Apex Legends

Apex Legends FPS Counter

As the “battle royale” genre of games has grown, so, too, has the diversity of graphical engines, launchers, and supporting apps that power the games we all know and love. The latest contender in the battle royale of battle royale games is none other than Apex Legends by Respawn Studios, which is bringing a lot of players into contact with Origin, the exclusive marketplace Apex Legends is offered on.

While game publishing giant Electronic Arts (most commonly referred to as EA by most gamers) has offered games through its “Origin” launcher and shop for a long time, many gamers played EA games bought in other marketplaces, like Steam or brick-and-mortar games stores.

Apex is one of the few games exclusive to the Origin marketplace that has reached the level of mass appeal and excitement it currently claims.

Apex Legends has earned its claim to fame by boasting unique mechanics, realistic-but-colorful graphics, and a cast of MOBA-like characters with totally varied abilities they can use to aid their teammates. Unlike most battle royale games, Apex Legends focuses on small-team play, and encourages players to explore playstyles that support a team instead of going it alone.

An unfortunate side effect of how much new stuff Apex has to offer is that some newcomers to the game struggle with getting their settings calibrated correctly, which can result in sub-par performance.

If you feel like the game isn’t quite feeling right to you on a performance level, you’re not alone. In this simple guide, we’ll explain how to activate the frames per second (FPS) counter for Apex Legends, the first tool you’ll need to tighten up the performance of your game.

Part One – The Value of FPS

The FPS of games is one of the most powerful but subtle graphical characteristics. While the trained eye can spot low FPS immediately, many gamers might not know what was wrong with their picture. They would know something is wrong, though.

A game that is stuttering or whose motion appears jerky is often suffering from dips in FPS. Sometimes, FPS drops can make a game totally unplayable, with enemies jerking all over the screen and your abilities not matching up with button presses.

Prioritizing FPS in games is commonplace among those looking to optimize their gameplay, and that’s precisely because FPS has such an incredible impact on how you play the game. The simple fact is that if you’re not getting at the very least 30 fps steady in your game, you’re chances at winning are suffering. Your eyes could be suffering too, as it can be strenuous to attempt to track motion that is unpredictable and jerky.

Good FPS not only results in a more enjoyable gaming experience, but it results in more skillful play. You’ll find yourself much more in-tune with the game if you take the time necessary to track and improve your computer’s FPS settings.

All of these factors are two-fold for highly-competitive games like Apex Legends. Your game’s performance not only affects your enjoyment of the match, but your teammates as well! If you want to excel, you’ll eventually have to optimize your game.

Apex Legends FPS Settings

Part Two – How to Enable The FPS Tracker in Apex Legends

The first step to getting control of your FPS is knowing precisely what your average FPS is. In order to most effectively track FPS for your game, you’re going to need an accurate tracker that won’t be a drain on your resources.

Some external trackers actually put more stress on your system resources, so it’s almost always preferable to use a built-in FPS tracker whenever possible. While not all games include this feature, Apex Legends does. Unlike most other games, though, it has to be set up through the launcher, EA Origin.

In order to find and access the FPS tracker within Origin, you’ll need to first open the launcher (please make sure you have Apex Legends installed before you change these settings!) Once you open the launcher, you’ll want to click on the Origin menu in the top left corner of the launcher window.

From there, select “Application Settings,” a menu option which will open a veritable toolbox of helpful selections.

For Apex Legends to have an FPS counter, you’ll need to navigate to the “More” tab on the far right side of the Application Settings screen then click the “Origin In-Game” selection. At the bottom of this screen, you’ll see an on-off switch titled “Display FPS Counter.”

Just make sure that switch is set to “on,” and you’ll be ready to go!

Next time you open Apex Legends, you’ll be able to see a steady measurement of your FPS in the corner of the screen.

Part Three – What Your FPS Says About Your Settings

While we won’t explore graphical settings outside of FPS in too much depth for this guide, we did want to give a few examples of what your FPS counter could be telling you about how you’re running your game.

If you find out that you’re having rapidly varying FPS numbers, it’s likely that one of the more memory-intensive graphical settings is causing your computer to choke when there’s more on the screen. If you’re having stable but uncharacteristically low FPS readings (below 30fps minimum,) it’s a pretty good chance that your general graphics settings are much too high for your computer.

As another example, if you were getting high but unstable FPS readings, you could probably improve your game by setting an FPS cap. An FPS cap might actually make your game much more playable, even if you were getting readings that never dipped below 60 FPS.

Understanding, improving, and stabilizing your FPS is core to the enjoyment of competitive games like Apex Legends. While the examples above are by no means exhaustive, they’re a few straightforward snapshots of what knowing your FPS readings can do for your gaming experience. It’s easy, and you’ll thank yourself forever afterwards.