How to fix Hogwarts Legacy FPS and stuttering issues

Hogwarts Legacy offers a massive and detailed open world for fans of the Wizarding World universe to indulge in. However, the experience has been average for many PC gamers. It is true that Avalanche Software's latest project is pretty GPU-demanding; however, a good chunk of computer gamers are experiencing frequent stutters, despite their systems having high-end specs.

This article will offer potential fixes for FPS (frames per second) and stuttering issues to ensure a smoother gameplay experience. It is important to note that the fix offered in this piece may or may not work for all users. Some gamers have even run into certain issues involving the game after using the settings provided in this article. So, tweak the parameters mentioned below at your own risk and undo the changes as needed.

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PC users will need to jump through a few hoops to improve performance in Hogwarts Legacy

You will need to follow these steps and see if Hogwarts Legacy runs better on your PC:

Step 1: Enable Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling. Due to the nature of PC hardware, you may not see any changes after making this tweak. Moreover, it might even worsen performance for some. But it is at least worth a try.

Type "Graphics Settings" in your Windows search bar and click on the result, which should open the relevant window. Here, turn the Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling toggle to On. You need not do anything if it is already on. Do note that you will need to restart your PC for the change to take effect.

Step 2: Next, altering the Hogwarts Legacy configuration file is in order. The first step is to ensure your File Explorer shows hidden files. Then, navigate to "AppData\Local\Hogwarts Legacy\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor" under the User repository on the drive partition where Windows is installed. In the folder, you will notice the "Engine.ini" configuration file. Open it in Notepad, and you will see that it has a list of settings for the game to use.

Paste the following parameters at the bottom of the file using Notepad:

[SystemSettings]

r.bForceCPUAccessToGPUSkinVerts=True

r.GTSyncType=1

r.OneFrameThreadLag=1

r.FinishCurrentFrame=0

r.TextureStreaming=1

r.Streaming.PoolSize=3072

r.Streaming.LimitPoolSizeToVRAM=1

[ConsoleVariables]

AllowAsyncRenderThreadUpdates=1

AllowAsyncRenderThreadUpdatesDuringGamethreadUpdates=1

AllowAsyncRenderThreadUpdatesEditor=1

The "r.Streaming.PoolSize" parameter's value should change depending on your GPU's VRAM. For 4 GB VRAM, it will be 1024; for 6 GB VRAM, the number will be 2048; and for 8 GB, it will be 3072; and so on.

Note: Before you do this, be sure to back up the default Engine.ini file to a spare folder in case you want to revert to the game's default settings. In this case, you only need to replace the edited .ini file with the older one.

Step 3: This step applies to Nvidia GPU users only. Players with AMD or Intel GPUs can ignore it.

Right-click on your desktop and select Nvidia Control Panel. Then, go to Manage 3D Settings > Global Settings > Shader Cache Size. After that, change the setting from Driver Default to 10 GB. Click Apply to save the changes.

Once again, some players have reported that changing the shader cache size from default prevents Hogwarts Legacy from loading entirely during the startup shader pre-compilation process. So be sure to revert back to Driver Default if any issues arise.

This wraps up the general optimization fixes for Hogwarts Legacy, an action role-playing game that came out on February 10.