Best Settings for CoD: Modern Warfare + Warzone

Human Made

Kody is our expert Destiny 2 and shooter genre writer. He lives in Oregon.

The Call of Duty franchise recently returned to the spotlight with the launch of CoD: Modern Warfare. A remake/spiritual successor that ditched robot suits, super soldiers, and black ops tech, Activision’s latest iteration features a more grounded, realistic, and modern war story.

Despite a handful of divisive narrative choices, it was a return to form that capitalized on much of what had made 2018’s WWII and the original Modern Warfare so successful. With the release of the battle royale mode known as Warzone, players now have the option to go full free-to-play or connect progress and exclusive rewards if they purchased Modern Warfare.

Lightning has seemingly struck twice with this latest release, as Warzone has remained in the spotlight and seemingly claimed its piece of the battle royale pie. If you’ve been waiting for a (hopefully) long-standing CoD battle royale to jump into, or if you just want to pursue competitive play with MW, now is the time. We’ve compiled the best PC and console settings to help you avoid noob status and get right into the mix with the latest CoD release.

Best CoD Modern Warfare PC Settings

CoD is a fast-paced first-person shooter, with an incredibly quick time to death if you don’t know what you’re doing (or if your PC is lagging). The goal for optimization hasn’t changed. Any changes you make are meant to increase your frames per second (FPS) and minimize latency.

The following sections cover the best mouse, keyboard, keybinds, visual, game, and audio settings for PC.

Best CoD Modern Warfare Mouse Settings for PC

Mouse DPI: 400 – 800

With both Modern Warfare and Warzone being so new, you’ll still find professional players and streamers bouncing around between settings. That said, the DPI for most pro players lands between 400-800, with many of them inching towards the lower end of that range.

Mouse Sensitivity: 4.5 – 7.5

The ideal mouse sensitivity (somewhat) depends on your DPI setting. If you’re opting for a DPI closer to 400, you’ll want to balance that with a slightly higher sensitivity setting, and vice versa if you’re closer to 800. The sweet spot for balancing these settings is a combo that allows for quick firing and consistent accuracy when aiming.

Aim Down Sites (ADS): Relative or Legacy

This setting largely depends on your experience with CoD. If this is your first CoD experience, set this to relative to maintain consistency between your hip fire and ADS movements. If you’re a seasoned player, go for legacy to keep that standard CoD feel from previous titles.

Inverted Mouse Look: Custom

Enable this setting if you prefer playing with inverted controls.

Mouse Acceleration: 0

If you want to remain consistent and build muscle memory around your settings, set acceleration to 0. Otherwise, you risk having wildly slow or fast mouse movement at inopportune times.

Mouse Filtering: 0

Generally speaking, you want to keep your aim tied to your mouse movements. As such, we recommend setting this to 0.

Mouse Smoothing: Disable

Similar to acceleration, mouse smoothing is another attempt at predictive movement settings. Keep this off to keep in-game movement in pace with your mouse.

Best CoD Modern Warfare Keybinds for PC

Keybinds are probably the most diverse setting amongst professional players, and the ideal setup depends on their experience with other CoD and FPS titles. However, we have seen a majority of professional Modern Warfare and Warzone players reflecting keybinds that borrow from Shroud, Dr. Disrespect, and prominent members of FaZe Clan.

Movement: WASD
Use/Interact: F
Jump/Stand/Mantle: Space Bar
Crouch/Slide: L CTRL
Prone: Z
Sprint/Steady Aim: Left Shift
Fire Weapon: Left Mouse Button
Aim Down Sights: Right Mouse Button
Reload: R
Next Weapon: 1
Weapon Mount: T
Alternate Fire: B
Melee: C
Lethal Equipment: G
Tactical Equipment: E
Night Vision: N
Field Upgrade: X
Mission Ability: Q
Toggle Camera: V
Scoreboard/Inventory: Tab
Map: M

Best CoD Modern Warfare Graphics Settings for PC

Call of Duty is one of those titles where the beauty of the game is a detriment to competitive play. While you may be tempted to optimize everything around 4K, you’ll be better off minimalizing visuals in favor of reclaimed frames and lower latency. Don’t worry – the game will still look impressive thanks to well-developed graphics and a diverse array of tunable settings.

Display

Display Mode: Fullscreen

Use up your monitor’s real estate and keep this at full screen for best performance.

Refresh Rate: Native

Check for your monitor’s refresh rate, and be sure to match that here.

Render Resolution: 100

You may be able to save frames by going lower, but you risk turning the graphics into a muddled mess. Keep this at 100 to maintain frames and visual fidelity.

Aspect Ratio: Automatic

You’ll want to keep this set to automatic to match the performance of your monitor.

V-Sync: Disabled

This can be a direct cause of terrible input lag if enabled. Our recommendation? Turn this off to keep your movement and keybinds as close to 1:1 as possible.

Custom Framerate Limit: Unlimited

Like most FPS games, you want to push for as many frames as possible. To maximize frames, set the cap to unlimited and only lower it if you’re experiencing laggy gameplay or screen tearing.

Details & Textures

Texture Resolution: Low

This setting is all about making the graphics look impressive, and it’s an incredible drain on performance. Only go up to normal if you have a powerful build well beyond game standards.

Texture Filter Anisotropic: Normal

You won’t notice much of a change at higher or lower settings, so just keep this set to normal.

Particle Quality: Low

If you don’t have a powerful PC, setting this to low can help salvage a few frames.

Bullet Impacts: Enabled

Keep this on to get a better idea of where enemies are shooting from. While it does cause a small dip in frame rate, the directional hints are well worth the sacrifice.

Tessellation: All

Tessellation doesn’t much impact visual fidelity or frame rate optimization, so leave this set to all.

Shadows & Lighting

Shadow Map Resolution: Low

Shadows don’t help much in such a fast-paced title and leaving them on medium or high leads to a big hit on performance. Set this to low, possibly normal with a high-end PC, to save some frames.

Cache Spot Shadows: Enabled

Keep this on unless you have limited RAM to spare.

Cache Sun Shadows: Enabled

Just like the shadow cache setting, keep this on unless you’re hurting for RAM space.

Particle Lighting: Low

A visual update that can hurt performance. Keep this set to low to save a few frames and avoid increased latency.

DirectX Raytracing: Disable

If you’ve been listening to any next-gen console news, ray tracing is the buzzword for new systems. However, it also hampers performance on current PC hardware, so leave this off.

Ambient Occlusion: Disable

This can add depth to shadows and lighting effects, but it doesn’t add much when you minimize those other settings. Keep this off to gain a significant frame rate boost.

Screen Space Reflection: Disable

Another visual setting: disable this to recover a few frames.

Post Processing Effects

Anti-Aliasing: SMAA 1X

Opting for this setting is a good compromise between smoothed graphics and performance. Only turn this off if you’re ok with a pixelated look and desperately need to salvage the frames.

Depth of Field: Disable

This is meant to reflect realistic visuals by blurring distant objects until they come into frame. Turn this off to retain clarity at any distance and avoid any long-distance surprises.

Filmic Strength: 1.0

This setting has no effect if you opt for our recommended anti-aliasing setting.

World Motion Blur: Disable

Another cinematic visualization that blurs surrounding environments when moving. Keep this off for improved visibility.

Weapon Motion Blur: Disable

Another blurring variant that affects firing, reloading, and other weapon movements. Leave this off to retain clarity.

Film Grain: 0.00

This cinematic setting can lead to blurrier visuals if left on.

Best CoD Modern Warfare Console Settings

Compared to the PC, Modern Warfares’s console settings are relatively minimal and designed around the current hardware. That said, there are still a few minor tweaks to current settings that can give you an edge.

Best CoD Modern Warfare Controller Settings for Console

When it comes to the controller layout, you won’t have to stray too far from the default to find a winner. Try out the following controller bindings and feel free to make changes to find what feels right for quick movement, firing, and use of alternate weapons/equipment.

Jump/Mantle: A
Crouch/Prone/Slide: B
Reload/Use: X
Switch Weapon: Y
Game-Specific Actions: D-PAD
Scoreboard: Select
Pause: Menu
Use Tactical Equipment: LB
Use Lethal Equipment: RB
Aim Down Sights: LT
Fire Weapon: RT
Sprint/Tactical Sprint/Steady Aim: Left Stick
Melee: Right Stick

Invert Vertical Look: Custom

Just like on PC, only opt for inverted controls if you’re used to this playstyle.

Vibration: Disabled

Keep this off to avoid needless distraction when under fire.

Horizontal and Vertical Stick Sensitivity: 2 – 5

Keep your stick settings at lower values, and be sure that you make both horizontal and vertical options the same to remain consistent.

Best CoD Modern Warfare Graphics Settings for Console

While the core settings may be simplified, the console version does add a handful of additional play style settings to optimize. Fine-tuning these is a surefire way to improve your play and refine visual and in-game settings around what works best for you.

Aim Down Sites Behavior: Hold

Keep this setting as an active action to retain greater control.

Aim Assist: Custom

If you want quick and easy, keep this on. If you want to refine your accuracy and look to improve, turn this off. It will hurt in the short-term but will eventually lead to long-term gains.

ADS Sensitivity Multiplier (Low Zoom): .75 – 0.9

Bring this setting down a bit to provide more control when aiming down sites.

ADS Sensitivity Multiplier (High Zoom): .75 – 0.9

Match your low zoom multiplier for consistency; you don’t need a slower setting here.

Brightness: 55 – 65

Call of Duty maps can suffer from being too dark in tight areas, so crank the intensity up a bit for greater visual clarity.

Film Grain: 0

Keep this off to avoid increases in latency.

Colorblind Type: None

As with many FPS titles, the colorblind modes aren’t nuanced enough to provide any benefit unless you are, in fact, colorblind.

World Motion Blur: Disabled

The one cinematic visualization element on consoles that blurs surrounding environments when moving. Keep this off for improved visibility.

Weapon Motion Blur: Disabled

Accompanying the world motion blur setting, this causes blurring around firing, reloading, and other weapon movements. Leave this off as well to retain clarity.

Best CoD Modern Warfare Audio Settings for PC and Console

We’ve combined the PC and console settings for audio as they should be the same on both platforms. You’re looking to minimize distracting in-game audio while pumping up team chatter and any in-game cues that help you identify enemies and friendlies. There are a handful of other audio settings available, but we’ve found these core volume controls to be the most important.

Master Volume: 100
Music Volume: 20
Dialogue Volume: 40
Effects Volume: 80

Putting it to Practice

Infinity Ward didn’t just bring Call of Duty back to its roots with Modern Warfare – it created a game (especially on PC) that is prime for fine-tuning and adjustment. Almost every setting is worth looking into and changing around your personal playstyle. Luckily, even with all of these options, it still feels like classic Call of Duty and allows your settings to work just as well in Warzone as it does the core game.

Now that you have the settings in place, be sure to jump in and start refining your playstyle. With another CoD title scheduled to come out this fall, you only have so much time left to get good.

Related Reading