Fortnite Performance Mode promises a smoother game on weaker PCs

It seems that PC gamers are having a great season this year, sometimes at the expense of their console cousins. Cyberpunk 2077's much-criticized flaws seem to largely affect consoles only and specifically last-gen consoles like the PS4 and Xbox One. That said, there are also gaming-capable PCs that may now be a bit too old or too weak to run the latest and greatest titles but Epic Games is rolling out some changes to ensure that even those won't be left out of its battle royale cash cow.

Although it didn't really bag any of The Game Awards medals this year, Fortnite continues to be a staple in gaming across almost all platforms. In almost all those platforms, however, the combination of hardware is either fixed or a known quantity. Gaming PCs, however, are a very different breed and Fortnite is getting some new modes to ensure even less powerful computers can still join in on the fun.

A new Performance Mode is being rolled out in Alpha version on systems that don't meet even the minimum requirements of the game. Players will be prompted to switch to this mode for best results but they can ignore it or even enable and disable it at any time inside the game.

What this mode pretty much does is to sacrifice visual quality for CPU and GPU performance, meaning the game will run smoother but with less pizzazz. Because this mode practically means you won't need high-resolution textures, players that prefer to be in this mode for good can also choose to remove those textures and save up to 14GB of data storage space. You'll still need at least 17GB for the game, of course.

It's definitely a welcome feature that can benefit even those with enough computing muscle but aren't too picky over graphics quality. That said, Epic Games still recommends some basic specs, like 6GB of RAM and an SSD, to ensure a smooth game even in this new Performance Mode.