Destiny 2 Lightfall: Fix Season 20 Lag and FPS Drops

D2 Season 20 Lag: Destiny 2 is a game that needs no introduction; a lot has changed since the game’s release back in 2017. We are approaching Season 19 of Destiny 2 as Season the Plunder ends on December 6th. I still remember that the game received a lot of hate, which changed after the Forsaken update.

The Witch Queen update brings a plethora of new stuff in-game, notably the new raid, new exotic weapons, new exotic catalysts (maybe Thorn finally?), and a lot more that we will cover on the website. A lot of content is retiring simultaneously, some forsaken stuff, multiple iron banner, and trials maps.

Dive into the world of Destiny 2 to explore the mysteries of the solar system and experience responsive first-person shooter combat. Unlock powerful elemental abilities and collect unique gear to customize your Guardian’s look and playstyle. Enjoy Destiny 2’s cinematic story, challenging co-op missions, and a variety of PvP modes alone or with friends. Download for free today and write your legend in the stars.

– Steam Page of Destiny 2

Facing performance issues is nothing new for Destiny 2 users; while the game is well-optimized for the most part, some users still face issues such as Lag and FPS Drops. This can be fixed through a few traditional tweaks covered in this article.

We have added a few options for Windows 11 users at the end of this article.

How To Fix Lag in Destiny 2 Season 17

System Requirements

These are the official system requirements of the game from the steam page. Pretty sure these are irrelevant now. i3 3250 is almost a decade-old processor; same goes for GTX 660. Most computers should be able to run this game just fine.

Best in-game Settings for Destiny 2

These are the best in-game settings for the game. We recommend you tone down all the settings to the lowest possible if you’re a crucible player.

Note: Chromatic Abberation and Film Grain can make the game appear blurry if turned on.

Change Graphic Control Panel Panel Settings

Here are a few tweaks for both Nvidia and AMD Users that will provide instantly boost your FPS in Destiny 2:

For Nvidia Users:

• Open up Nvidia’s Control Panel. Right-click on desktop > click Nvidia control panel
• Click Manage 3D Settings > Program Settings
• Find “Destiny 2”, 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
Low Lateny Mode: Ultra (Low if you’re a PvE player)*

Nvidia Low Latency Mode is a feature that is found in Nvidia’s Control Panel. It is designed to help reduce input latency on systems that have Nvidia graphics cards. Low Latency Mode can be used in games or any other application where you need to reduce the amount of time it takes for your inputs to be registered.

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

Update Your Device Drivers

• Download Nvidia Drivers
• Download AMD Drivers

Do you wonder why you should update your graphic card drivers? It would be good to check on the new updates for two key reasons. Firstly, it’s the only way to ensure you have the latest drivers for your device. The more recent drivers will allow your computer to run every graphics-intensive application and keep up with any changes in technology without trailing too far behind.

Nvidia has already pushed the update optimized for the game, and it can be downloaded right away using Geforce Experience.

Enable Game Mode in Windows

The new game mode makes gaming on your computer even better. When you’re playing a game in game mode, Windows prioritizes the game’s performance and gives it more of the computer’s resources. This means that the game will run faster and smoother, with less lag and fewer interruptions. The game mode also ensures that your computer’s performance won’t be impacted when you’re not playing a game.

To enable game mode, go to Settings > Gaming > Game Mode.

Disable in-game overlays

Discord

If you are using Discord like me, then I’d recommend you 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.

Steam Overlay

• Launch Steam
• Go to your Game Library and locate Destiny 2
• Right-click on Destiny 2 > Properties > Under General > Click the “Enable the Steam Overlay while in-game” checkbox as shown below:

Windows Game Bar

• 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.
• You can also test turning Game Mode on or off, one by one.

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
• Locate Destiny 2 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.

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 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.

Fix Destiny 2 Lagging on Windows 11

These steps are specific to Windows 11 users.

Disable Core-Isolation on Windows 11

Core Isolation is a new feature built-in Windows 11 that protects your PC from untrusted applications and drivers. The tradeoff is obviously the performance. But this will not be an issue for anyone who doesn’t download anything from untrusted sites.

Here’s how you can disable it:

• Click on Start Menu button and select settings
• Click Privacy and Security > Windows Security > Device Security
• Here you will find Core Isolation, click on Core isolation details

• On the next screen, you will find a radio button for “Memory Integrity”, just turn it off.

You’ve successfully disabled VBS on Windows 11. Many users on Reddit have reported this to improve performance for many games significantly. We’re talking about improvements of about 20-30 fps straightaway.

Enable Game Mode

We’ve noticed considerable improvements in the Game Mode in Windows 11. For Windows 10, we suggest disabling both Game mode and game bar, whereas this option should be enabled on Windows 11.

To Enable: Just type game mode in search and enable it.

Use Compatibility Settings

Of course, not all the titles are optimized for the new operating system yet. This should change soon. Until then you can use Windows’s inbuilt compatibility setting. To do so:

• Right click on the app’s exe file
• Go to properties > Compatibility
• Under Compatibility mode, select “Windows 10”
• Also click on “disable fullscreen optimizations” checkbox
• Click Apply and close the box.

One more thing suggested by Reddit users is doing a clean Windows 11 install, rather than upgrading it from Win 10. Also, DX12 optimized games are getting benefited while older ones are taking a hit.

These settings and optimizations were tested on PCs with the following configuration:

• i5 8500 with GTX 1060 @1080p
• i3 10300 with RTX 2060 @1080p
• i7 8700 with GTX 1650 @1080p
• AMD Ryzen 5600x with RTX 3080 @2k

These were a few optimizations that are assured to help you in increasing your Destiny 2 FPS. If you still have any questions, make sure to comment below. If you face any issues, you can also post your system specs.

Destiny 2 is a video game sequel developed by Bungie and published by Activision (now acquired by Sony Interactive Entertainment). It was released worldwide on September 6, 2017, for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One video game consoles. Destiny 2 is a first-person shooter game in an open world environment. Players can explore the world solo or with friends. The game features a new story, new characters, new locations, new weapons, and new abilities.

The player takes on the enemies in a world set in a “mythic science fiction” world; the game follows the Guardians – the last defenders of humanity – as they protect the City from various alien threats.

Our Destiny 2 category consists of different guides on the game that can help players in their gaming journey. Our notable weekly guides can be located on the sidebar of this page. Also, head to our D2 Wiki page for more information.