If having an old PC is the only thing preventing you from enjoying Fortnite, then we have some good news for you. Lower specs can now play the game thanks to a new Fortnite Performance Mode, Epic Games announced.

What can players expect from Fortnite Performance Mode? “Smaller download. Better performance,” begins the press statement. “Players playing Fortnite on older specs have a new option for playing the game.”

This new compatibility mode will allow PCs with older and outdated specs to play the game. It will lower the CPU and GPU requirements by lowering the visual quality of the game. It's basically trading in beauty for functionality. As long as you're fine with playing the game with low-res models, then Performance Mode is the way to go.

Based on Epic's own benchmarks, hardware that used to run the game on low settings at low framerates will see drastic improvements with Fortnite Performance Mode. An Intel i5-8265U @ 1.60GHz with Intel UHD Graphics 620 and 8GB RAM can now run the game at 61 fps (from 24 fps). Meanwhile, a computer running on AMD A10-5745M APU @ 2.1GHz with AMD Radeon(TM) HD 8610G and 6GB RAM improved from 18 fps to 45 fps. Those are some amazing leaps in accessibility!

SAVE HARDWARE SPACE, SAVE THE WORLD WITH FORTNITE PERFORMANCE MODE

Epic Games / Fortnite

Apart from having a less strenuous impact on your hardware, Fortnite can also now be downloaded in a smaller package. As you no longer have any use for high-res models and textures in Fortnite Performance Mode, then it's better to just got rid of them to save on hard drive space. Removing the high-res texture game files will save you almost 15GB of space, putting the total size of the base game to just 17GB. That's almost half of the whole game!

Meanwhile, there are also some changes you can do with your current rig to improve your game's performance. Fortnite Performance Mode may be a good band-aid solution to your hardware problems, but a couple of small fixes can go a long way in improving your experience. Playing the game on an SSD will drastically improve load times, for example. You may also invest on a dedicated GPU if you don't have one yet. These two things by themselves will make the biggest impact on your device's performance with the game.

Got an older rig and want to try Fortnite for the first time? You can download the game through the Epic Games Store here. And while you're there, make sure to keep your eyes open for some free games coming right around the corner.