~mods folder, the app finds it by its contents, shows it with a Config badge, and offers Remove config pak and launch when you press Launch. When the updated app opens and finds a leftover from an older RIVALSFPS.GG version, or a config an older version applied to the game's own files, it asks before clearing it (Not now or Continue), and Windows may ask for permission. Revert All Changes, in Settings under Diagnostics, undoes the rest of what the app changed.

Once it is gone, pick a preset in Graphic Pack Settings, or turn on Lower Render Resolution. That is the current path to the same result, and it is the one the app maintains.

Common questions