Black Ops 3 – How to Bring Back High and Ultra Settings on PC

Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 is arguably one of the better PC ports this generation, and a feature pakced entry in the long running first-person shooter series. From advanced options like downsampling – the ability to render games at 4K, and to then project them at 1080p for a higher quality image – to options for tweaking textures and lighting there’s a host of ways for you to enhance your experience.

However, a month or so after release, developer Treyarch removed the ability for users with video cards that have 2GB or less of VRAM to choose options above and beyond medium settings. It’s an odd move considering that new cards like Nvidia’s GTX 960 can comfortably manage the high settings even with 2GB video memory. While the developer has been quiet about the reason for this change, the Call of Duty community believes this change was done to ensure cards with lesser memory don’t run the game at settings that may impact performance adversely.

(Also see: Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 Is Better Than Expected on the PC)

And while you can splurge on a more powerful card like the AMD R9 Fury or the Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 Ti there’s another, cost-effective method to bring back high and ultra options. Here’s how.

(Also see: Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 Review)

1. Find your Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 configuration file. It’s usually config.ini in your Steam folder, SteamsteamappscommonCall of Duty Black Ops IIIplayers

2. Open config.ini with Notepad or any text editor.

3. Look for “RestrictGraphicsOptions = “1” “. Change 1 to 0. It should look like RestrictGraphicsOptions = “0”.

4. Save the file and close it.

When you boot up the game you should be able to select high and ultra options with a video card that 2GB VRAM or lower. What do you do to optimise your Call of Duty experience on PC? Let us know via the comments.

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