Last Updated on December 3, 2022
Callisto Protocol Lag: Callisto Protocol just released, and let’s be honest, the game is full of issues. The Steam rating makes it evident that I am not the only one facing constant micro stutters and lag in this game. This article will cover a few tweaks that helped me fix stuttering and lag in The Callisto Protocol.
Callisto Protocol is set in 2320 on Jupiter’s dead moon called Callisto. It’s a third-person survivor horror game with an immersive narrative, where you play as Jacob Lee and find a way to escape the prison moon. You must discover secrets and outwit your enemies with various weapons, gadgets, and abilities. Along the way, you’ll uncover the secrets of the Callisto Protocol, a mysterious plot to create something of unimaginable power.
The game features unique enemies and a sci-fi setting perfect for players looking for an intense, thrilling experience. The Callisto Protocol brings a unique experience with stunning next-gen graphics and real-time physics.
Enough about the game; let’s find out how we can fix these issues.
How To Fix Lag in The Callisto Protocol
Let’s check the system requirements of the game first:
Minimum:
- OS: Windows 10/11
- Processor: Intel® Core™ i5-8400 or AMD Ryzen™ 5 2600
- Memory: 8 GB RAM
- Graphics: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1060 or AMD Radeon™ RX 580
Recommended:
- OS: Windows 10/11
- Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-8700 or AMD Ryzen™ 5 3600
- Memory: 16 GB RAM
- Graphics: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1070 or AMD Radeon™ RX 5700
The developers have clarified that this is a demanding game that won’t run well on low-end computers. The Hardware Survey from Steam for last month states GTX 1060 as the most used card, nothing short of sadness.
If you have a low-end GPU/CPU, then you’ll have to compromise with graphics and performance. However, the tweaks mentioned below will help out a bit. Let’s begin:
Change the Graphics Settings of the game
General Settings
- Sync Every Frame (V-Sync) – Off
- Framerate Limit – 60
- Direct X – 11
DirectX seems to be causing lag and stuttering in the game, probably due to the DX12 shader cache. Developers have acknowledged this issue and have promised to push a patch soon.
Lighting Settings
- Lighting Quality – Standard
- Shadow Quality – High
- Volumetrics Quality – Medium
- Particle Quality – Medium
Effect Settings
- Depth of Field – Disabled
- Motion Blur – Disabled
- Subsurface Scattering – Disabled
- Anti-Aliasing – FXAA
- Film Grain – Off
If you’re still experiencing performance issues while running The Callisto Protocol on your PC, several options are available to help improve performance. The first is to adjust your graphics settings. Lowering these settings can help reduce the strain on your system and increase your frame rate. You can reduce texture details, anti-aliasing, lower the resolution, and turn off advanced graphical features such as ambient occlusion and volumetric lighting.
If your PC isn’t running smoothly after these adjustments, you can try updating your graphics drivers.
Here are a few tweaks for both Nvidia and AMD Users that will provide an instant boost to your FPS in The Callisto Protocol:
Change Graphic Control Panel Settings
For Nvidia Users:
- Open up Nvidia’s Control Panel. Right-click on desktop > click Nvidia control panel
- Click Manage 3D Settings > Program Settings
- Find “The Callisto Protocol” you can manually add the game if it’s not on 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 (High or Ultra makes sense only for PvP Games)*
Nvidia Low Latency Mode is a feature found in Nvidia’s Control Panel. It is designed to help reduce input latency on Nvidia graphics card systems. Low Latency Mode can be used in games or any other application where you need to reduce the 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 Device Drivers & Windows
Nvidia and AMD both generally push updates that are optimized for AAA titles. The game-ready update for The Callisto Protocol should be coming out soon.
On the other hand, Updating Windows ensures you get all the performance enhancements. With every new update, Microsoft improves the speed and efficiency of the operating system. For example, with the release of Windows 11, Microsoft made several changes to improve performance, including faster startup times and improved graphics processing.
Debloat Your Windows Installation
Debloating your Windows installation can speed it up in several ways. For one, removing unnecessary apps reduces the amount of memory and CPU resources consumed. Additionally, many bloatware apps run in the background and consume network bandwidth; removing them frees up that capacity too. Finally, many bloatware apps are just plain slow and clunky; getting rid of them makes Windows faster and more responsive.
There are a few different ways to debloat Windows. One is to use a tool like Sycnex Script on GitHub; this utility scans your system for unnecessary programs and offers to remove them. Another option is to go through the Control Panel’s Programs and Features list and uninstall any programs you don’t need or want.
Syncnex can be used to remove:
- Misc Bloatware in Windows
- Disable Edge PDF
- Uninstall OneDrive
- Disable Telemetry
Enable High-Performance Mode for The Callisto Protocol
This setting is set to High Performance as default for most. But in some cases, Windows might change it to Power Saving if the setting is set to Let Windows Decide. We have read a few instances of this happening on Reddit Forums, primarily for Gaming Laptops.
The steps to do this are as follows:
- Go to Graphic Settings > Search for Graphic Settings in Windows Search
- Click on the result
- Now from the newly opened window, located graphics performance preference
- Search for The Callisto Protocol
- Click on the App > Options
- Select “High Performance” and check “Don’t use Auto HDR” (Applicable for HDR Monitors)
Enable Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling
This option was added to the graphic settings page after the Windows 10 May 2020 update. Many YouTubers such as Linus Tech Tips, Jayz2Cents, and Gamers Nexus have tested the performance when turned on or off. They found that setting makes little to no difference, good or bad, on mid to high-end machines and slight improvement to framerates on low-end computers (but also brings instability at times).
To enable Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling
- Open Windows Search, and type “Graphic Settings.”
- Under Default Settings, click “Change Default Graphics Settings.”
- Click the radio button to toggle the setting on or off.
Conclusion: Turn this on or off and compare the difference in FPS.
Disable in-game overlays
Discord
If you are using Discord like me, I’d recommend changing a few things. One such thing is discord overlay; it’s not 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 in-game Discord Overlay
- Open Discord
- Go to Overlay under App Settings
- Click on the “Enable in-game overlay” to turn it off.
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 and 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.
Disable Microsoft Device Association Root Enumerator
This is a Microsoft service that used to cause micro stutters in older games; it turns out that disabling this service also works for The Callisto Protocol.
To do so:
- Launch Device Manager, and search for it using Windows Search
- Click on Software Devices to expand the list
- Locate “Microsoft Device Association Root Enumerator”> Right-click and disable it as shown in the screenshot below:
Fix The Callisto Protocol 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 by Microsoft that protects your PC from untrusted applications and drivers. The tradeoff is 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 the 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”, turn it off.
You’ve successfully disabled VBS on Windows 11. Many users on Reddit have reported this to significantly improve performance for many games. 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 the Game mode and game bar, whereas this option should be enabled on Windows 11.
To Enable: 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 the “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 benefit while older ones are taking a hit.
Fix Stuttering in The Callisto Protocol
Reasons for Stuttering
Here are a few reasons why Callisto Protocol could be stuttering on your PC:
Insufficient Resources: One of the most common causes of stutter in games is having inadequate resources for the game. This includes having an underpowered CPU, GPU, or RAM.
Poorly Optimized Games: Poorly optimized games, or games that haven’t been updated in a while, can cause stuttering and poor performance. This is applicable in the case of Callisto Protocol.
Running too many apps in the background: Running too many programs on your computer can cause your game to stutter.
Overheating of CPU or GPU: Overheating can be caused by inadequate airflow and a component becoming too hot due to excessive use. This can cause stuttering or, worse, crashes.
These are a few reasons for stuttering in almost every game. Now let’s fix this.
Move the game to SSD or faster HDD
A Reddit user reported constant stuttering in Callisto Protocol; 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 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.
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 Callisto Protocol.
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 dropped my CPU usage by almost 20% after using the software. Also, try switching between hyperthreading on/off; this also dramatically improves.
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
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