Overview
Here is a brief guide explaining some of the performance fixes and just overal better experience with the game. This guide won’t fix it for everyone, so please keep that in mind.
Intro
Hi folks,
I’ve been collecting information within the forums regarding some possible performance tweaks. This is a not a guaranteed guide to automatically give you better experience in-game. I sincerely hope it does but it may work for some and for others it might not.
Best of luck.
External Adjustments
First and for most, you need to make sure your hardware is up to date with today’s gaming standards. Users attempting to run the game with i5s, 2GB of VRAM cards and only 8GB of dedicated memory are more than likely to experience issues. Betas tend to be far more demanding than a game at it’s post-release stage. Therefore, please make sure your computer is well equipped to handle betas.
1. Move to SSD
It’s been said among the community and the devs themselves that the game runs better on solid states than hard drives. If you have a SSD on your PC, transfer the game to that location. If you’d like to know how to transfer the files, read below. Other wise skip to the next point.
Do them in the following order
- By default there should be a location on your SSD to install games, but in the event there isn’t. Steam Settings > Downloads > Steam Library Folders > Select
- Exit Steam (this has to be done other wise it’ll be iffy)
- Go to the original location you installed it on and copy Sandstorm to the common folder located on your SSD drive – Steam > steamapps > common > paste it.
- Go to your steamapps folder (the original location the game was installed on) and copy the appmanifest_581320 file to the new steamapps folder That file essentially tells Steam the game is installed
- Run the game and it should be available to launch.
2. Lost Connection to Servers
Restart Steam, PC, and your modem / router. Please also read here for more information.
3. *Possible* FPS/Stutter Fix
Here is a fellow community member who claims it helps improve performance. Looks like some users claim it helps as well. Read here
4. Run the Game in Administration Mode
Be sure to run the game in admin mode and also disable Fullscreen optimizations (play around with this one). I read it helps improve performance. Right click on the game from your library > properties > local > browse local files. Then right click on the Insurgency.exe file > Properties > Compatibility.
5. Disable Firewalls / Anti-Virus Software
This could be interfering with the EAC system if you’re a user experiencing that error. Users who use AVG may want to disable their software entirely. AVG is fastly known for causing issues with games.
6. Other Third-party Software
Additional third-party software such as MSI Afterburner, Corsair Link 4, Nvidia ShadowPlay, etc. Anything that typically gives your keyboard / mouse / GPU lighting effects, turn them off. In fact, completely exit any other programs before launching Sandstorm to help give it a boost in performance. The less your machine has to handle, the better it can handle games.
7. Verify the game cache
Through the midst of the storm, sometimes it’s easy to forget the simpliest of methods. Try to validate the game cache.
8. GPU Drivers
Update to the latest driver possible. If that doesn’t make a difference / makes it worse, roll back to an older driver.
Nvidia: [link]
AMD: [link]
Internal Adjustments (in-game)
Here is what my in-game settings are. As of now, I’m getting 90fps-100fps with a low of 70fps. Fairly smooth with some occasional 40fps dips. Some lag here and there but my internet is terrible anyways. For me, it runs (overall) very well. Granted my specs are pretty powerful (listed on profile).
1. Turn Off Motion Blur
It’s a cool effect but not necessary for the performance you lose. Disable it via settings.
2. Run In Fullscreen
The game tends to run in borderless for users, thus causing major FPS drops. Unfortunately, this is bugged and you’ll need to apply Fullscreen mode everytime you re-open the game. (this was however patched in the recent hotfix)
3. Turn Shadows to Low / Medium
First of all, they are far more beautiful set on low / med than on high settings.
4. Set FPS Limit
Try setting a limit just under your usual frame rate to ensure a more consistent frame rate.
5. V-Sync / G-Sync
I personally keep both of these off (G-sync is an external option). It may however improve performance for some.
6. Frame Rate Smoothing
I honestly haven’t seen a major difference between leaving it on or off. Try testing it for yourself.
Every other option is in the screenshot above. So just follow that. Try copying my settings or edit them how you see fit. Just make minor adjustments to pin-point what works and what doesn’t work.
Conclusion & Feedback
Hopefully this can improve the performance for at least one user. Despite everything, this is a beta after all. Things are not meant to run super smooth for everyone. If you have any suggestions that work for others, please contact me via my profile (leave a comment with some description) and I can look into getting it added to the guide.
If you have any additional feedback that you’d like to provide, please post them on the offical Focus Home forums [forums.focus-home.com].
Thank you all for reading and big thanks to the users who are actively giving back to the community with some of the fixes given in this guide.
– Captain Price