Fix Apex Legends high CPU usage

Apex Legends Guides | May 9, 2023 | By

Apex Legends High CPU usage fix – Experiencing high CPU usage or 99% CPU usage while playing Apex Legends? Here are some ways to fix it.

How to fix high CPU usage in Apex Legends

Here are some ways that will help you fix the CPU usage issue with Apex Legends. This article was actually written quite a few years ago. With the release of S14 or the Hunted update, I decided to give this one a revisit.

[Note: If the problem is not with your hardware, then one of the methods mentioned here will definitely fix your problem. If none of these methods work for you, then you have no other choice but to upgrade your PC]

Set every Graphics Setting to the lowest possible quality

The heading pretty much explains it. All you have to do is set everything to Low. Apex Legends used to be a light game when it launched back in 2019, but now it has become quite demanding. If you do not have a decent CPU and a GPU, then forget to have a smooth experience while playing this game.

So the first thing you should consider doing is setting your Graphics Settings to Low. Here is how it should look:

Go to Settings > Video

  • Display Mode: Full Screen
  • Field of View: 90 [Do not change it]
  • Sprint View Shake: Minimal
  • V-Sync: Disable
  • Adaptive Resolution FPS Target : 0
  • Adaptive Supersampling: Disabled
  • Anti-aliasing:  None [TSAA will make the game look blurry]
  • Texture Streaming Budget: None [The game will look bad, but there is no other choice here]
  • Texture Filtering: Bilinear
  • Ambient Occlusion Quality: Disabled
  • Sun Shadow Coverage: Low
  • Sun Shadow Detail: Low
  • Spot Shadow Detail: Disabled
  • Volumetric Lighting: Disabled
  • Dynamic Spot Shadows: Disabled
  • Model Detail: Low
  • Effects Detail: Low
  • Impact Marks: Low
  • Ragdolls: Low

You would be surprised to know how many Apex Legends Pros actually play on these settings. Even with systems consisting of RTX 2080 ti GPUs and Intel i9 processors, they like to keep every setting at low or disabled just to get a smoother experience. You can check out our Apex Legends Performance Guide.

Disable Origin in-game overlay

The in-game overlay of Origin is known to cause freezes and crashes in games. So the best option is to disable it. Here is how:

  1. Launch Origin
  2. Click on the Origin option located in the top-left corner
  3. Select Application Settings
  4. Click on the Origin In-Game tab
  5. Turn Off “Enable Origin In-Game”

Disable Steam overlay

  1. Head over to your Steam library
  2. Right-click on Apex Legends
  3. Click on Properties
  4. Now just untick ‘Enable the Steam Overlay while in-game’

Turn off Windows Game Mode

If you are a Windows 10 user, then I am pretty sure that you have the Game Mode setting on your setting. Now, this setting is quite confusing, to be honest. At times, it makes some games run well, and sometimes it causes some games to use a very high percentage of the CPU which results in the game lagging and stuttering. Here is how to turn it off:

  1. Type “game mode” on your Windows search bar
  2. Game Mode settings should come up
  3. Click on it
  4. Turn off Game Mode
  5. Restart your PC

Disable GeForce Experience In-game overlay [For Nvidia Users]

If you have the Nvidia GeForce Experience application installed on your system, and you have the in-game overlay on, then try turning it off. Here is how to do it:

  1. Launch GeForce Experience
  2. Click on the Settings icon located at the top-right
  3. Click on General
  4. Look for the In-Game Overlay option
  5. Disable it
  6. Restart your PC

Disable Shadows completely [Advanced Method]

[Note: Proceed further only if you have experience regarding tweaking game files and system files]

Even though Apex Legends offers a number of settings related to the in-game shadows, there are no settings to turn them off completely. For that, you have to edit the Video configuration file of the game. Here is how to do it:

  1. Open your C Drive or System Drive
  2. From there, double click and open the Users folder
  3. Now open the User folder that has the name of your system
  4. Look for the Saved Games folder and open it
  5. Open the Respawn folder inside it
  6. Open the Apex folder
  7. Double Click and open the local folder
  8. Inside, you will notice a text file called “videoconfig.txt”
  9. Open the file
  10. Look for the line that says “setting.csm_enabled” “1”
  11. Check the value from 1 to 0. It should look like this – “setting.csm_enabled” “0”
  12. Save the changes
  13. Now right-click on the file
  14. Select Properties
  15. And turn on or check Read-only [If you do not do this, then the game will overwrite the settings and set everything back to default every time you launch it]

Disable SPPSVC [Advanced Method]

[Note: This is an advanced method as it involves making changes to the Windows Registry. Do not try this unless you have the proper knowledge.]

A lot of Windows 10 users are complaining recently that a service called Microsoft Software Protection Platform Service or (sppsvc.exe) eating a lot of CPU and Memory. As a result, they are facing stuttering issues and FPS drops in games.

So just open your Windows Task Manager and try to observe whether a process called Microsoft Software Protection Platform Service is appearing on the list or not. If it is, then you need to temporarily pause it in order to prevent Apex Legends from stuttering. Simply clicking ‘End Task’ on the process will do nothing, as the process will be back again in a few seconds. So here is what you need to do:

  1. Press Windows+R keys on your keyboard
  2. Type regedit and press enter to bring up the Windows Registry Editor
  3. Now go to this location : HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\sppsvc
  4. On the right side, you will notice some options
  5. Double-click on Start and change its value from 2 to 4
  6. Restart your PC

This will disable Microsoft Software Protection Platform Service, but you won’t be able to change your system wallpaper or the personalize feature or other Microsoft Windows applications like Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, etc. Also, you will get a message showing your windows is not activated on your desktop. When you are done playing the game, just change the value of Start back to 2. Everything will go back to normal.

If you think this guide has helped you, then let us know in the comment section below. Also, If you are facing problems that are not mentioned in this article then also you can comment below. We will try to come out with a fix. Good luck!

That’s all folks!

Last Updated on May 9, 2023