Elden Ring is arguably the biggest game release of all time.
The game didn’t disappoint, with its graphics, immersive quality and fantastic gameplay, fans have been left with both a sense of relief and happiness.
Admittedly, Elden Ring isn’t the most low-end PC beginner-friendly game, and you’ll definitely have to ask yourself if your PC can run Elden Ring before you go on to spend $60.
If you do find yourself hounding for framerates while trying to play Elden Ring, don’t worry! You’re not alone.
Thankfully, there are a lot of ways to deal with this issue without having to cash out on a new CPU or graphics card. We’ve listed the simplest yet most effective ones that we’ve found while scouring reviews and game boards.
Just a heads up though, Elden Ring has a 60 framerate per second cap. What we will be tackling in this article is how to maintain your fps at this rate and nothing lower.
Disable Anti-Cheat
Games are supposed to be fun, depending on what you like and what works for you. You may like a building game that’s quite chill but takes a lot of time, or you might prefer high-intensity multiplayer fighting games that give you thrills.
Either way, these feelings are achieved by you alone as a player.
Unfortunately, some people don’t like the journey and want to see easy results instead. This is where cheaters and the anti-cheat system come in. Cheating is not an enjoyable experience especially if you’re playing a multiplayer game.
Elden Ring has its own anti-cheat system that sadly doesn’t work well in some cases. This isn’t an isolated issue in Elden Ring though. Numerous games with anti-cheat systems can also be quite buggy because of how difficult it is to integrate an effective anti-cheat.
To disable Elden Ring’s anti-cheat, go to your Steam library and look for Elden Ring. Right-click on the game and go to Properties. In the left options, go to Local Files and click on the Browse button. In the game folder, look for start_protected_game.exe file and rename it to something else, but something that you’d easily recognize; like adding a “_copy” or a number. Then, copy the elden_ring.exe. Rename the copy file into start_protected_game.exe. We recommend restarting Steam before you launch the game.
Set Shader Cache to Unlimited
In game speak and from the name alone, shaders refer to shades – the amount of light, dark, and color when rendering the graphics.
Just as the name suggests, a cache is a place where data is stored. A shader cache is a collection of pre-compiled shaders. Shader caches are quite known to improve game performance because instead of your system constantly creating a new shader for each time you launch the game; the game instead accesses this shader cache.
By setting your shader cache on Nvidia to unlimited, stuttering will be prevented especially if you’ve been playing the game for quite a while.
To set your shader cache to unlimited, go to Nvidia Control Panel and click on “Manage 3D Settings” on the left-hand side under 3D Settings. Under the Global Settings tab, look for “Shader Cache Size”. Once clicking the drop-down menu, click on unlimited.
Disconnect Extra Monitors
Speaking as someone with two monitors, let me tell you, they are life-changing! I’d have to argue though that dual monitors are better used for certain purposes like office work and streaming. For gaming? Ehh… Not so much.
Generally and ideally speaking, dual monitors shouldn’t affect Elden Ring’s performance or any game for that matter. However, if your graphics card is on the lower-end side, then you might have to reconsider using your second monitor while playing.
You don’t have to plug wires to disconnect your extra monitor. Simply go to your Windows Display setting, then to the “Select and rearrange displays, and look for the monitor that you want to disconnect.
Play on Borderless Window
In most of our fps increase articles, we always advocate using fullscreen. This mode allows the game to fully overtake your screen functions and should improve the framerate and performance.
However, a lot of Elden Ring players have noted that the game seems to run better on borderless window mode. The stuttering, in particular, has gone away once switched.
To be honest, I don’t have a theory yet as to why this happens. Sometimes, some aspects of the game are just full of bugs and that’s alright. The developers aren’t omniscient to know every single possible issue in the game. This is also the reason why, for online and multiplayer games, devs release patches.
What To Do Next
Once the game is running smoothly, it’s time to play it. Elden Ring is a complex game and you might lose many details by just diving into the game.
Start from the basics by making sure that you find the spirit bell. Once that’s out of the way, learn how to get the horse and you should be good to go.
