Marvel Rivals Settings Guide – Best Settings for Optimal Gameplay

Marvel Rivals is a fast-paced hero shooter where the right settings can be the difference between winning and losing a fight. Whether the goal is maximum FPS, lower input latency, or simply hearing enemy footsteps more clearly, every setting covered in this guide directly impacts competitive performance. This guide covers the best Marvel Rivals settings for PC players across display, graphics, audio, controls, and system-level optimizations.

Display Settings

Display settings have the biggest impact on FPS and input latency. Getting these right before touching anything else is the correct order of operations.

Full Screen mode is mandatory for optimal performance. Borderless Windowed is fine for content creators or streamers who need to switch between monitors, but for anyone focused on competitive play, Full Screen reduces input latency meaningfully. Always set the resolution to the monitor’s native resolution unless FPS is critically low, in which case dropping to 1920×1080 is the best fallback.

For anti-aliasing, Nvidia GPU owners should select Nvidia DLSS and AMD GPU owners should select AMD FSR or Epic TSR. Both are upscaling solutions that recover significant FPS with minimal visual quality loss. Quality mode is the recommended Super Resolution preset for most players; those chasing maximum frames can drop to Performance or Ultra Performance.

Nvidia Reflex Low Latency should always be enabled on Nvidia GPUs. AMD users should enable AMD Anti-Lag if it appears in settings. Both reduce the gap between mouse movement and on-screen response. VSync should be turned off entirely as it caps FPS and adds input delay with no competitive benefit.

Brightness at 60 (up from the default of 50) makes enemies hiding in shadows and dark corners of maps more visible without making the image look washed out. Enabling Show FPS and Show Network Stats in the top-right corner helps identify performance issues and high ping spikes during matches.

Graphics Settings

Set Graphics Quality to Custom to control each setting individually. The two biggest FPS killers in Marvel Rivals are Global Illumination and Reflection Quality, both of which must be handled correctly.

Global Illumination and Reflection Quality both offer a Lumen option, which is essentially software ray tracing. Lumen will devastate frame rates on nearly every system and provides no competitive advantage. Global Illumination should be set to SSGI – Low Quality, and Reflection Quality should be set to Screen Space Reflections.

Model Detail, Post-Processing, Effects Detail, and Foliage Quality should all be set to Low for maximum FPS. Texture Detail can stay at Low or Medium depending on available VRAM; players on GPUs with 8GB or more can leave it at Medium without a significant performance hit. All other settings on Low reduces visual clutter during hectic team fights, making it easier to track enemies.

Audio Settings

Marvel Rivals has some of the most detailed audio customization of any hero shooter. Getting these settings right means hearing footsteps, ultimate activations, and incoming damage before it is too late to react.

Sound Effects Volume should always be at 100%. A large number of audio cues in Marvel Rivals — footsteps, ability activations, incoming damage warnings — are subtle and will be missed at lower volumes. Music Volume and Lobby Music Volume can safely go to 0 as they offer no gameplay information and only compete with important sounds.

In-Game Voice Volume should be kept at 100%. Heroes announce their ultimates with voice lines, and recognizing which ultimate is active — friendly or enemy — is critical for making smart decisions during fights. Voiceover Subtitles should be turned off, as the on-screen text takes up valuable space and becomes a distraction.

3D Enhancement should be enabled for anyone using headphones. This setting adds spatial audio processing that makes it significantly easier to identify where footsteps and ability sounds are coming from around the map. Note that Windows Spatial Audio should not be enabled simultaneously, as the two can conflict.

Combat Mix Settings

The Combat Mix subcategory is one of the most overlooked areas in Marvel Rivals audio settings. It offers granular control over individual sound layers and a preset system that dramatically changes the overall audio experience.

The Focus preset is the correct choice for competitive play. Focus amplifies the most important in-game sounds — footsteps, incoming fire, and ability cues — making it easier to process what is happening during chaotic fights. The Immersion preset creates a more cinematic audio experience but makes it harder to isolate critical sounds. The Default preset is a middle ground but outperformed by Focus for competitive awareness.

Hit Indicator Volume (the sound when landing shots on enemies) should be turned down to 2. Most heroes attack constantly, and a loud hit sound on every bullet overwhelms quieter but more important audio cues like footsteps. UI Layer Volume controls the critical hit sound and should remain maxed out — critical hit audio feedback is faster to register than the visual indicator, giving a genuine reaction time advantage.

Both KO Sound Cues — for teammate knockouts and enemy knockouts — should be enabled and set to maximum volume. Knowing when teammates go down without looking at the kill feed allows faster rotations and better ultimate timing. Knowing when enemies are eliminated prevents wasted ultimates on a fight that is already won.

Controls and Sensitivity

Sensitivity is personal preference and should never be copied directly from another player’s config. A common starting point for mouse players is 800 DPI with in-game sensitivity around 1.4, but the correct setting is whatever allows consistently hitting targets without over- or under-shooting.

Raw Input must be enabled. Many systems have mouse acceleration running in the background, which causes sensitivity to feel inconsistent depending on how fast the mouse is moved. Raw Input bypasses this and delivers consistent, predictable mouse movement at all speeds. All aim assist and acceleration options should remain off for mouse and keyboard players.

Controller players should turn Vibration off. Rumble feedback during combat disrupts aim and provides no information that visual and audio cues do not already deliver. Press to Ascend should be set to Hold rather than Toggle. On maps with updraft zones such as Wakanda, having this on Toggle causes unintended floating that makes players a stationary target.

Crosshair and Reticle

Marvel Rivals has one of the most detailed crosshair customization systems in the hero shooter genre. The Reticle settings are found under Keyboard settings and offer full control over crosshair style, width, length, opacity, dot size, animations, and color.

The most important setting within the crosshair menu is color. The default white or red crosshair can blend into environments or enemy outlines. A yellow crosshair stands out clearly against both red enemy highlights and most map backgrounds. The color can be set to any custom RGB value for players who want something more specific.

Accessibility Settings

The Accessibility menu in Marvel Rivals contains visual settings that directly affect competitive visibility. These are not just color blindness accommodations — several of these settings give a genuine advantage in tracking enemies and distinguishing health states.

Setting Enemy Color to Red makes enemy health bars and outlines more saturated and visually distinct, particularly in dark areas of maps like dark Wakanda corridors or shadowed interiors. The default enemy color is fine but the Red option makes enemies pop more clearly during fast-paced engagements.

The Shield HP Bar Color should be changed away from the default blue. By default, the Shield bar color is very close to the blue used for Ally health bars, which can cause a split-second misread on a heavily shielded enemy like Venom — making them look like a teammate. Changing it to pink or any color clearly distinct from both ally blue and enemy red eliminates this confusion entirely.

Communication Wheel

The Communication Wheel is underused by most players, but two specific settings inside it provide a genuine competitive edge in ranked play.

The wheel should be expanded to 8 slots (up from the default 4) to access a wider range of quick communications. One of those slots should be assigned to the Status ping. When used during a match, Status broadcasts the exact health percentage to the team — a far faster way to let healers know healing is needed than trying to voice-communicate it mid-fight.

Ally Signal Sensitivity should be turned all the way down to 0, and Enemy Signal Sensitivity should be maxed at 100%. This configuration makes it easy to ping fast-moving enemies like Spider-Man or Black Panther without accidentally pinging a nearby teammate instead. The enemy ping is far more useful information to share than an ally ping in virtually every scenario.

Hero-Specific Settings

Marvel Rivals includes per-hero settings accessible by selecting a specific hero in the Keyboard settings menu rather than All Heroes. These settings do not appear in the global menu and are easy to miss entirely.

Windows and System Optimizations

Several system-level changes outside of the game itself can meaningfully improve Marvel Rivals performance. These only need to be set up once and remain active across all sessions.

Frequently Asked Questions