Hogwarts Legacy has been a smash hit on PC. It reached its highest level of 878,000 concurrent players on February 12, and has averaged around 417,000 concurrent players since it was released on Steam on February 10. However, it has slowed down.
Players have reported very low framerates and even stuttering, both of which have proved frustrating. It's difficult to immerse yourself in the Harry Potter world while being constantly distracted by the sluggishness.
Fortunately, there are a number of strategies you can employ to alleviate or even eliminate the problem completely. Some or all of them may be effective, so it's worth looking through the list to see which works best.
In Hogwarts Legacy, how do I fix stuttering?
When it comes to low framerates and stuttering difficulties, disable Ray Tracing is a good place to start. You can do this by opening up the Hogwarts Legacy menu and following these steps:
- Navigate to the Settings menu
- Go to Graphics Options.
- Turn Ray Tracing Reflections off
- Turn Ray Tracing Shadows off
- Turn Ray Tracing Ambient Occlusion off
Control Flow Guard (CFG) is a Windows feature that monitors security issues when playing online, but it may cause stuttering issues in graphically demanding titles like Hogwarts Legacy.
Following these steps, you may disable it:
- Open the Start menu
- Search for Exploit Protection and open it
- Click on Program Settings
- Click on Add Program To Customize
- Select Hogwarts Legacy
- Turn Override System Settings off and click on Apply.
Editing the Engine.ini file is a great idea, according to a number of players, and has been expanding since.
Navigate to the Local App Data folder, then click on Hogwarts Legacy, Saved, Config, and finally, WindowsNoEditor. You'll find the Engine.ini file, which contains the game's settings in script format. Make a copy of that file and keep it on your desktop in case something goes wrong. Then, right-click on the version inside WindowsNoEditor, open it via notepad, and replace its contents with the text found here.
If none of these approaches work, it may be that your computer's hardware is a bit disorganized compared to Hogwarts Legacy's recommended settings. The good news is that you may reduce the settings to compensate. You can do this via the Display Options.
Start by defining it to something like this:
- Effects Quality: High
- Fog Quality: Medium
- Foliage Quality: Medium
- Material Quality: Medium
- Population Quality: Medium
- Post-process Quality: High
- Shadow Quality: Medium
- Sky Quality: Low
- Texture Quality: Low
- View Distance Quality: Medium
If this doesn't work, reduce each of the options accordingly to see if you can find a sweet spot.
Another thing to consider is setting Hogwarts Legacy's priority in Windows to high, which will allow it to utilize more of your hardware's power and resources, which might boost its performance.
To do that, follow the following steps:
- Press Control, Alt, and Delete to bring up the Task Manager
- Click on Details
- Find Hogwarts Legacy
- Right-click on it and set the priority to high