Never forget !

are you guys still running fully meta kits or pure drip this late in the wipe?

I may have overpeeked but with this reaction time i don't think it would have made such a difference

Not really new to the game but I never bothered learning or even using injectors.
Somehow I feel like they are so situational that I simply never use them.

Can someone brief me a bit on those and tell me what's worth keeping or trashing in my stash ?

PS: I'm mainly a PvE player (if it changes anything) but that general knowledge would be great to have I think

Settings have been discussed countless of times in the Escape from Tarkov community, so I figured I'll add my version to it. There’s still a lot of confusion about what they actually do, and how they affect both your PC’s performance and your overall in-game experience.

My goal is to help you understand and find the settings that work best for your system. Whether you’re new to the game or a seasoned veteran looking to get a little more out of your setup, I hope you’ll find something useful here!

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Quick self shameless promo(approved by the mod team<3)
Tarkov Settings Helper Discord Bot
There's quite a bit to cover in this guide, so naturally, it'll be a fair amount of reading. If you're not interested in going through all the details (which I completely understand!), don't worry I've got something for you!

A few years ago, I developed a Discord bot that recommends in-game settings based on your PC specifications. Since then, the bot has grown to over 700 servers and has expanded to include a PC optimizer command.

If you'd prefer a more straightforward approach to getting your settings, or you're simply curious about what the bot has to offer, you can find more information below:
Invite & Information: https://top.gg/bot/1207299249524703232
Video Overview: https://youtu.be/BmghfESx4Ms?si=V5xSq9b3fwHS5Y0O

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What Will This Guide Cover?
This guide will cover several important topics to help you better understand your PC's performance and how to get the most out of Escape from Tarkov settings, including:

CPU vs GPU Bottlenecks & Importance of RAM, breaking down what these terms mean and how to identify what is limiting your performance.

In-Game Settings Explained, breaking down the most important graphics settings regarding performance, explaining what they actually do, how they affect performance, and what you should look out for when configuring them.

What this guide does not cover:
This guide won't recommend settings that work for everyone, as that's simply not realistic as every system is different. However, there will be exceptions where certain settings can be universally recommended.
If you want a preset of settings for your specific PC specs, check out the Discord BOT mentioned above.

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CPU vs GPU Bottlenecks & Importance of RAM:
(Bottleneck and Bound mean the same thing, both terms are used interchangeable)

Bottlenecking is like driving a fast car in heavy traffic, even though the car can reach 250 kph, traffic limits how fast you can actually drive. There will always be something limiting your PC’s performance, so bottlenecking isn’t inherently bad but ideally, you want your CPU and GPU to be balanced so neither holds the other back too much.

How to identify your bottleneck by reading GPU usage:
-GPU usage at 97-100%: You're GPU bottlenecked. Your graphics card is working at or near its full capacity. When this is the case, if you're looking for more performance, you need to lower GPU intensive settings or use upscalers.

-GPU usage well below 97%: You’re CPU bottlenecked, as your processor is not feeding the GPU work fast enough. When this is the case, you can increase GPU intensive settings without losing performance.

-GPU usage fluctuating: You may be experiencing a mix of CPU limitations and GPU limitations as the FPS fluctuates a lot in Tarkov. This is especially relevant as every map performs differently. You may be CPU bottlenecked on Streets and GPU bottlenecked on Factory.

Quick note on CPU usage: Low CPU usage can still mean you're CPU-bottlenecked because games like Tarkov don't use all CPU cores equally. A few cores can reach their limit while the others remain mostly idle, making overall CPU usage look low even though the CPU is holding back your performance.

RAM:
RAM affects performance by determining how quickly the CPU can access the data it needs and how much data can be stored readily available. Slow RAM limits how quickly the CPU processes information, while insufficient RAM can cause stutters when the system has to move data around.
RAM is usually a contributing factor rather than the main bottleneck itself. Unlike the CPU, which directly handles game logic and calculations, RAM primarily supplies the CPU with data. If RAM is limiting performance, upgrading it can help the CPU work more efficiently and allow the GPU to be utilized better.

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In-game settings explained to the best of my ability:

Game TAB:

-Main menu backgrounds: Personal preference (Doesn’t affect performance)
In the past, main menu backgrounds could negatively impact your experience, causing stutters and lower performance.

At the time of writing, these backgrounds no longer appear to affect performance or the overall gameplay experience. However, it’s worth keeping in mind that future updates or the addition of new backgrounds could reintroduce these issues.

If you want to play it safe, Woods and Factory have never shown any performance issues in my experience, so those are the backgrounds I personally recommend.

-FOV: Personal preference (Affects CPU & GPU bound performance)
Field of View determines how much of the game world you can see on your screen. In Tarkov using a higher FOV actually improves FPS majority of the time because it affects how Level of Detail (LOD) is handled. With a higher FOV, objects are rendered at either a lower level of detail or not at all, depending on the object(s).
Personal preference also plays a big role. Ultimately, choose an FOV that feels comfortable to you while keeping your FPS goals in mind.

(The worst thing you can do for performance is by using: Low FOV + High LOD as this basically doubles the LOD distance. High FOV with Low LOD performs best)

-Automatic RAM Cleaner: Depends
Automatic RAM Cleaner is a setting designed to free up RAM by clearing memory the game no longer needs. At the time of writing, RAM Cleaner is triggered when you load out of a raid and can no longer be triggered manually.
-16 GB or less: Worth using if you're experiencing memory related stutters.
-32 GB or more: Not needed.

-Only use physical cores: Depends (Affects CPU bound performance)
Only use physical cores prioritize your CPU’s physical cores instead of using its logical threads (Hyper-Threading on Intel or SMT on AMD). This setting typically gives a slight performance uplift but may depend per CPU as there are many different CPU architectures.

-Preload Hideout: OFF
Preload Hideout loads your Hideout in the background when launching Tarkov, even if you don't plan on using it.
Keeping this setting off avoids loading the Hideout unnecessarily, which reduces initial loading time and potentially avoid some performance issues associated with loading or visiting the hideout before entering a raid.

Graphics TAB:

-Resolution: (Affects CPU & GPU bound performance)
Use your monitors native resolution.
(if you’re heavily GPU limited, look at the DLSS/FSR section to gain performance instead of lowering your base resolution)

-Aspect ratio: Personal preference (Affects CPU bound performance)
Typically 16:9 is used but this is very much personal preference. Lower aspect ratio does perform slightly better in CPU limited scenarios.

-Screen mode: Borderless
At the time of writing, borderless gives better performance compared to fullscreen due to a bug. This may be patched with future updates.

-Texture quality: Depends (Affects GPU bound performance)
Texture Quality controls the Quality of most textures. Higher texture settings require more VRAM. If your GPU doesn't have enough VRAM, you may experience stuttering and performance drops.
Texture quality does not increase or decrease GPU usage in a meaningful way, only set this accordingly to your card’s VRAM amount.
Here are my recommendations based on VRAM amount:
Low: 6GB or less.
Medium: 8-10GB.
High: 12-16GB.
Ultra: 16GB or more.

-Shadows quality: (Affects GPU bound performance)
Shadows quality controls the detail and quality of shadows cast by players, objects, and the environment. Higher settings produce more detailed shadows but reduce performance when GPU limited.

-Object LOD quality: 2.5 (Affects CPU bound performance)
Object LOD controls the level of detail of objects as they get further away from the camera. This is arguably the most important setting for performance in the game. Low LOD will result in certain objects to pop-in faster, higher LOD prevents this but at a significant performance hit.
This setting can depend on your preference.
Lower LOD gives you best performance but results in objects popping in more.
Higher LOD prevents objects popping in but at a performance cost.

-Overall visibility: 1500
Overall visibility controls the distance of objects like background objects outside of the playable area. This setting barely changes performance so the sweet spot for everybody is 1500.

-Clouds quality: High (Doesn’t affect performance)
Clouds quality should change quality of clouds but I never found a meaningful difference ever since they added this setting.

-Anti-aliasing: Personal preference (Affects GPU bound performance)
Anti-Aliasing smooths jagged edges on objects, making the game look cleaner. Higher settings “improve” image quality but in the case of TAA also increases blur.
None of the options are great. You either get a shimmering mess with less blur, or you get a smoother image with more blur.
(You can use DLSS or FSR as an Anti-aliasing replacement, more about that later)

-Volumetric lighting: Low (Affects GPU bound performance)
Volumetric lighting provides realistic light beams and shadow scattering. This will be most noticeable with flashlights and spotlights/lamps that are placed around the map.
Low is a good starting point. If you’re looking for a competitive edge, OFF is the way to go for visibility.

-DLSS/FSR: Personal preference (Affects GPU bound performance)
DLSS & FSR are upscalers. Upscalers render the game at a lower resolution and then upscale the image to your display’s resolution, improving FPS (only when GPU bound) while trying to maintain image quality. However, they can make the image look blurrier or introduce visual artifacts.

In the case of Tarkov and your personal preference, these upscalers can look better than the other available Anti-aliasing methods like FXAA/TAA.
My recommendations for you to try:
DLSS:
1080P - Quality + preset K.
1440P - Quality/Balanced + preset K.
4K         - Balanced/performance + preset K/M.
FSR: (use highest version available, 2.2 or 3.0 (4.0 coming soon))
1080P - Quality
1440P - Quality/Balanced.
4K         - Balanced/performance.

-HBAO: Max performance (Affects GPU bound performance)
Horizon Based Ambient Occlusion adds realistic shading and soft shadows where objects meet, such as corners and surfaces. It improves visual depth but can reduce performance by a lot when GPU bound.
HBAO is one of the most GPU intensive settings in Tarkov when using the higher quality options like Ultra & Colored ultra.
Max Performance offers a good balance between visual depth and performance, enhancing the game's atmosphere with relatively little impact on GPU performance.

-SSR: OFF or Ultra (Affects GPU bound performance)
Screen Space Reflections adds reflections to surfaces like water and other reflective materials, making the environment look more realistic. SSR also adds water puddles in certain areas of a map when it rains.

In my opinion there are only two viable options here, you should either use OFF or Ultra because anything in between can look very distracting. If you have the GPU headroom use Ultra, if not set to OFF.
(Of course feel free to try the lower options, just because the lower presets are distracting to me, doesn’t mean they are for you)

-Anisotropic filtering: ON (Affects GPU bound performance)
Anisotropic Filtering makes textures look sharper when viewed at an angle or from a distance, such as roads and floors. It has a very small impact on performance, so keeping it on is generally recommended.

-NVIDIA Reflex Low Latency: Depends (Affects GPU bound performance)
NVIDIA Reflex reduces system latency by synchronizing CPU and GPU workloads, allowing the CPU to submit frames to the GPU at the right time, reducing unnecessary queuing and helping your latest inputs appear on screen sooner.

There has been several times in the past this has been bugged resulting in significant decrease in performance. If you’re not experiencing that, this is what I recommend:
OFF: If you’re worried about the potential bug.
ON: If you’re GPU bound.
ON+Boost if you’re CPU bound.

-High-quality color: OFF (Affects GPU bound performance)
High-quality color is supposed to improve color accuracy and reduce color banding to make gradients look smoother.
I don’t think it’s worth the performance impact when GPU bound. I have a hard time telling the difference ON vs OFF, so my recommendation is off.

-Area Light Instancing: ON (Affects CPU bound performance)
Area Light Instancing optimizes how the game handles area lights by allowing lighting calculations to be processed more efficiently.
This setting improves performance marginally in most cases when using RTX-2000 or newer or AMD-6000 or newer, if you have a GPU outside of the listed ranges use OFF.

-Streets of Tarkov Lower Texture Resolution Mode: Depends (Affects GPU bound performance)
LTRM reduces your Texture quality by 1 notch when you play Streets of Tarkov.
This setting can be useful in some use cases and very much depends on what Texture Quality you’re using and how much VRAM your GPU has.
Example: A 12GB GPU may be able to run every map fine with High texture quality but not streets, with LTRM ON Streets of Tarkov will now run at Medium Texture quality while other maps keep using the High texture quality preset.

-Z-Blur / Chrom. Aberrations / Noise / Grass shadows: Personal preference (Doesn’t affect performance)
These four settings have little to no impact on GPU-bound performance.

-POSTFX: Depends (Affects GPU bound performance)
PostFX is a mix of personal preference but can also affect GPU bound performance.

Brightness:             Doesn’t affect performance
Clarity:                    Affects GPU bound performance
Luma sharpen:       Doesn’t affect performance
Adaptive sharpen: Affects GPU bound performance
The others are personal preference.

The end.

I don't know if it's the influence of Streamers demanding "harder content", but making content that MOST of the community finds too hard or impossible for their skill level isn't really fun.

Personally, I'm 45+, I do have time to play, but I don't have the reflexes and quickness I did 20 years ago, so I find the Black Division and the new Labs Event Arena guys basically impossible. They see me and shoot at me before I even see them, and even when I move to a new position and peek ... they laserbeam me head/eyes before I can ADS.

That isn't "challenging", it's just frustrating.

flail around like an idiot and die 40 times until you finally finish it 😭

New personal best.

Unlike some other stims (zagustin being a coagulation booster which stops bleeding irl just like tarkov) obdolbos and obdolbos 2 is totally fictional for tarkov. Their name actually comes from Russian slang “обдолбанный” (obdolbanny) which can be translated as “high because of overdose”. This term generally used for cheap, illicit designed drug that has unregulated bootleg cocktail cooked up. Thats why it can cause death or some of the best experience bonuses. In Tarkov lore these bad boys produced by Sanitar. Do you know any fun facts like this about Tarkov? Feel free to share!

[Screenshot] Fedayeen Saddam helmet in Tarkov!

ASh12 never disappoints.

Lots of cool new stuff. Also, I'm not sure if this machine gun is new, but it's quite delightful carrying around.

idk if he has other spawns, but that one they dropped out of the sky on top of me. I spawned underground by the boiler stairs and ran up through the boiler room as soon as the raid started. Opened the door, and they all fell from heaven; there were like 12 of them. I survived this, BTW (I did not).

This could be a great way to farm him if you're, you know... expecting it. Simply one good nade and you could kill them all. They spawn in one big clump.

These boys aren't playing around here.. be careful out there

just a less cool blackout event with super buggy ai

If you spawn anywhere on this side of the map, throw a nade towards the spawn. They all tend to bunch up either in this doorway, the gym doorway on the other side of the room, or in the middle of the room by the pillars (go to the black keycard room and fight them through the windows). This worked for me twice in a row now. It seems to work regardless of spawn as long as the nade goes out quickly and is close enough to cause the "scatter" as they all spawn clumped up. Will continue testing.

PS: Y'all experience them phasing through doors and randomly wall-banging with perfect accuracy? Fighting them here is way easier than at the tent and dome, where apparently all the cover is made of paper.

Just got shot THROUGH THE CEILING because the bots were up above and I was under red.

I think BSG is threading the waters and testing the limits of players against the reaction timing of recent high end AI's. First was the smoke nerf which is makes it near-impossible to even beat wedge and his guys with them having estimate 50ms reaction time. Now the scourge event js proves my point on their 100ms reaction

Put together a web tool to help streamline quest progression and make sure you aren't walking right past objectives you forgot you had. It also includes key routing so you can map out the most efficient way to clear locked rooms during a raid. I know there are some sites similar to this but I figured id build something that works exactly how I want it to function.

Link: https://tarkov-waypoint.pages.dev/

How it works:

• Search & add in your currently accepted quests, and it maps out optimized routing across each location with your active tasks listed out.
• Check quests off as you finish them and update your active list as you accept new quests.
• There's a built-in backup feature that exports a local text file to your downloads so you never risk losing your saved progress.

Features:

• Smart Quest Routing: Chain multiple task objectives together into an efficient path.
• Wiki Integration: Includes reference screenshots and direct wiki links for every quest.
• Kappa Progress: Track your overall journey toward the collector.
• Detailed Map Overlays: Standard legends marking key spawns, rare item locations, and loot spots.
• Theme Customization: A few different color palettes to pick from in the settings.
• Ammo Reference Page: Quick lookup for weapon rounds and penetration stats.
• Pre-Raid Checklists: Quickly see what gear, specific keys, and items you need before loading into a raid so you never leave a crucial quest item in your stash.
• Key Routes: Interactive map markers that show reference photos for required keys and the doors they unlock when clicked.

If you notice any bugs or have any feature requests please let me know!

Shoutout this guy that just killed me. For anyone curious, that's just over 3 years of active playing.

Just wanted to share how the event was going for me. Looks like it's going well
(sorry for the music at start)