Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: Fix Lag and FPS Drops – Lagging and FPS drops while trying to have fun can be really hectic. Gamers expect the best from titles as big as Assassin’s Creed. The game launch hasn’t exactly been perfect, there have been multiple bugs and issues that the players are facing. So far we’ve encountered a huge progression bug with the starter quests, audio issues, crashing and stuttering problems.
Assassin’s Creed is a title that needs no introduction, the Ubisoft title is known for excelling every single year it is introduced. The game has been getting amazing reviews from the Critics; TechRadar gave it 3.5/5, PCGamer gave it 92/100, GamesRadar gave it 4.5/5 and IGN gave Valhalla a solid rating of 8/10. I was very excited about the title myself, but the RPG element is something I don’t like about this game. I’ll stick to the story and leave the RPG thing for the grinders.
Problems aren’t exactly new for AAA titles, problems are known to arise since developers can’t test the games on a huge set of machines. The configuration of every PC is so different that the developers cannot actually test everything. That’s why developers take reports and push patches in the following days.
In this article, we’ll find out how to fix the Lag and FPS Drops Issues in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. Continue reading.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla – Fix Lag and FPS Drops
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla System Requirements
Minimum:
- Processor (AMD / INTEL): Ryzen 3 1200 – 3.1 Ghz / i5-4460 – 3.2 Ghz
- RAM: 8 GB (Dual-channel mode)
- Video Card: AMD R9 380 – 4GB / GeForce GTX 960 4GB
- Storage: 50 GB HDD (SSD Recommended)
- Operating system: Windows 10 (64-bit only)
- DirectX Version: DirectX 12
- Additional note: Requires GPU with DirectX 12 (Feature Level 12_0) support
Recommended:
- Processor (AMD / INTEL): Ryzen 7 1700 – 3.0 Ghz / i7-6700 – 3.4 Ghz
- RAM: 8 GB (Dual-channel mode)
- Video Card: AMD Vega 64 – 8GB / GeForce GTX 1080- 8GB
- Storage: SSD (50 GB)
- Operating system: Windows 10 (64-bit only)
- DirectX Version: DirectX 12
- Additional note: Requires GPU with DirectX 12 (Feature Level 12_0) support
As you can see, Assassins’ Creed Valhalla is not exactly a light title by any means, the game has very high requirements and it needs GTX 1080 to run at 1080p 60 FPS. You can also run the game at low settings but that takes all the fun away. If for some reason you are facing issues you can follow the guide given below.
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.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla 2020 Lagging 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 Assassin’s Creed Valhalla 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.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla Stuttering 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.
