How to increase FPS in Avatar Frontiers of Pandora

Avatar Frontiers of Pandora is one of the most gorgeous games I've played, given the taxing system requirements, which may be a cause for concern for gamers. In this guide, I'll walk you through how you can increase your FPS in Avatar Frontiers of Pandora.

Best Settings Guide - Avatar Frontiers of Pandora

Avatar Frontiers of Pandora has a graphical settings menu filled with various options, allowing you to personalize the game's graphic fidelity depending on whether you want more performance or better image quality.

However, if you want to get even more performance out of your system, here are a few tweaks you can do to boost your FPS in Avatar Frontiers of Pandora vastly.

Update your GPU Drivers

It's very common to see "Update x Drivers" when seeing an FPS boost guide; however, upon updating my Nvidia Drivers to 546.29, I received a substantial FPS boost. Here are the results before and after updating my drivers:

As you can see in the photos above, I was averaging around 53 FPS before the driver update and had an abysmal minimum of 33 FPS. After the driver update, I instantly got a more stable and even better performance, averaging 60 FPS with a minimum of 50 FPS.

With the 546.29 drivers, Nvidia included optimizations for Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, so you should see an improved and stable performance after updating and I'm now ready to get to the first Resistance Headquarters in Pandora.

How to update your GPU Drivers

For a better and more stable performance in Avatar Frontiers of Pandora, here's how you can update your GPU Drivers:

• Go to your GPU Manufacturer (Nvidia, AMD, or Intel)
  • For Nvidia GPUs:
    • Make sure to select your proper GPU model (i.e., RTX 20 series, RTX 2060 in my case)
    • Select your proper operating system
    • Don't forget to change the download type to GRD (Game Ready Driver)
    • Click Search, and you should see the latest Nvidia Driver Version available for your GPU.
    • Download the driver and run the program.
    • I highly advise you to do a clean installation of your driver once prompted by the installer.
    • Alternatively, you can also use the GeForce Experience to update your drivers by clicking on the Drivers tab, and it will automatically do the update process for you.
  • For AMD GPUs:
    • Similar to Nvidia, select the correct GPU model installed in your system.
    • Click Submit, and you'll see a set of operating systems on the next page.
    • Click the Plus (+) icon on your corresponding operating system and download the AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition
    • Run the program, and the setup process will take you through the proper steps in installing your drivers.
  • For Intel GPUs:
    • On the webpage, you're given the option to choose between Pro Drivers or Beta Drivers. Pro Drivers are stable releases of Intel Drivers, while Beta Drivers are much more recent, but they have more bugs. I recommend choosing the Beta drivers since they likely contain optimization updates for Avatar Frontiers of Pandora.
    • Click the Download button in the Available Downloads window.
    • Run the downloaded driver and go through the installation process.
• After going through the installation process, restart your PC for the changes to take effect. You should have an updated driver offering much better performance stability and an FPS boost while playing Avatar Frontiers of Pandora.

Related: Where to store items in Avatar Frontiers of Pandora

Temporal Upscaler, Upscaling Quality, and Scaling Mode

We see a trend in recent video game releases requiring upscaling as an "integral" part of their system requirements, with Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora joining the fray. The game has three Temporal Upscalers available: AMD FSR3, Nvidia DLSS, and even Intel XeSS.

Most gamers will opt for either FSR3 or DLSS. FSR3 has support for a much wider range of GPUs and its iteration of Frame Generation, with a slight hit on image quality compared to DLSS.

In the photo below, you can see FSR3 has a much more blatant shimmering effect on thin objects like tree leaves compared to DLSS.

In terms of performance, both perform the same, so it's better to choose your preferred image quality. However, if you do not have an RTX 40 series GPU, I recommend you use FSR for the sake of having the option to turn on Frame Generation if necessary.

On the other hand, there's a new option within the Video settings menu of Avatar Frontiers of Pandora—Scaling Mode. With the Upscaling mode, you can choose between Off, Fixed, and Bias.

The Off setting completely disables any form of scaling in-game, rendering everything at your native resolution (i.e., you'll get less FPS compared to having a Temporal Upscaler active).

Between Fixed and Bias scaling modes, I had more FPS when I used Fixed. Bias basically upscales your output to 4K, regardless of your monitor resolution; Fixed uses your native resolution as a base and upscales at that resolution. In the photo below, you can see I gained a noticeable increase of 10 FPS, on average, when using Fixed.

Should you use Frame Generation in Avatar Frontiers of Pandora?

Frame Generation is a controversial topic in video games; sometimes it works as intended, sometimes not. In Avatar Frontiers of Pandora, AMD's Frame Generation has mixed results depending on your base FPS.

As a rule of thumb, if you have a base performance of 50-60 FPS, I recommend using AMD Frame Generation. However, if you're getting less than that on average, you'll most likely see ghosting issues, especially with the HUD.

Based on the benchmark images above, I got a significant FPS boost of about 60% while using Frame Generation. While this doesn't necessarily double my framerates, it makes the experience much more smooth at the expense of a slight input lag.

Another tip I have when using frame generation is to always turn on V-Sync and Frame Rate Limiter. In this case, I have a 165 Hz monitor, which means I have to turn on V-Sync at half the rate (available in the Video settings menu) and limit my FPS to 82 (165/2 = 82.5). This will likely eliminate all image tearing issues you have when using frame gen, resulting in a much smoother experience at above 60 FPS.

Related: How to track quest locations in Avatar Frontiers of Pandora

Best Settings for Low-End PCs (Potato Config) - Avatar Frontiers of Pandora

If you're still not satisfied with the performance of your game, the last tip I'll provide will definitely boost your FPS at the expense of severely degrading the visual fidelity.

I only recommend using this config if you have settings on all low, and you're still getting less than 30 FPS. Follow the steps below:

• Go to your Documents and find the folder My Games
• You should see a bunch of folders with your various game configurations; open the AFOP folder
• In this folder, you'll see a graphics settings.cfg file, open the file using Notepad, or Notepad+
• Find these settings and change the values:
  • fog = 0,
  • ["cloud shadows"] = false,
  • ["particle quality"] = 0,
  • ["num spot shadows"] = 0,
  • reflections = 0
  • rtcellcullrange = 512,
  • rtdiffuse = 0,
  • rtprobe = 0,
  • rtspec = 0,
  • rtsunshadows = 0,
  • vignette = false,
  • ["volumetric clouds"] = 0,
• Save your settings, and relaunch Avatar Frontiers of Pandora

From the screenshots above, you can see I instantly got a 14 FPS boost compared to the standard default settings. I am now reaching above 60 FPS without frame generation. However, the hit in visual fidelity is massive, and again, I only recommend doing this if you want to squeeze every ounce of FPS from your machine.

For more guides in Avatar Frontiers of Pandora, check out How to get to the Resistance Headquarters in Avatar Frontiers of Pandora in Pro Game Guides.