PUBG Update 44.1: Best PC Settings, Controls and Fixes

PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS Update 44.1 lands on PC first, and most of what's in it isn't a slider you can tune — it's a keybind that quietly moved, a vehicle that now shrugs off more punishment, and a meta reversion that changes which gun you should be picking up off the ground. None of it shows up as a flashy new graphics option, which is exactly why it's easy to miss. Here's what actually changed on PC, what to check in your settings before your next match, and which of the headline "controller" changes aren't live on PC yet despite showing up in the same patch notes.

01What Update 44.1 Changes for PC

KRAFTON's official patch notes for Update 44.1 put PC maintenance at November 4, 2026 from 00:00 to 08:30 UTC, with console following on November 12 from 01:00 to 09:00 UTC; both windows are listed as subject to change. The headline item is the early end of the first LMG Meta Rotation, which has been running since August, alongside a broad durability buff across almost every vehicle and tire type in the game. Sitting underneath those two big swings are a handful of PC-specific interface changes that affect how you actually play, not just how the game is balanced.

It's worth separating what's live today from what's coming. Update 44.1 also previews changes to console controller input — faster tap/hold detection and a reworked inventory shortcut — but KRAFTON is explicit that those arrive on PC in December's Update 44.2, not this patch. If you're on PC and don't see those changes reflected anywhere in your settings menu, that's expected, not a bug.

02The Two PC Shortcuts That Actually Moved

Buried in the UX/UI section of the patch notes is the change most likely to trip you up mid-match: several PC confirmation prompts move off the Space Bar and onto Enter. If you've spent hundreds of hours hitting Space to confirm a loadout change, a ready-up, or a menu prompt, expect a few missed inputs in your first few games after updating until the new muscle memory sets in.

The second change is smaller but more situational. Holding H now opens the Vehicle Skin Radial while you're crouched, and it takes priority over Co-op Climb — the context-sensitive prompt that normally lets a crouched player boost a teammate over a ledge or into a vehicle. If you and a squadmate regularly use Co-op Climb to mount a Porter or scale a wall on Rondo, get a feel for the new input priority in a low-stakes match before you need it in a fight, since holding H crouched will now pull up the skin menu instead.

03Driving Differently After the Vehicle and Tire Buffs

Update 44.1's vehicle changes aren't a flat buff — they're tiered by vehicle class, and the tiering changes how you should drive. Motorcycles, Scooters, Dirt Bikes, Snowmobiles, Motor Gliders, Aquarails, Boats, Buggies, and Quads gain 8% more durability. The Pillar Security Car, Dacia, Mirado, Coupe RB, Pony Coupe, Tukshai, Zima, UAZ, Pickup, Rony, and Blanc gain 10%. The biggest winners are the Porter, Pico Bus, Van, Food Truck, Pillar UAZ, and BRDM-2, which all gain 15%. Tire durability gets its own separate bump on top of that: 7.5% for the Buggy, Pillar UAZ, and Quad; 30% for the Zima, UAZ, Blanc, Rony, and Pickup; and a sizable 75% for the Porter, Food Truck, Van, and Pico Bus.

Two vehicles get handling changes alongside the durability numbers. The BRDM-2 accelerates faster, climbs hills better, and tops out at a higher max speed (KRAFTON didn't publish an exact figure for that last one). The Buggy gets higher tire friction specifically to cut down on sliding through turns. If you've been avoiding the Buggy on loose terrain or writing off the BRDM-2 as too sluggish to reposition with, both are worth a second look this patch.

Cargo capacity changed too, and it matters for how you loot as a squad. The Van, Pico Bus, and Food Truck all get trunks that hold 300 items, and the Coupe RB's trunk goes from 100 to 120. If your squad has been splitting loot runs across two vehicles because trunk space kept running out, one of the larger trunks may now cover what used to take two cars.

Settings Checklist After Update 44.1

1. 1Let the Update 44.1 client download fully before changing any settings; Enter is only the confirm input once the patch is actually installed.2 min
2. 2Open a menu and hit Enter instead of Space Bar to confirm a loadout or ready-up prompt; several PC confirmations moved off Space Bar in this patch.1 min
3. 3Crouch next to a vehicle and hold H to preview the Vehicle Skin Radial; it now overrides Co-op Climb, so relearn the priority before you need it in a fight.1 min
4. 4After an early death, press I while spectating a teammate to open their inventory, and check the new Blue Chip counter in the spectator panel.1 min
5. 5Take a Van, Pico Bus, or Food Truck for a squad loot run; their trunks now hold 300 items apiece, enough to replace a second vehicle.3 min
6. 6Open Settings > Graphics and confirm Render Scale, Anti-Aliasing, and Foliage still match your usual values, since updates occasionally reset display presets.2 min

04New Spectator Options and the Blue Chip Counter

If you spectate teammates after an early death, or record clips from the observer camera, Update 44.1 adds a couple of options worth turning on. On PC, Blue Chip counts now appear directly in the spectator inventory panel, and pressing I while spectating opens the inventory of whoever you're watching. Those two changes are PC-specific; separately, on both PC and console, spectators can now view enemy inventories and see an owner's name on Blue Chips sitting in vehicle trunks, which is a genuinely useful change for squads trying to track down a teammate's gear after a wipe.

05LMG Meta Rotation Reverts: What Changes in a Fight

The first LMG Meta Rotation launched in August and ends early with this patch. KRAFTON is rolling LMG balance back to pre-Meta levels across the board — reload time, recoil, aiming speed, vehicle damage multiplier, stance recoil control, and world spawn amounts all revert. That reversion also folds in the RPD rebalance, bringing it in line with the rest of the LMG class, and reverses the September-era changes to the M249 and MG3, both of which return to their pre-August numbers. If you picked up an LMG specifically because of how strong the Meta Rotation made it, expect it to feel noticeably different in your next few matches — this isn't a minor numbers tweak, it's a full reversion.

Ranked Season 44 also launches with the patch. The P90 Ranked Weapon Skin becomes a permanent Tier Reward rather than a season-limited one, the leaderboard resets at maintenance (your final tier from the previous season stays viewable on your Career page), and the minimum achievement standards needed to reach Platinum and above have been raised. None of that requires a settings change, but it's worth knowing before you queue your placement matches.

06Graphics and Audio Settings Still Worth Checking

Update 44.1 doesn't touch core render settings directly, but any client update is a reasonable prompt to double-check that a reinstall or driver update hasn't quietly reset your display preferences. In the Graphics menu, Render Scale, Anti-Aliasing, View Distance, Foliage, Shadows, and Effects are the settings that do the most to trade visual fidelity for frame rate — Foliage and Effects in particular are worth keeping low if spotting players through grass and smoke matters more to you than how the map looks. None of those values changed in this patch, so whatever you had dialed in before should still be the right starting point; this is just a nudge to confirm it after updating rather than assume it held.

The one setting this patch does touch directly is voice chat. KRAFTON lists general improvements to voice chat quality and stability under Performance, without naming a specific cause. If voice chat has been cutting out or sounding degraded in squad calls, it's worth testing again after Update 44.1 before switching to a third-party voice app as a workaround.

07What's Coming in December's Update 44.2

A few of the changes documented alongside Update 44.1 aren't live yet. The console controller improvements — tap/hold detection dropping from 0.3 to 0.2 seconds for gameplay actions (and from 1.0 to 0.5 seconds for menu actions), a Message Radial that stays open after releasing the right stick, and a fix separating "Move Items to Trunk" from "Weapon Slot Change" on controller — are console-only for now. KRAFTON's patch notes confirm PC gets the same set of changes in Update 44.2 this December, alongside the second LMG Meta Rotation. If you play on PC with a controller and were expecting those changes today, they're on the way, just not in this update.