Last Updated on November 14, 2020
American Truck Simulator, as the name says is an Indie simulation game of truck driving made and publishes by SCS Software. The new colorado DLC just dropped two days back and users have started reporting problems. In this article, we will find out what the problems are and how we can get rid of it.
There are hundreds of issues being reported in the bugs and issues thread.
Issue #1 – Missing hills, floating people and vehicles
I’m seeing rips tears, missing hills, missing buildings, floating people, and vehicles. This is not just in Idaho, but also in Washington. I have yet to explore outside of those regions. Changing settings including disabling vsync, or SSAO, or HDR, etc. at different times as well as together made zero difference. Card is a 2070, and things worked and looked beautifully in everything through 1.37, but not 1.38
Issue #2 – Linux, Fullscreen mode either doesn’t work properly, or attempts to span 2 monitors, despite selected resolution.
Issue #3 – Game continue crashing at all parts of the city. Sometimes i cros place when my game crash and than game crash at another point. I tested vanilla two days and always is the same. I also tested wich mods and is same situation. Also afther buying Colorado, i dont see DLC is instaled in DLC’s section.
Most of these issues can be fixed with a little tweaking here and there, the comments were posted on the developer thread so you can expect them to take action soon. Until then, you can use the tips given below for fixes.
American Truck Simulator Lag Fix
American Truck Simulator System Requirements
Here are the requirements of the game
Minimum Requirements:
- OS: Windows 7 64-bit
- Processor: Dual-core CPU 2.4 GHz
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Graphics: GeForce GTS 450-class (Intel HD 4000)
- Storage: 4 GB available space
Recommended Requirements:
- OS: Windows 7/8.1/10 64-bit
- Processor: Quad-core CPU 3.0 GHz
- Memory: 6 GB RAM
- Graphics: GeForce GTX 760-class (2 GB)
- Storage: 4 GB available space
If you are facing problems even with a good setup then I’d recommend you start with toning down your game settings, that’s the best way to fix issues instantly. However, if that doesn’t help you. Continue reading.
Change Graphic Card Settings
Below are the settings for AMD and Nvidia graphics card users, apply these settings for the best performance.
For Nvidia Users
- Open up Nvidia’s Control Panel. Right-click on desktop > click Nvidia control panel
- Click Manage 3D Settings > Program Settings
- Find “Yakuza Like a Dragon”, you can manually add the game if it’s not in the list
- Now, make the following changes:
Monitor Tech: G-Sync (If available)
Maximum Pre-rendered frames: 2
Threaded optimization: On
Power Management: Prefer Maximum Performance
Texture Filtering – Quality: Performance
For AMD Users
- Anti-Aliasing Mode: Use Application settings
- Anti-aliasing Method: Multisampling
- Morphological Filtering: Off
- Anisotropic Filtering Mode: Use application settings
- Texture Filtering Quality: Performance
- Surface Format Optimization: On
- Wait for V-sync: Off
- OpenGL Triple Buffering: Off
- Shader Cache: AMD optimized
- Tesselation Mode: Override application settings
- Maximum Tesselation Level: Off
- GPU Workload: Graphics
- Chill: Off
- Frame Rate Target Control: Disabled
These settings should be good enough for you. Try tweaking a bit with the priority of the application, this also tends to give a little FPS boost.
Update Device Drivers
Whenever a new game makes it’s arrival, especially when it’s a AAA title, Nvidia is known for pushing their optimized updates for the best performance with their graphic cards. I am not sure about AMD because I’ve never used an AMD card. Below are the links for downloading the latest drivers.
Since this is a AAA title, I am sure Nvidia will be pushing an update with compatibility for this game. Make sure to keep an eye on your device driver updates.
American Truck Simulator 2020 Crashing Fix
Another thing to check is, open up the task manager and check your memory and disk usage. Close all applications (non-windows) that are eating your memory and using disk drive. If you are still stuttering with everything looking fine then you should probably wait for the hotfix update, which should be pushed out shortly.
These problems are mostly caused due to high disk usage and can be fixed immediately by moving the game to SSD or closing apps that are using “disk”.
Disable Full-Screen Optimization & High DPI in Windows 10
Full-screen optimization and DPI settings come pre-configured with Windows 10. These are known for causing trouble with games leading to several issues. To disable:
- Locate the game installation
- Find the .exe file of the game
- Right-click > Properties > Compatibility Tab
- Tick the “Disable Full-Screen Optimizations” tab
- Now, click the “Change high DPI settings” button
- Tick “Override high DPI scaling behavior” and select “Application” from the drop-down menu
- Save Settings.
Tone Down Game Settings
The general rule of thumb for every game is if you are lagging it is always recommended to tone down the settings. Play around a little bit with the settings, turn down shadows and textures, this should help.
Turn off Game Mode
Windows says that the Game mode helps in optimizing all-around windows processes, windows updates and other windows related stuff while running games if you have the game mode enabled. But this isn’t factually true, the game bar has been known for causing issues related to FPS. So it’s better to turn it off if you are not using it.
- Click Start > Settings > Gaming
- On the Game Bar, set “Record game clips, screenshots, and broadcast using Game bar” to off.
- Now head to the Captures tab set the “Record the background while I’m playing a game” to Off.
- Lastly, click on the Game Mode tab, and turn it off.
P.S. Nvidia’s Shadowplay is better for capturing game clips.
Update Windows
The recent couple updates were weird and broke a lot of games, to fix those issues, Windows has already pushed out hotfixes and you can download them right away. If you are running an older version of Windows, I’d recommend you to download the updated version.
There was also an update that caused windows to use up a lot of RAM for its search bar’s function called Cortana. This also has been fixed, you just have to update.
Disable Discord in-game overlay
If you are using Discord like me, then I’d recommend you to change a few things. One such thing is, discord overlay, it’s not really something you need at all times. I use a two-monitor setup, so the overlay is useless for me. It is known for causing FPS related issues.
Disable Hardware Acceleration in Discord
- Open Discord
- Click on User Settings > Appearance
- Click on the Hardware Acceleration radio, this will turn it off.
Disable Discord in-game Overlay
- Open Discord
- Go to Overlay under App Settings
- Click on the “Enable in-game overlay”, this will turn it off.
Increase Game Priority
This is an old-school method of boosting FPS in certain games, this only affects the CPU relying Games.
- Press CTLR + Shift + ESC to open task manager
- Find American Truck Simulator and right-click > go to details
- Now right-click on the process’s .exe file and set priority to “high”.
This will prioritize your game over other windows applications and provide you with a little boost.
American Truck Simulator Stuttering and Crashing Fix
Disable Overclocking
For me the culprit was my overclocked GPU, I went ahead and disabled MSI Afterburner, changed all the settings to stock and my game went running smoothly.
The game is also lagging a lot on RTX 2060, I was only getting 50 FPS with Ultra settings. The game system requirements have GeForce GTX 1060 as recommended but still, there are multiple issues. Also, the game currently looks blurry with jagged edges all around.
That’s how you can take care of the lagging and FPS drops related issues for the time being. I will be updating this article as I find more information.
