Apex Legends is one of the best team-based battle royale blast ‘em ups for Windows. However, it is often marred by micro-stuttering that spoils the gameplay. For example, one Apex Legends player’s Reddit post reports, “I’ve noticed that in-game, I have micro-stuttering where the screen freezes for roughly .5ms causing me to miss shots.” This kind of stuttering is a result of significant and frequent frame rate drops causing laggy gameplay. Here are some confirmed ways to fix Apex Legends stuttering on Windows PCs.
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Set Your Mouse’s Pooling Rate to 500Hz
High mouse pooling rates cause game stuttering for Apex Legends and other titles on Windows PCs. One user reported this on Microsoft’s help forum, “Windows 11 lags on gaming with 1000 mouse pooling rate… As soon as I drop my mouse polling rate to 125 the lag stops.” Microsoft even rolled out a patch update in 2023 to address the impact of mouse pooling on Windows PC games.
So, lower your mouse’s pooling rate to 250Hz-500Hz if any higher than that. To do that, open the configuration software (like Razer Synapse) for your PC’s mouse and change the pooling rate setting it includes to 500Hz or lower. You’ll probably find that pooling rate option within the Performance or Profile tab in your mouse’s software.
A Polling Rate setting in Razer software
Lower In-Game Graphical Settings
Regular FPS drops and stuttering will more likely arise when playing Apex Legends at high graphical settings. Nobody wants to play games with low graphics quality. However, you must be prepared to compromise graphical quality for better gameplay performance on lower-spec PCs at least. So, start Apex Legends, click its cog button, and select Settings > Video to lower the general in-game graphical options as follows:
- Sun Shadow Coverage: Low
- Sun Shadow Detail: Low
- Model Detail: Low/medium
- Effects Detail: Low/medium
- Impact Marks: Low/medium
- Ragdoll: Low/medium
- Ambient Occlusion Quality: Low
- Dynamic Spot Shadows: Disable
- Volumetric Lighting: Disable
- Texture Filtering: Anisotropic 2x
You don’t necessarily have to set those options exactly as outlined above but try lowering them to some extent. Experiment with those graphical settings to see the impact lowering or disabling them has on gaming performance. Remember to select Apply and restart Apex Legends after lowering the graphical settings.
The Video tab
Disable Razer Synapse and Corsair iCue Background Processes
Many AL players have confirmed that disabling the Razer Synapse and Corsair iCue software fixed Apex Legends’ stuttering on their PCs. Have you installed either of those software packages on your PC? If so, make sure Razer Synapse and Corsair iCue aren’t running in the background when playing Apex by disabling their processes as follows.
- Utilize the Ctrl + Shift + Esc key combination to view the Task Manager window.
- Select Processes within Task Manager’s tab bar.
The Processes tab in Task Manager
- Right-click on all Razer Synapse and Corsair iCue-related processes to select their End task options.
- To ensure those programs don’t start with Windows, click on the Startup tab. Select Razer Synapse or iCue there to click the Disable option for it.
The Startup tab in Task Manager
- Try playing Apex Legends without Razer Synapse or iCue running in the background.
Select No Scaling in the NVIDIA Control Panel
Does your PC have an NVIDIA graphics card? If so, selecting No Scaling in the Nvidia Control Panel could be worth a try since some players confirm that’s fixed Apex Legends stuttering for them. This is how you can select the No scaling display option.
- Right-click the NVIDIA icon within the system tray to select Control Panel.
- Click Display to expand that NVIDIA Control Panel category.
- Next, click on Adjust desktop size and position.
- Select the No scaling radio button.
The No scaling radio button
- Click Apply to set the option.
Players who’ve applied this possible fix recommend doing it every time you start Apex Legends. This means you’ll need to press the Windows key to return to the desktop and select the No Scaling option in the NVIDIA Control Panel. Restore the original scaling mode option after playing Apex.
Clean Boot Windows 11/10
Many background apps can consume system resources and cause Apex Legends to stutter. Applying the clean boot troubleshooting method will disable third-party apps and services that start with Windows, freeing up system resources for Apex Legends. Check out Microsoft’s clean-booting guide for instructions to apply this possible fix.
The Services tab
Update the Graphics Driver on Your PC
Old graphics card drivers can affect gaming performance in different ways. They can sometimes crash games. Gaming performance issues such as significant Apex Legends stuttering will more likely occur if your PC has an outmoded graphics driver. You can install a new AMD or NVIDIA driver for your PC’s graphics card like this.
- Press the Windows keyboard key + R, enter dxdiag into Run’s Open command box, and click OK. Select Display to view graphics card details for your laptop or desktop.
- Next, go to the NVIDIA or AMD graphics driver page in your web browser software.
- Select the graphics card model on the Display tab and your PC’s platform.
- Click Submit or Search to view the driver download page for the selected graphics card.
The AMD graphics card selection page
- Next, click Download to obtain the required driver package for your PC’s GPU.
A Download option for an AMD graphics driver
- Access File Explorer by clicking its pinned taskbar shortcut and opening whatever folder includes the downloaded GPU driver package.
- Double-click the NVIDIA/AMD graphics driver file to open a setup/installation window and select to install from there.
Other Possible Ways to Fix Apex Legends Stuttering on a Windows PC
If significant Apex Legends stuttering remains, there are other potential remedies you can try. Try applying these extra possible fixes:
- Fully update your Windows 11/10 PC by checking for and installing all available patches.
- Select to disable fullscreen optimizations for Apex Legends on the Compatibility tab for the game’s EXE file.
- Reinstall Apex Legends with its gaming client.
- Apply a network reset via the Settings app in Windows.
Significant Apex Legends stuttering does seem a prevalent issue, considering the number of players who report it on forums. There’s no guaranteed way to completely eradicate it, but the resolutions above will likely at least reduce the amount and extent of stuttering and FPS drops when playing Apex Legends on PCs. Apex Legends will then be somewhat more playable with smoother gameplay.
