On this page 10 sections
Frame rate wins more fights than shadows do. Marvel Rivals looks lovely on the highest preset, and you should see it that way exactly once before you turn most of it off. This is how to set the game up so it runs smoothly, so you can read enemies clearly, and so your mouse does what your hand tells it.
What to change first
Not every setting matters. Split the menu into two piles: options that affect whether you win, and options that affect how the game looks in screenshots.
The winning pile is short. Frame rate, field of view, sensitivity, crosshair, audio and keybinds. Get those right and you have done most of the work. Everything else is taste.
Order matters as well. Fix frame rate first, because a stuttering game makes every other setting feel wrong. Then field of view, because changing it later changes how your sensitivity feels. Then sensitivity, and only then the crosshair and keybinds. If you tune sens before FOV you will end up doing it twice.
Change one thing at a time and play a few matches before you judge it. If you are still deciding who to main, the free hero quiz that matches your playstyle to the roster is worth doing first, because your main decides a lot of what follows.
Marvel Rivals best settings for graphics and frame rate
Marvel Rivals runs on Unreal Engine 5 and it is a heavy game. The good news is that most of the cost sits in options that do nothing for your aim.
Shadows, global illumination, reflections and post-processing are the big ones. They are expensive and in a fight they mostly make dark corners darker. Turn them down or off. Model detail is different. Keep it at medium or above so hero silhouettes stay clean at range, because the silhouette is what you aim at.
Why does frame rate beat fidelity? A hero shooter is a game of small, fast targets. Spider-Man swinging through, Star-Lord strafing mid-air, Jeff diving under a bridge. Every extra frame is fresh information about where they are, and a stable frame time makes your mouse feel the same every second. A game that bounces between high and low frame counts feels worse to aim in than one held steady at a lower number. Stability first, then raw frames.
Here is a sensible starting point. Setting names vary slightly between patches, so treat each row as a category.
| Setting category | Competitive choice | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Display mode | Fullscreen | Lowest input delay, fewer background hiccups |
| Resolution | Native for your monitor | Lower resolutions blur hero outlines at range |
| Frame rate limit | Uncapped, or a few frames above your refresh rate | Stops the cap and the monitor fighting each other |
| V-Sync | Off | Adds input delay; a frame cap tidies frame times instead |
| Shadows | Low or off | Expensive and adds nothing to reading a target |
| Global illumination | Low | One of the heaviest lighting options in Unreal Engine 5 |
| Reflections | Low or off | Pure eye candy |
| Post-processing | Low | Removes bloom, depth of field and lens noise |
| Model detail | Medium to high | Keeps silhouettes crisp at distance |
| Texture quality | Medium to high if your card has the memory | Cheap on frames, easy on the eye |
| Effects quality | Low to medium | Ultimates spawn a lot of particles at once |
| Anti-aliasing | On, at the cheapest mode available | Off looks jagged; heavy modes cost frames |
| Upscaling | Quality mode if you need frames, off if you do not | Adds frames at the cost of a little clarity |
| Motion blur | Off | Hides exactly the movement you need to see |
On upscaling: the game offers the usual vendor options, and on a mid-range card they are the difference between a choppy match and a smooth one. Use the highest quality mode that reaches your target, not the performance mode, because performance modes smear fast-moving heroes. On a strong card at 1080p or 1440p, leave it off.
Cap or uncap? If your frames sit comfortably above your refresh rate, cap a few frames above it so frame times stop wandering. If your card cannot reach the refresh rate anyway, leave it uncapped. Either way, turn V-Sync off. Tearing is annoying. Input lag loses duels. And check that Windows is actually running your monitor at its full refresh rate, because it often is not.
Field of view
Marvel Rivals has a field of view slider, and the competitive answer is to push it high. A wider view shows flankers earlier, makes melee heroes easier to track when they close in, and stops you feeling boxed in on tight lanes. The cost is that distant targets look smaller, which matters most for long-range heroes.
Most high-ranked players run the slider at or near the top of its range. If far targets feel too small as Hela or Punisher, drop it a few notches, but do not go low. Low FOV in a game with this many dive heroes is how you get jumped by a Spider-Man you never saw.
If you are coming from Overwatch, do not carry the number across. Marvel Rivals is third-person and the camera sits behind and above the hero, so the same figure does not mean the same view. Our breakdown of how Marvel Rivals differs from Overwatch covers the perspective change in more detail. Set FOV by feel, then move on to sensitivity.
Sensitivity and eDPI
Pick a sensitivity by a method, then leave it alone long enough for your arm to learn it.
The method is eDPI. Multiply your mouse DPI by your in-game sensitivity. That single figure is your real sensitivity, and it lets you compare with other players regardless of what DPI they use. Most competitive hero shooter players land somewhere in the low-to-mid hundreds of eDPI, with some going higher for dive and melee heroes. Anything that needs a full arm sweep to turn around is too low for a game with this much flanking. Anything where a nudge sends the camera past the target is too high.
If you already have a comfortable sens in another shooter, start from it. The free sensitivity converter for shooters takes your Overwatch or Valorant value and gives you the Marvel Rivals number that produces the same turn for the same physical mouse movement. Because the game is third-person, the converted figure is a starting point rather than gospel, so play a few matches and adjust in small steps.
Hitscan and projectile heroes want different things from your sens. Hitscan heroes reward precision: small corrections onto a head hitbox, then stopping dead. Lower works better. Projectile heroes are about leading and tracking movement, where a slightly higher sens helps you stay on a strafing target. Melee dive heroes need to turn quickly mid-combo, so they push higher again. Flying heroes need vertical range above all.
| Hero type | Sensitivity approach | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Hitscan (Punisher, Hela, Black Widow) | Lower end of your comfortable range | Precise micro-adjustments onto the head, then hold still |
| Projectile (Hawkeye, Star-Lord, Iron Man) | Middle of your range | Tracking and leading targets matters more than pixel precision |
| Melee and dive (Spider-Man, Magik, Iron Fist) | Higher end of your range | Fast turns mid-combo and escape routes behind you |
| Flying (Storm, Iron Man, Human Torch) | Middle to higher, with vertical sensitivity not reduced | Looking down at a fight needs a big vertical swing |
If the game offers per-hero sensitivity in your version, use it and set each hero once. If it does not, pick a sens that suits your most-played role and accept that your off-role heroes will feel slightly different. Do not change your global sens every time you swap hero. Muscle memory is the whole point.
Heroes with a zoom mode usually have a separate scoped sensitivity. When you convert your Valorant sens to a Marvel Rivals value, keep the scoped figure proportional to the result rather than picking it separately.
Aim and reticle
Use a small static crosshair. A dot, or a short cross with a small gap, in a colour that stands out against every map. Bright green and cyan work on most surfaces. Red disappears against a lot of hero effects.
Dynamic reticles that grow when you move or fire are a trap. They give you a moving shape to stare at instead of the enemy, and they tell you nothing you cannot feel from the recoil itself. Turn any expansion or bloom animation off if the option exists.
Keep hit markers and damage numbers on. They are feedback, not clutter. Keep the crosshair outline on so it never vanishes against a bright sky. Then pick one shape, play, and stop thinking about it.
Audio
Sound wins more fights than people expect. Two things matter most: footsteps and ultimate voice lines.
Every ultimate has a voice line, and the version you hear from an enemy is different from the version you hear from an ally. Learning those lines is the single biggest audio skill in the game, because the enemy line is your cue to break line of sight, hold a counter, or pop a defensive ability. Turn music down or off so the lines are never buried, and keep voice chat at a level where a teammate’s callout does not drown out the footsteps of the Iron Fist behind you.
Headphones over speakers, every time. The difference between hearing a flanker coming from behind and hearing them come from somewhere is enormous. If your headset has a spatial mode, try it, but many players find plain stereo gives cleaner left-right placement.
If you are still learning which line belongs to which hero, our Marvel Rivals character guide with every hero by role is the reference to keep open while you learn.
Controls and keybinds
The default binds are fine for a first evening and wrong for most heroes after that.
Hold versus toggle is the first decision. Channelled abilities feel more controllable on hold, because releasing the key ends them instantly. Anything you leave on while doing other things, like flight on Storm or Iron Man, is easier as a toggle. Set it once per hero and stop fighting the default.
Move jump off the space bar for aerial heroes. Anyone who spends a lot of time in the air benefits from jump or ascend on a mouse side button, because your left hand stays on movement keys and your thumb handles height. It feels strange for a session. Then it feels essential.
Set per-hero keybinds where the game allows it. Melee heroes often want their combo abilities on the keys closest to WASD, while a Strategist might prefer healing on mouse buttons and utility on the keyboard. If you play a lot of different heroes, keep a consistent logic across them: mobility on the same key, defensive ability on the same key, ultimate on the same key. Consistency beats optimisation when you swap heroes mid-match.
Keep crouch on hold. Bind quick melee to a mouse button if you have the spare buttons; it is used far more than people expect. And bind ping somewhere reachable, because pings that never happen are why a lot of solo-queue fights go wrong. If you are climbing, our explainer on how the Marvel Rivals ranking system works covers what the game measures once you are in competitive, and communication is a bigger part of it than most people think.
Console versus PC with cross-play
Console players have a different settings menu and different problems. Instead of DPI and eDPI, you set look sensitivity on each stick, plus dead zones and a response curve. Start by lowering the inner dead zone until you notice stick drift, then raise it one notch. Use a linear or near-linear response curve if you want your stick input to map predictably. Pick a performance mode over a resolution mode on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series so you get the higher frame rate, for all the same reasons as on PC.
Aim assist is the other big difference. Controllers get it; mouse and keyboard on PC does not. In casual modes, cross-play puts console and PC players in the same lobbies, so a PC player might be shot by someone with controller assist and a console player might be flanked by someone with a mouse’s turn speed. Competitive has kept the pools separate so that neither side has a built-in edge, but check the cross-play toggle in your settings and be aware of who you are queuing with.
If you are on PC and wondering whether the aim assist you saw was legitimate, it very often was. Console aim assist looks like a soft pull. It does not look like a snap.
Whichever platform you are on, the meta is the same. Our live Marvel Rivals tier list with every hero ranked is worth a look before you commit an evening to tuning settings for a hero who is off the pace this season.
Cheat presets are not settings
Readers ask about this and it is worth answering plainly. The Marvel Rivals aimbot from Elocarry has an Aim Behaviour tab with presets from assist to natural, a reaction-time pause, and a flick accuracy slider. None of those are game settings. They are options inside a cheat, and using them on your account in ranked risks an account ban on NetEase’s anti-cheat.
What the sliders are for is honesty about what the cheat does. A reaction-time pause delays the aim response after a target appears so the correction does not happen on the same frame the enemy walks into view. The presets scale speed and stability so the movement looks like a hand rather than a script. The flick accuracy setting makes some shots miss on purpose. Every one of those exists because match replays exist. Your enemies can watch your perspective after the game, and a perfect snap onto a head is the easiest thing to spot and report. The humanised settings make a cheat look like a good player instead of a bot.
Compare that with the settings in this post. Lower shadows give you frames. Higher FOV gives you information. A converted sensitivity gives you muscle memory. They improve you. A cheat improves your account’s numbers until someone watches the replay or the anti-cheat catches up. Elocarry says openly that no cheat is ever guaranteed undetected, that its live status is public, and that sales pause when anything looks off. If you want to know what the Elocarry Marvel Rivals cheat actually contains, the product page lists every option by menu tab, and our guide to spotting a cheater in your Marvel Rivals lobby shows the difference from the other side.
Set your game up properly first. The gap between default settings and good ones is a full rank for a lot of players, and it costs nothing but an evening.
Frequently asked questions
What graphics settings should I lower first in Marvel Rivals?
Start with shadows, global illumination, reflections and post-processing. They cost the most frames and do nothing for reading a fight. Keep model detail and texture quality at medium or higher so hero silhouettes stay sharp at range.
Should I cap my frame rate in Marvel Rivals?
If your PC comfortably exceeds your monitor's refresh rate, cap a few frames above it to keep frame times steady. If it cannot reach the refresh rate, leave it uncapped. Turn V-Sync off inside the game either way, because it adds input delay.
What FOV do competitive Marvel Rivals players use?
Most high-ranked players push the field of view slider to the top of its range or close to it. A wide view shows flankers and dive heroes earlier. The trade is that distant targets look smaller, so some long-range players settle a few notches below the top.
How do I find my Marvel Rivals sensitivity?
Work in eDPI, which is your mouse DPI multiplied by the in-game sensitivity. If you already have a comfortable sens in Overwatch or Valorant, convert it so the same physical mouse movement gives the same turn, then adjust in small steps over several sessions rather than changing it every match.
Do hitscan and projectile heroes need different sensitivity?
Usually, yes. Hitscan heroes reward a lower sensitivity for precise micro-adjustments. Projectile heroes and melee dive heroes benefit from a slightly higher one because you track and turn more than you flick to a pixel. Flying heroes want enough range to look up and down without lifting the mouse.
Is a dynamic crosshair bad in Marvel Rivals?
For competitive play, a dynamic reticle that grows as you move or fire is a distraction. It gives you a moving shape to stare at instead of the enemy. A small static dot or cross in a high-contrast colour is the standard choice.
Do console players have different settings from PC in Marvel Rivals?
Console players tune aim assist strength, stick dead zones and response curves instead of DPI, and can choose a performance mode that favours frame rate over resolution. Cross-play mixes console and PC in casual modes, so PC players should expect controller aim assist on the other team.
Can I adjust the game's settings to get aim assist on mouse and keyboard?
No. Marvel Rivals gives aim assist to controllers only. Anything that steers a mouse toward targets is an external program, not a setting, and using one in ranked risks an account ban on NetEase's anti-cheat.
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