[Performance] Improve FPS, reduce stutters, and improve stability (Updated)

In this guide I will collect all of the performance improvement methods I found for easier access and viewing.

I am a new player, and I found these all quite helpful. My hope with this guide is to help others improve their experience with the game.

None of these methods (besides one) are made or discovered by me, I simply wanted to collab them all into a single post so that others had an easier time optimizing their game.

I'm not sure what the rules are regarding crediting, so I will not be copying the actual posts into this one. Instead, I simply included the links to the original posts.

While some of these are meant mainly for AMD GPUs, I, as an Nvidia user, have also seen noticeable improvement to FPS, and a significant decrease in stutters.

Specifically, I have an RTX 5070, an AMD Ryzen 5 5500, and 32GB of RAM. My FPS doubled in some places.

Just in general, Darktide is very CPU intensive, so if you've got a decent GPU, maybe try to decrease the settings that are mostly CPU bound, things like ragdolls and so on.

Of all of these methods, Vizra has provided the most, and is an absolute champ when it comes to optimizing the game, so huge props to them for helping so many people with their guides.

NOTE: I offer no guarantees that any of the methods provided will improve your performance. This guide is simply a collection of all methods I was able to use into a single place for easier access. Any and all methods mentioned here are applied at your own peril. Neither I nor any of the users mentioned here will take responsibility if something goes wrong with your game after using any of these. Always make backups and have ways to revert any changes you make.

That said, you'd have to be a real genius for any of these methods to mess up your game. If something does go terribly wrong, you can always just verify the integrity of game files to restore the defaults.


Based on my own testing, mods that add or modify HUD elements can have a disproportionately large performance impact.

On my system (RTX 5070, R5 5500), running multiple heavy HUD mods at once resulted in:
- Very large FPS drops
- Low GPU and CPU utilization at the same time
- Immediate performance recovery when HUD elements were disabled

For example:
With roughly a dozen HUD-related mods enabled, FPS occasionally dropped into the 20s, while GPU and CPU utilization stayed around 30–40%.
Disabling all HUD elements restored FPS to 60–80 and GPU utilization to ~90%.

This suggests that, at least in some configurations, HUD elements may interfere with the game engine’s ability to efficiently use system resources.

In general:
- Most mods, unless specifically made to improve performance, have some performance cost
- The cost varies widely depending on the mod
- HUD-heavy mods appear more likely to cause issues than many others

TL;DR:
If you are experiencing poor performance and use mods that add or modify HUD elements, try disabling everything except the ones you absolutely need and compare results.

1. Vizra's Performance Guides
   
   The following guides contain tweaks that have improved performance for many players, including myself. Made by Vizra (the GOAT)
   
   
   1. "Fullscreen Optimizations Are Not Enabled for Darktide"
      Reddit Guide
      
      
   2. "AMD GPU Stutter Fix + Clarity Improvement"
      Steam Guide
      Reddit Guide
   
   
2. Darktide Performance Optimizations (GitHub)
   
   Credit: thyazide[github.com]
   
   This repository contains a collection of tweaks similar to this one, but most importantly, mods that improve performance. Check it out.
   
   GitHub Guide Link[github.com]
   
   
3. Mods
   Performance mods that I personally recommend:
   
   1. Fps_Cleaner_Memory_FpsDoctor_LuaHeapCleaner[www.nexusmods.com]
      
   2. Mod Performance Monitor[www.nexusmods.com]
   
   
4. Recommended In-Game Settings
   Remember, Darktide is highly CPU-intensive due to the amount of NPCs, ragdolls, and particle bloat.
   
   
   1. Disable Ragdoll Interaction (Video)
      
   2. Decrease Scatter Density (Video)
      
   3. Decrease Max Ragdolls Count (if you can live with yourself afterwards) (Video)
      
   4. Disable NVIDIA Low Latency options (Video)
      These are reportedly bugged, and appear to cause issues for some players.
      
   5. Disable Portrait Rendering (Interface)
      You can optionally use the Profile Pictures[www.nexusmods.com] mod to fill the now empty portraits with the player's Steam profile picture.
   
   
5. Fix for Memory Leak–Related Crashes
   
   Memory-leak-related crashes have been a problem for a while; it is especially bad for those who have many mods.
   
   Add the following to your Steam launch options:
   
   
   --lua-heap-mb-size 2048
   
   Additionally, install the Fps_Cleaner_Memory_FpsDoctor_LuaHeapCleaner [www.nexusmods.com]mod to further alleviate this issue.
   
   
6. NVIDIA GPUs – GPU Timeout Crashes
   
   I personally encountered GPU timeout crashes after updating to NVIDIA driver version 591.44.
   
   Previous (581.80) or later (591.59 and above) drivers seem to resolve the issue.
   
   
7. Overlays
   
   Game overlays from various apps (Discord Overlay, Steam Overlay, Nvidia Overlay, and so on) can worsen performance. It's recommended to turn off the overlays you don't use for Darktide.
   
   
8. Worker Threads Setting
   
   Note:
   This setting is rather controversial. People report performance changes (both positive and negative) all over the place.
   
   Here are some things to try out:
   - Leave worker threads at the default value that it set automatically for you;
   - Set it to the number of physical CPU cores minus one;
   - Set it to the maximum number available;
   - Set it to 8 or 9 worker threads.
   
   Example:
   A 6-core / 12-thread CPU could be set to 5 worker threads, simply left at the default 8-9 cores, or maxed at 12.
   
   
9. Clearing Shader Cache
   
   If you have any badly compiled shaders, or you've changed hardware or hardware drivers and the game's not correctly detecting it and rebuilding the shader cache, clearing the shader cache will force them to be freshly recompiled and potentially fix the issue.
   
   1. Press the Windows key + R to open the Run dialog box.
   2. Type %appdata% and press OK to open the AppData\Roaming folder.
   3. Navigate to the Fatshark folder, then the Darktide folder.
   4. Delete the file shader_cache.hans
   5. Restart the game. Darktide will create a new shader cache when you play.

The following methods were suggested by other players, or found after this guide was published.
These are not things I have necessarily tested myself, but they may be worth trying depending on your hardware and setup.

1. [AMD GPUs] Disabling Smart Access Memory / Resizable BAR
   Suggested by: Kagalera, Vizra
   
   Some report improved frametime consistency and reduced stuttering after disabling Smart Access Memory / Resizable BAR.
   Others report no improvement, or slightly worse response times.
   
   This setting can be toggled in BIOS and, depending on motherboard and GPU, in driver software.
   
   
2. RAM Channels
   
   Ensure your RAM is running in dual-channel or quad-channel mode (if supported by your motherboard).
   Single-channel memory configurations generally result in noticeably worse performance.
   
   Channel configuration is set physically (DIMM placement) and confirmed in BIOS.
   
   
3. CPU Affinity and Core Assignment
   
   This method involves restricting Darktide to specific CPU cores that are not heavily used by background applications such as Discord, Steam, or browsers.
   
   The goal is to reduce contention on heavily loaded cores, which may improve performance or frametime stability.
   
   This is typically done using third-party tools such as:
   - Process Lasso[bitsum.com]
   - CPU Set Setter[github.com]
   
   A detailed guide on how to do this would be too long for this guide, but you can find them online.
   
   
4. [AMD GPUs] Updating FSR Files
   
   Updating the bundled FidelityFX Super Resolution files.
   
   Guide:
   Reddit Guide
   
   Reported benefits include improved image quality and potential performance gains.
   
   
5. [NVIDIA GPUs] Updating DLSS and DLSS Frame Generation DLLs
   
   Download the latest versions of:
   - DLSS[www.techpowerup.com]
   - DLSS Frame Generation[www.techpowerup.com]
   
   Place the downloaded DLL files into:
   
   
   steamapps\common\Warhammer 40,000 DARKTIDE\binaries\
   
   Replace the existing files when prompted.
   
   Should improve image quality and reduced upscaling artifacts.
   
   
6. [Windows] Disabling CFG for Darktide Specifically
   
   Let me preface this by saying that I fully acknowledge that shutting off Control Flow Guard globally is a terrible idea for your system security.
   However, this method disables CFG specifically for Darktide and leaves it running for everything else, thus no security issues should stem from this method.
   
   How-to:
   Go to your Windows settings > security > apps & browser control > exploit protection > add Darktide by selecting its exact .exe destination, turn OFF CFG (and possibly DEP)
   
   According to feedback from other players, this seems to help with stutter the most, though performance improvements have also been noted. Apparently this method works almost entirely for DX12 games, as some users reported that games such as Borderlands 3, Fortnite, PUBG, The Ascent, and some others also saw performance improvements from this method.
   
   I personally saw a slight fps increase and a drop in stutters.
   
   However, as is with every method in this guide, YYMG. I take no responsibility if you ♥♥♥♥ anything up or something breaks, as is stated at the beginning of the guide.
   
   
7. Changing the ray_tracing setting in the .ini
   This one... I'm not sure if it does anything. There's been some debate whether this setting actually does anything or if it is just placebo, but it shouldn't decrease performance in any case.
   
   In the win32_settings.ini file located in bundle\application_settings\ folder, find setting:
   
   
   ray_tracing = True
   
   and change it to
   
   
   ray_tracing = False
   
   That should be all.