Arc Raiders is a multiplayer extraction shooter that stutters too much on some players’ PCs. One player said this, “All my settings are on low, and I’m stuttering every few seconds. The game [Arc Raiders] is unplayable.” There are three types of Arc Raiders stuttering: low FPS, micro stutter, and network lag. Of those, low FPS is the most common type of game stuttering that affects Arc Raiders. This is how you can fix excessive Arc Raiders stuttering on a Windows PC.
Turn Off the Discord and Steam Overlays
Some players say they’ve fixed Arc Raiders stuttering by disabling the Discord and Steam overlay features. Most players will have Steam installed, and some also utilize Discord for game recording and streaming. You can access the Enable the Steam overlay setting and turn it off/on as covered on this Valve page. If you have also installed Discord, try turning off the overlay as outlined in this support page.
The Enable the Steam Overlay while in-game setting
Adjust In-Game Graphics Settings
Adjusting, typically reducing or disabling, certain graphics settings is often a good way to fix game stuttering. So, start your Arc Raiders game and select Settings > Graphics in it. Then, adjust the in-game graphical options like this:
- Window Mode: Borderless Fullscreen
- Vsync: Disabled
- Frame Rate Limit: Unlimited
- NVIDIA Reflex: On + Boost
- NVIDIA DLSS Quality: Balanced or Performance
- Motion Blur: Disabled
- In-Game Performance Overlay: Disabled
- Idle Energy Saving: Disabled
- Inactive Window Energy Saving: Disabled
Finally, try selecting a lower Overall Quality Level option than what is currently set to generally adjust other graphics settings. The lowest graphical settings are always the best for optimal gameplay performance, but it’s not always necessary to select the most minimal visual options to fix stuttering. Our Arc Raiders best settings guide also provides more details about how you can optimize the game.
The Graphics settings in Arc Raiders
Reset the AMD Shader Cache
If your PC has an AMD graphics card, try resetting the AMD shader to fix Arc Raiders stuttering. You can select to reset that cache with the AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition software, like this:
- Double-click the AMD icon in your system tray to open the required software.
- Select the Gaming > Graphics tab.
- Click on Perform Reset for the Reset Shader Cache.
The Graphics tab
- Select OK to confirm.
Disable Malwarebytes
A few players say they’ve fixed Arc Raiders stuttering by disabling Malwarebytes. Malwarebytes is software that has real-time scanning. To disable Malwarebytes, if installed, right-click the system tray for that background software and select the Quit option.
The Quit Malwarebytes option
Set the Higher Performance Graphics Setting for Arc Raiders
If your PC has an integrated and dedicated GPU, I recommend selecting the High Performance graphics option for Arc Raiders. Selecting that option will set your PC to utilize your superior GPU for Arc Raiders. These are the steps for selecting High Performance in Windows 11:
- Click on the Search box in the taskbar.
- Enter graphics settings into the file finder tool and click on the matching search result.
- Click the Add desktop app, select the Arc Raiders EXE game file in its folder, and click on Add.
- Select High Performance on the GPU preference in the drop-down menu.
The High Performance option
Disable the SysMain Service
The SysMain Service for preloading apps into RAM is known to cause game stuttering, especially on PCs with hard disk drives. So, disabling that service could be an effective way to remedy Arc Raiders stuttering for some players. You can disable SysMain like this:
- First, click the Start menu icon with the right mouse button to select Run.
- Input Services.msc inside Run and select OK.
- Next, double-click SysMain in the Services window.
- Select Disabled for the Startup type setting.
The SysMain Properties window
- Click Stop if the service is running.
- Select Apply and then OK to set the options for the service.
Verify Game Files
Some players also confirm that they’ve fixed Arc Raiders stuttering by verifying (repairing) its game files. Corrupted game files make it harder for games to load required data, leading to pauses and frame rate drops. You can select the Verify integrity option for Arc Raiders as covered within this Steam help page.
The Verify integrity option
Other Potential Ways to Fix the Arc Raiders’ Stuttering
If Arc Raiders still stutters too much, you can try applying more potential remedies beyond those covered above. Here are some additional suggestions to fix the Raiders‘ stuttering:
- Check out this KeenGamer guide to update your PC’s graphics card driver.
- Select the Disable fullscreen optimizations option for the Arc Raiders EXE (application) file.
- Turn off Memory Integrity via the core isolation settings covered on this Microsoft page.
- Select the Ultimate or High-performance power plan setting.
- Close unneeded background apps before starting Arc Raiders via the Task Manager tool and system tray.
I hope some of those potential remedies fix, or at least reduce, the Arc Raiders stuttering on your PC. Alas, there isn’t any golden formula for fixing game stuttering. However, applying the potential fixes above might make your Arc Raiders game much more playable, as they have done for other players.
