Marvel Rivals looks fine in the hero select screen and falls apart in the fights that matter. Six heroes on each side, ultimates, destructible terrain and effects everywhere: the frame rate drops exactly when you need to track a target or land an ability. On top of that, some of the settings that raise the frame rate number also add input delay.

This guide sorts out which settings help a competitive player and which only help the counter. It covers upscaling and frame generation, Reflex, the graphics options with a real cost, anti-cheat, Windows, the GPU driver and the network. Start with the 60-second fix.

The 60-second fix before you queue

• Turn on NVIDIA Reflex (or AMD Anti-Lag in the driver).
• Turn off frame generation for competitive play. It raises the number on screen but adds delay to what you do.
• Use upscaling in Quality mode if your graphics card struggles, instead of dropping to the lowest preset.
• Close the browser and recording tools you are not using before the match.

Why Marvel Rivals drops frames

Team fights stack everything

Twelve heroes, their abilities and destructible parts of the map can all be active at once. The CPU and GPU both spike in those moments, and the dips land in the fights that decide the round.

Frame generation is not the same as frame rate

Frame generation creates extra frames between real ones. The counter goes up, but your inputs are still processed at the real frame rate, and the generated frames add some delay. For casual play that trade can be fine. For aiming and reacting, it works against you.

A modern engine on a wide range of PCs

Marvel Rivals uses a modern engine with heavy lighting and effects. On mid range PCs the graphics card is often the limit, which makes upscaling a better tool than it is in older competitive games.

In-game settings that actually matter

Setting	Recommended	Why
NVIDIA Reflex	On (+ Boost)	Shortens the render queue.
Frame generation	Off for competitive play	Adds delay even as the number goes up.
Upscaling (DLSS, FSR, XeSS)	Quality mode if the GPU is the limit	A sharper result than lowering resolution yourself.
V-Sync	Off	Adds delay.
Shadows, Global Illumination, Reflections	Low	The most expensive options in big fights.
Effects quality	Low or medium	Ability effects pile up in team fights.
Motion blur	Off	Hides detail you need.

Anti-cheat and what is safe to change

Like every competitive shooter, Marvel Rivals protects its matches with anti-cheat. Anti-cheat looks for programs that read or change the game's memory, inject code into it or modify its files. Windows power settings, driver options, network adapter settings and background services are ordinary system configuration.

We will not promise any tool is invisible to an anti-cheat, because nobody can honestly promise that. RIP Tweaks changes Windows and driver settings and does not touch the game's memory or files. More in is RIP Tweaks safe and will it get you banned.

Shader compilation after updates

After a game or driver update, the game rebuilds shaders for your hardware. If it is still doing that when you queue, the first matches stutter on new effects. Let it finish in the menu after updates, and judge settings changes only after a match or two.

Windows is the real bottleneck

Marvel Rivals is busiest when six heroes use their abilities at once, and those are the moments when background work on the CPU turns into a drop.

• Power plan and core parking. On a balanced plan the CPU drops its clocks and parks cores whenever it thinks it is idle, and waking them costs time at exactly the wrong moment.
• Background apps. Launchers, overlays, RGB tools and updaters each wake up on their own schedule. One is nothing. Twenty of them are a stutter every few seconds.
• Timer and scheduling. A coarse system timer makes the game wait longer for its turn, which shows up as uneven frame pacing rather than lower average FPS.
• Storage. A nearly full drive slows every asset load, and that is felt as a hitch the first time something new appears.

All of it can be done by hand if you know which services are safe to touch and how to undo them. We wrote that route up in fixing micro stutters on Windows 11.

What RIP Tweaks does for Marvel Rivals

RIP Tweaks finds Marvel Rivals on its own when it is installed through Steam. If it is missing from the Games page, use Add Game and point it at the game's program file. Clicking the game opens a launch panel with two modes.

• Balanced (free) quiets background apps and applies GPU Priority, I/O Priority and Purge RAM Cache before the game starts. It touches nothing risky.
• Performance (Premium) adds Disable Segment Heap and Unbind CPU 0, which keeps the game off the processor core Windows uses most, and can close Explorer for the session. Your taskbar comes back when you stop.

Those settings are tied to the game's program file only, not to your whole PC, and you can untick any of them before you launch. With an NVIDIA card you can also apply the general high performance driver profile to Marvel Rivals from the same panel. There is no Marvel Rivals specific profile, and we would rather say so than pretend. The system wide tweaks for power, timers, network and input apply to every game, with a restore point created first.

What it does not do: it does not change Marvel Rivals's own settings, read the game's memory or touch its files. The in-game section above is still yours to set, and the Games page guide explains the rest.

GPU control panel

NVIDIA: set Power Management Mode to Prefer Maximum Performance for Marvel Rivals and leave Vertical Sync off. Low Latency Mode does not matter while Reflex is on in game, because Reflex takes over the render queue.

AMD: turn on Anti-Lag in the Adrenalin profile for the game, and leave Radeon Chill and Wait for Vertical Refresh off.

Then update the driver, and do it cleanly. A driver installed on top of years of older ones carries their leftovers with it, and a fresh driver also means Marvel Rivals rebuilds its shader cache, so expect the first match after an update to stutter once.

Ping, packet loss and the server

• Use a cable instead of Wi-Fi.
• Play on the server region closest to you.
• Stop downloads and streaming on other devices during matches.
• Turn off network adapter power saving.

More in how to lower ping in games.

Seeing whether any of it worked

Steam's built-in frame counter (Steam settings, In Game, In-game FPS counter) or the NVIDIA app or AMD Adrenalin overlay shows the frame rate. Watch your 1% lows across a few matches before and after a change, not your average, and change one thing at a time.

For a proper recording, free tools such as PresentMon or CapFrameX log every frame and calculate the 1% and 0.1% lows for you. If a change did not move the lows, it did not help, however much the average went up.

The checklist

• Reflex on, frame generation off, V-Sync off
• Upscaling in Quality mode if the GPU is the limit
• Shadows, global illumination and reflections low, motion blur off
• Shaders finished compiling after updates
• High performance power plan, background apps closed
• Driver clean installed, Prefer Maximum Performance for Marvel Rivals
• Wired connection, closest region
• 1% lows measured in a team fight, not in the practice range

Frequently asked questions

Should I use frame generation in Marvel Rivals?

Not for competitive play. It raises the number on screen but adds delay to your inputs. Upscaling is the better tool when the GPU is the limit.

Why does Marvel Rivals drop frames in team fights?

Many heroes, abilities and destructible parts are active at once. Lower shadows, lighting and effects, and keep the CPU free of background work.

Can tweaking Windows get me banned in Marvel Rivals?

Windows and driver settings are ordinary configuration and not what anti-cheat looks for. RIP Tweaks does not touch the game's memory or files.

Why does the game stutter after an update?

Shaders are being rebuilt. Let them finish and play a match or two before judging performance.