how to optimize Overwatch for a cpu bottlenecked system?

[Ashleyyyy]

what things do i need to turn off in Overwatch to get more FPS out of my system? i'm cpu bottlenecked... 

[MrRemnant]

9 minutes ago, firelighter487 said:

what things do i need to turn off in Overwatch to get more FPS out of my system? i'm cpu bottlenecked... 

Id just set it as low, with shadows turned off, textures set to medium.

[Ashleyyyy]

3 minutes ago, HK - 47 said:

Id just set it as low, with shadows turned off, textures set to medium.

well i want to get something out of my 290X. right now i have it on ultra with things like fog detail, anti aliasing and shadows set to low or off, and the problem is it dips into the 50's and 40's sometimes. i want solid 60fps out of it.

[MrRemnant]

Just now, firelighter487 said:

well i want to get something out of my 290X. right now i have it on ultra with things like fog detail, anti aliasing and shadows set to low or off, and the problem is it dips into the 50's and 40's sometimes. i want solid 60fps out of it.

well, id set it to high/ mid then. OW doesn't change too much between high/ ultra. It looks good at any quality. I'd suggest going into a custom game with 11 bots+ you and check your fps. Keep changing settings till you get it how you want it.  

[Terryv]

Disabling dynamic reflections is a big fps boost at any preset, but I'm not sure if it's handled by the GPU or CPU.

[ivan134]

Even with everything on low I couldn't get 144 fps consistently. I just bought a new CPU instead

[Ashleyyyy]

24 minutes ago, ivan134 said:

Even with everything on low I couldn't get 144 fps consistently. I just bought a new instead

i only need 60

[Aetheria]

Resolution, texture quality, and anisotropic filtering are pretty CPU-safe settings, but for almost every other setting, it depends upon how the game implements them. A game can list three different AA methods, and only the middle one might tax your CPU.

 

Draw distance can hit the CPU hard. Turn off stuff like particles, reflections, 'post-processing', ambient occlusion, and shadows, then turn them back on again one at a time, and test each setting over an extended period.

 

Also, a big one is framerate. You might get more stable performance with an FPS cap, and if your TV or monitor supports native 50Hz, you can also set your display driver (windowed/borderless) and/or game (exclusive fullscreen) to output 50Hz. Obviously not ideal for an online twitch shooter, but if you can't maintain 30/60FPS with your CPU, you might as well play at a smooth and consistent 25/50FPS outputting at 50Hz, rather than a jerky 25/50FPS when outputting at 60Hz and getting more pulled frames.

[ivan134]

10 hours ago, firelighter487 said:

i only need 60

You shouldn't be having a problem hitting 60. This should help you see what settings hit performance the most.

https://www.tweaktown.com/guides/7808/overwatch-graphics-performance-tweak-guide/index.html

[OBCTGamer]

bump up the resolution

[Connor Price]

As OBCTGamer said, if you can increase the resolution it will help with the CPU bottleneck. The 290x is more than capable of playing Overwatch at 1440p with a good framerate. Back when I had my i5 3340s playing in a higher resolution helped reduce the FPS drops in games like BF1 and PUBG. 

[Mira Yurizaki]

If your goal is to drive the GPU's usage to 100%, increasing the resolution and other options to generate a larger workload for the GPU.

 

If your goal is to simply try to optimize the system for CPU usage, then you can't really change what the game does since it must be a fixed workload for all players. Otherwise everyone would just use the lowest CPU settings anyway. Outside of the game, you could close your web browser, and other applications that could be using the CPU for things, but it usually won't help much if the combination of these applications are using less than 10% of the CPU time.