Overview
There have been various reports of Borderlands 2 running at subpar framerates on rigs that greatly exceed recommended requirements. This guide will explain certain possibilities as to why that is the case and will include some fixes
Theory 1: PhysX
PhysX is infamous for being a serious FPS killer, regardless of your PC’s specs. It is best to set this to Low, which is essentially off, or uninstall PhysX entirely. If you’re willing to use PhysX on Medium or High, go into the Nvidia Control Panel and set it so that PhysX will be run off your GPU, however I cannot guarantee this will alleviate the problem. If you’re willing to burn some cash and buy another GPU dedicated for PhysX, this can rememdy the issue.
Theory 2: View Distance
View Distance affects how much you can see into the distance, as the name implies. In certain areas with lots of stuff, it’s possible your framerate can tank depending on where you’re looking at. Set this to Medium or Low if you’re experiencing FPS drops.
Theory 3: Dynamic Shadows
Dynamic Shadows can seriously use a lot of resources. They cannot be disabled in-game unlike the first Borderlands, but can be disabled through a .ini tweak. In your documents folder, go to My Games, then Borderlands 2, WillowGame, Config, and finally WillowEngine.ini. Now, hit “find” under “edit” if you are using Notepad. Type in “dynamicshadows” without quotes and make sure the search goes down the file. If it says “DynamicShadows=True” then that is what you are looking food. Set that to false and hit save. Now shadows will look staticky and blobby but this may seriously help performance.
Theory 4: Cel-Shading
Borderlands is known for its cel-shaded artstyle. By disabling it, you get a really different look, as well as a boost in performance. Like with theory 3, go into the ini file, but look for “WillowScenePostProcess” and change it to “RyanScenePostProcess.” This will disable the outlines.
Theory 5: Windows 10
2K Games had officially stated that Borderlands 2 is not officially supported on Windows 10. There have been reports of the game running poorly on Windows 10 machines regardless of specs in comparison to Windows 7 and 8.1. My only solution here is to downgrade to either of those OSes, preferably Windows 7. Windows 7 compatibility mode is also an option, but I have not tested that so I can’t guarantee it would work.
Theory 6: Your CPU
Borderlands 2 is a very CPU reliant game. It is recommended that a new Pentium, Core i or Ryzen CPU runs this. This game will run POORLY on AMD CPUs before Ryzen especially!
Theory 7: Your GPU
It’s possible that despite the fact you have say, a GTX 1080, Borderlands 2 was not optimized for that video card in mind, and will perform worse in comparison to a GTX 5xx or 6xx GPU.
Theory 8: It’s Just Not Optimized
Borderlands 2 could just be a subpar port in general. Regardless of your specs, the game refuses to run at a good framerate.
Conclusion
Borderlands 2 is an odd case. It’s a game that should run just fine on any modern gaming PC, but just won’t. These theories may help you with that problem. If not, then Theory 8 is probably the reason why.