How to Fix stuttering issues in Elden Ring for Windows

From Software’s much-anticipated game has finally arrived. Elden Ring hit Console & windows on 25th February 2022. The game has some hefty requirements as at a minimum the game requires a GTX 1060. Making things even worse the game’s optimization isn’t up to the mark and is causing stuttering issues even on the highest end systems. In this guide, we will show you how to fix the Stuttering issues and fps drops in Elden Ring.

Elden Ring Minimum Requirements

	Minimum requirements	Recommended requirements
CPU	Intel Core i5-8400 or AMD Ryzen 3 3300X	Intel Core i7-8700K or AMD Ryzen 5 3600X
GPU	Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 3GB or AMD Radeon RX 580 4GB	Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 8GB or AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 8GB
RAM	12GB	16GB

Optimizing Elden Ring for PC

• Fixing Stuttering.
• In-game Settings
• Optimize windows for Gaming

1.Fixing Stuttering issues for Elden Ring

The game has stability issues and sometimes no matter what settings you apply you might still face some stuttering issues here are some settings you can try in order to get rid of the stuttering.

• Change Graphics settings to High Performance
• Change the Shader Cache size to unlimited in Nvidia control panel
• Disable Device Association Service
• Locking Framerates to improve Frametimes and stability

1.Change Graphics settings to High Performance

1. Search Graphics settings in windows.
2. Browse and locate Elden Ring.exe in the graphics settings menu.
3. Click options and change the Graphics preference to High performance.

2. Change the Shader cache size to unlimited

1. Open Nvidia Control Panel
2. Go to Manage 3D settings
3. Locate shader cache size and change it to unlimited

3. Locking FPS for stability

The game has an in-built 60fps lock. Adding an additional lock can improve stability and frametimes drastically!

• Inorder to implement a Frame-rate lock go-ahead and download the Rivatuner Statistics server from the following link.
• Install and open RTSS.
• On the main screen locate Framerate limit on the middle right of the RTSS menu.
• Change the limit to the AVG fps you are gettings, for example if the game maintains 45fps for you change the limit to 45 or 40.

The game is locked at 60fps and if your system is maintained for most of the time it’s still a good idea to add an additional lock to improve frame times and stability.

4. Disable ‘Device Association Service’

1. Search ‘Services’ and run it as administrator
2. Navigate to the ‘Device Association Service’
3. Right click and stop the service.

Disabling the service can fix stuttering for some users and in case you run into some kind of error simply restart the service manually.

In-Game Settings for Elden Ring(Best Settings)

The Game features a lot of customizations for graphics ranging from maximum to low and even medium in some settings. The game’s optimization as of now isn’t really in the best state. While benchmarking I experienced several drops in the performance even on a High-end build. Here are our recommended settings for basically all systems.

Settings to fix the small drops in fps and fix stuttering issues in elden ring for your PC(Medium end)

Tested on-

• Ryzen 5 3600
• 16GB 3000mhz
• GTX 1660 Super

At the lowest preset, unlike other games, Elden Ring provides only a 10-20% difference in performance. Hence, putting everything low might give you a little boost in performance but you will have to sacrifice a whole lot in terms of visuals as most of the settings make a ton of difference on the Visuals of the game.

Here are the settings you would want to put if you are experiencing small drops in fps on a High or medium End.

Texture Quality

The Texture quality isn’t one of the most performance taxing settings hence, leaving this at even at maximum shouldn’t be much of an issue but you can tune it down to gain a few frames which aren’t worth it in my opinion.

Antialiasing Quality

Antialiasing can be turned off to gain a little bit of performance if you don’t mind the jagged edger. Although if you want a smooth picture quality High or low is the way to go.

SSAO(Screen Space Ambient Occlusion)

SSAO is one of the most performance taxing options of the game so keeping it at medium is highly advised otherwise turn it completely off. Visually the difference made by SSAO isn’t much noticeable hence, leaving this at medium is a fair value as the performance gain ratio is far greater than the visual enhancement making it a fair trade. SSAO set to ‘off’ gave almost a 10% boost compared to SSAO at high! Make sure to keep this at low.

Depth of Field & Motion Blur

Depth of Field & Motion blur should be turned off as they should be for any other game. Motion blur is the greatest enemy of a gamer and only makes the experience worse and far less smooth.

Shadow Quality

Much like SSAO Shadow quality is very performance taxing with it providing a 10-15% increase in performance at medium compared to maximum. Hence the recommended settings for Shadow quality would be medium even on a High-End PC. Shadow quality set to Low increased the frame rate by almost 10-15% making it a fair trade for performance gains and in our experience the game manages to still look great even at low poly shadows.

Lightning, Effects & Volumetric Quality

Lightning, Effects & Volumetric Quality are recommended to be set at medium in order to stabilise the framerates.

Reflection Quality,Water Surface Quality & Shader Quality

Reflection Quality, Water Surface Quality & Shader Quality are recommended to be kept at High/Maximum while keeping the Global Illumination to Medium and Grass Quality to High.

Important- Through benchmarking Elden Ring it was observed that the stutters occur more on lower settings as the GPU doesn’t get fully utilized. The stuttering issues mainly occur due to shader compiling and have not much to do with the hardware being inadequate. In order to make sure the GPU is at full usage at all times increasing the graphics might actually fix the sudden stutters and provide more stability in exchange for a few frames.