Fortnite's Performance Mode Gives PC Players A Weird Advantage
PC players on Fortnite have an unfair advantage thanks to the performance mode feature. Epic added the new mode for the ever-popular battle royale back in December 2020. When enabled, it lowers graphical resolutions across the board to give a better boost to FPS and reduce the strain on the CPU and GPU. While its main intentions were to give those playing on lower-end PCs a boost to their performance, professionals in the competitive scene have been using it as well.
Pro eSports players have been using lowered resolutions of games for years. It's most prevalent in fast-paced shooters like Fortnite, where speed and reaction times are key. Additionally, players tend to turn off shadows, ambient occlusion and motion blur with the low resolution. In return, the game runs faster, with better FPS and more stability during intense gameplay. These facets are imperative to high-level players in competitive, but other players just looking to match 60 FPS or better will do it as well.
In a Reddit post by u/EzBugatti99, the user compares two images of a character standing in the storm with and without performance mode enabled. In the bottom image, without performance mode, the screen is blindingly purple, and vision is reduced to just the player on screen. Meanwhile, the performance mode-enabled image above has far more visual clarity, with only the storm's minimum effects on the player. Epic employees commented on the post stating they would be investigating the issue. However, another Reddit user pointed out that the team has known about the issue since March 17 after somebody added a card for it on the Fortnite community Trello board. In response, the Epic employee said they hadn't been in the office for a few days.
Crossplay in Fortnite has been a tumultuous affair ever since Xbox and PS4 players were given the chance to play with or against PC servers. PC has the advantage of potentially better systems, meaning better framerate, stability, and other advantages console players typically can't match. To make up for this, console players have aim assist, which helps guide players using a controller to make shots on par with what is capable from a mouse and keyboard. Unfortunately, a feature like performance mode, which isn't available on consoles, further gates true cross-play fairness.
As a result, Fortnite players right now have to deal with a storm that severely reduces visibility for everyone but PC players. What Epic has in store to remedy the visibility issue is up in the air as there are several ways to fix the issue. One way is to increase the storm's visibility without performance mode on and decrease the visibility with it enabled to match the two. Another is to increase the storm's visibility without performance mode to the point that it matches the appearance of the storm when the mode is on. Regardless of what Epic decides, players are sure to let the company know how they feel after a fix is implemented.
Fortnite is available for download on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, PC, macOS, Android and iOS.
Source: EzBugatti99
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