Modern Warfare 4: Best PC Settings, Specs and DLSS 4.5 Guide

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4's Campaign Early Access is live now for anyone who digitally pre-purchased on PC, with the full release following on October 23 on Xbox on PC, Battle.net and Steam. Infinity Ward and PC lead developer Beenox built this version around more than 800 customization options, and getting the right handful of them dialed in before you boot up will save you a frustrating first session.

01Check Your Hardware Tier Before You Install

Activision publishes three official specification tiers for Modern Warfare 4 on PC, and the one you fall into decides almost every setting below. The Minimum tier (Windows 10 64-bit, AMD Ryzen 5 1400 or Intel Core i5-6600, 8GB RAM, AMD Radeon RX 470 / NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970-1060 / Intel Arc A580, 3GB VRAM) is simply there to let the game run. The Recommended tier is the one worth targeting: Windows 11, AMD Ryzen 5 3600 or Intel Core i7-8700K, 16GB RAM, an AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti or Intel Arc B580, and 8GB of video memory is what Activision says is needed to hit 90 FPS in multiplayer on High settings without touching a single slider. The Ray Tracing tier steps up again to 32GB of RAM, a Radeon RX 9070 XT, GeForce RTX 5070 Ti or equivalent, and 16GB VRAM for 4K-upscaled ray tracing. Every tier needs 115GB of free SSD space, since the game will not install to a mechanical drive, and a broadband connection even for the campaign.

Before anything else, match your GPU vendor's recommended driver version: Activision lists AMD 26.7.1, NVIDIA 616.56 and Intel 32.0.101.8974 as the versions it tested against. Intel Arc owners also need Resizable BAR enabled in their motherboard's BIOS — the game will not use an Arc card correctly without it.

02Update Your Graphics Drivers and Enable Shader Delivery

Once your drivers are current, install the Xbox PC app before launch day if you plan to play on any PC storefront, not just Xbox on PC. Modern Warfare 4 uses a new feature called Advanced Shader Delivery (ASD) to precompile shaders ahead of time across supported PC platforms, which is what lets the game launch faster instead of recompiling shaders the first time you load in. The app is only required if you want ASD to work on a non-Xbox storefront; skipping it just means a longer first boot. Preloading itself opened on October 15 at 9AM PT for anyone who pre-purchased digitally, and Campaign Early Access unlocked the following day, October 16.

One PC quality-of-life change worth knowing about going in: updates no longer force a full restart when you boot the game, though you will still see a restart prompt if an update goes live while you are actively in a match — Activision says to expect that between rounds rather than mid-fight.

03Pick the Right Upscaler for Your GPU

Modern Warfare 4 supports four upscaling and frame generation paths, and which one actually helps you depends entirely on your hardware:

• NVIDIA DLSS 4.5 — RTX cards get the deep-learning upscaler, with Frame Generation on RTX 40-series and Dynamic Multi Frame Generation on RTX 50-series.
• AMD FSR Redstone — AMD's current-generation upscaling technique, built to produce high-resolution frames from lower-resolution input without needing dedicated AI hardware.
• Intel XeSS 3 — Intel's machine-learning super sampling path for Arc GPUs, aimed at the same performance target as DLSS and FSR.
• Filmic SMAA T2X — the default post-process anti-aliasing option for anyone running native resolution without an upscaler.

There is also a sharpness slider that now applies globally no matter which of the four you pick, plus new shading quality and improved Screen Space Reflections and shadow filtering settings underneath it. If your screen looks soft after turning on an upscaler, that global sharpness slider — not the individual upscaler's own settings — is the first thing to raise.

04Ray Tracing, HDR10+ and Enhanced FOV

Ray tracing runs across Campaign, Multiplayer and DMZ this time, covering reflections, shadows and lighting, but only turn it on if your GPU actually sits in Activision's Ray Tracing tier above — forcing it on weaker hardware is the fastest way to turn a 90 FPS setup into a stutter-fest. If your monitor supports HDR10+, turn it on in Windows first: the game engine then reads your screen's brightness in real time and adjusts contrast and lighting automatically, so you shouldn't need to hand-tune separate HDR sliders.

Enhanced FOV is a PC-exclusive option worth turning on even if you normally play on a narrower field of view. It uses physically accurate lens effects to widen your awareness near the edges of the screen without changing your center FOV, so your aim point stays the same size while your peripheral vision opens up — a genuinely different approach from a flat FOV slider.

05Depth of Field, Weapon Bloom and Visual Clarity Settings

Depth of Field is now split into two separate settings: World Depth of Field and Weapon Depth of Field. That means you can keep the environment sharp while still getting a realistic blur when you raise a weapon to aim, instead of one setting fighting the other. Weapon VFX Masking is a related change worth leaving on — muzzle flash and other weapon effects are dynamically masked right at your point of aim, so targets stay visible without the game toning down the visual intensity everywhere else.

Bullet spread has also changed under the hood: instead of landing randomly inside a cone, shots now fire from the weapon's actual barrel position, which Activision says makes both ADS and hipfire aiming more consistent. If you want to see exactly where those shots are tracking, attach a laser sight — it now reads directly off that barrel-based spread rather than an abstract reticle cone.

06Run the Built-In Benchmark Tool

Before you commit to a settings preset, run the benchmark tool built into the PC menus. It plays a simulated multiplayer sequence and reports Average FPS, CPU load, GPU load, ping and input latency in real time, then hands you a full breakdown by map zone afterward — including suggested setting changes for whichever zones underperformed. It is a faster way to tune your settings than changing one slider at a time and eyeballing the frame counter, and it is worth re-running any time you change your upscaler or ray tracing setting.

How to Set Up Modern Warfare 4 on PC

1. 1Compare your CPU, GPU and RAM against Activision's Minimum, Recommended and Ray Tracing tiers to know which settings are realistic for your rig.5 min
2. 2Install AMD 26.7.1, NVIDIA 616.56 or Intel 32.0.101.8974 (or newer) before first launch; Intel Arc owners must also enable Resizable BAR in BIOS.10 min
3. 3Do this ahead of launch day on any PC storefront so Advanced Shader Delivery can precompile shaders during install and future updates.10 min
4. 4Pick DLSS 4.5 on NVIDIA, FSR Redstone on AMD, or XeSS 3 on Intel Arc; use Filmic SMAA T2X if you're running native resolution with no upscaler.2 min
5. 5Only enable Ray Tracing if your GPU is in the Ray Tracing tier; turn on HDR10+ in Windows first so the game can read your display's brightness automatically.3 min
6. 6Turn on Enhanced FOV to widen peripheral awareness without changing your center FOV or aim-down-sight feel.2 min
7. 7Use the built-in benchmark to check Average FPS, CPU/GPU load, ping and input latency, then apply its per-zone setting suggestions.5 min
8. 8Confirm both are enabled in your BIOS — RICOCHET Anti-Cheat requires them and the game will not launch on PC without them.5 min

07Lock Down Security: TPM 2.0, Secure Boot and RICOCHET

Modern Warfare 4 enforces TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot as a hard requirement before it will run on PC, as part of a wider RICOCHET Anti-Cheat system that layers server-side detection with hardware-based protections. If the game refuses to launch, check your BIOS first: both TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot have to be enabled there, not just present on the motherboard. Activision also recommends turning on two-factor authentication and email verification on your account, since account security is treated as part of the same anti-cheat stack rather than a separate setting.

None of this is optional tinkering the way an upscaler choice is — if TPM 2.0 or Secure Boot are off, Modern Warfare 4 simply will not boot on PC, so it is worth confirming both before you spend any time on graphics settings at all.

Call of Duty's official PC trailer, published alongside the September 29 tech blog ahead of the October 23 PC launch.

08When You Can Actually Play on PC

To recap the actual timeline: preloading for digital pre-purchasers opened October 15 at 9AM PT, Campaign Early Access went live October 16, and the full Modern Warfare 4 release — multiplayer, DMZ and everything else — arrives October 23 at midnight local time on Xbox on PC, Battle.net and Steam. If you are still deciding whether your rig needs an upgrade before then, the Minimum tier above is genuinely playable; it is the Recommended tier that is worth building toward if 90 FPS matters to you.