Modern Warfare 2 PC: How To Fix Stuttering & Freezing

Stuttering in MW2: Are you facing constant stuttering and freezing in MW2? – Worry no more; my guide today will help you solve the problem.

Every year, millions of gamers eagerly await the release of the latest Call of Duty game. For many, it is the most anticipated event of the year. COD games are always highly anticipated, featuring cutting-edge graphics, new campaign missions, and best-ever gunplay mechanics. This year’s installment, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, is shaping up to be one of the best yet.

Users on Reddit and Steam Forums are reporting numerous crashes and performance issues; this time, Nvidia also stepped up and released a driver causing a black screen and BSOD (lol). AAA games are no strangers to problems, but it’s hard to understand why games like COD have issues like these on launch days. They have closed beta and open beta periods to test these things.

The good thing is that Infinity Ward is an excellent developer studio, and these problems should be ironed out in a few days.

Update: Infinity Ward has deployed multiple patches to fix problems in the game including some performance fixes. If you are still facing issues, then I continue you go through every step in this article.

How To Fix Stuttering and Freezing in Modern Warfare 2

Edit Config Files

The exact same stutters were happening in MW 2019. The game runs fine until you start noticing frequent micro stutters. The fix is the same even for MW2.

• Go to Documents > Call of Duty > players > Right-click on “options.3.3cod22.cst”, and select open with Notepad.
• Scroll to the end and locate “RendererWorkerCount.”

• This setting dictates how many threads the game is allowed to use. It is set to 4 as default, and you will have to change it depending on your CPU.

How To Decide What Number to Enter?

First, find out which processor you are using, launch task manager > Go to performance > Click the CPU Tab, and your CPU name will display on the top right.

After this, Google the processor’s name and find out the thread count that processor has. I am using Ryzen 5 5600X, which has six cores and 12 threads. So, I will put 6 as the “RendererWorkerCount” value. Just input 1/2 of your thread count after finding out the number of threads.

Note: If you still can’t figure out what value to put, there’s a comment section at the end of this article; input your CPU details, and I will help you with this.

This has a considerable improvement and completely fixes micro stutters in MW2. If you are still facing problems, continue reading.

Disable On-Demand Texture Streaming

On-Demand Texture Streaming is a technique employed by some game engines whereby textures are not fully loaded into memory at the start of a level or scene but are streamed on-demand as the player moves around.

So why does this setting cause stuttering in MW2? – The answer is the game constantly downloads textures, and if the user is using an HDD instead of SSD, Then he will face issues such as stuttering and freezing.

Use Launch Options to enforce DirectX Version

Launch Option to use: -d3d11, -dx11 and -dx12

The above launch option will force the game to run in a particular DirectX version. You can switch between all three and figure out what works best for you.

For Steam

• Launch Steam > Go to Library
• Locate Modern Warfare 2 and right-click on it > Select Properties
• Fill in the launch command as shown in the image below:

For Battle.net

• Launch Battle.net Launcher
• Go to the MW2 Tab and then click the gear button to open the settings window:

• A new window will open up, click the “Additional command line arguments” checkbox and enter your command.
• Press “Done.”

I noticed a considerable difference in performance on PCs using older GPUs. Whereas using these commands had little to no difference for newer RTX GPUs.

Move the game to SSD or faster HDD

A Reddit user reported constant stuttering in Modern Warfare 2; someone asked him for his specs, and it turns out the guy had an SSD for C Drive, but the game was installed on the 5400 RPM drive. The user moved his game to the SSD, and the issue was fixed.

As technology continues to evolve, so does the need for better storage. Although hard drives have been around for a while, they are quickly being replaced by solid-state drives due to their increased speed and decreased energy consumption. SSDs are more expensive than hard disks but offer many more benefits. On top of the increased speed, they also consume less power. This is a critical reason SSDs are used in many new devices, from smartphones to computers.

Note: Warzone and Modern Warfare (Including Campaign) is supposedly over 200GB in size. So ensure that you have enough storage before moving the game files manually.

Close any memory-hogging applications

Open up the task manager and check your memory and disk usage. Close all applications (non-windows) that are eating your memory and using a disk drive. If you are still stuttering with everything looking fine, you should probably wait for the hotfix update, which should be pushed out shortly.

Several memory-hungry apps can cause high RAM usage in Windows. One of the most notorious offenders is Chrome. Even when minimized, Chrome can take up a lot of system resources. Firefox and Opera also tend to use more RAM than Edge. If you’re experiencing regular crashes or slowdowns, it might be time to check your app’s resource usage and see if any of your favorites are guilty parties.

Turn off Conflicting Applications

This is a Reddit recommendation; users have reported that software such as iCUE, Razer Cortex, Razer Synapse, and Armory Crate is leading to problems in MW2.

These applications are unimportant to me, so I have uninstalled them. I’ve also heard that users running iCUE were handed out bans for no reason. However, you can never be sure about cheaters; they are known for making things up.

Use Process Lasso to limit CPU usage.

Process Lasso is software that helps you limit the CPU usage of a particular app. Download the software and use it accordingly. I was able to drop my CPU usage by almost 20% after using the software. Also, try switching between hyperthreading on/off; this also has a considerable improvement.

Use My Performance Guide

I have already written a comprehensive guide on Best Settings for MW2 and Fixing Lag in MW2. Check out both guides and tweaks, this will help you in fixing your problems in no time.

Modern Warfare 2 is out now; users cannot hold the excitement, and the massive flurry of players has taken the MW2 servers by storm.

I will be spending my weekend playing multiplayer and writing about it. I already have completed the mind-bending Campaign, you should also check it out.

What are your thoughts on the new call of duty game?