AC Valhalla stuttering and freezing – Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is an open-world action RPG by Ubisoft. It is the 12th major installment and the 22nd release in the Assassin’s Creed series. The game is also a successor to Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, that was released in 2018. Valhalla recounts a fictional story of the 873 AD Viking invasion of Britain. The player controls Eivor, a Viking raider who becomes embroiled in the conflict between the Brotherhood of Assassins and the Templar Order. The game is completely open-world, structured around several main story quests and numerous optional side missions.
There is no denying that AC Valhalla is a really great game. But that doesn’t take away the fact that this game has some performance issues. People have already started complaining about the constant stuttering and freezing they are experiencing while playing the game. So, here are some fixes you can try to fix the problems.
Assassin’s Creed (AC) Valhalla – Stuttering and Freezing fix for PC
It is very obvious that Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is an extremely demanding title. And you can easily tell that by looking at the system requirements of the game. You need a Ryzen 3 1200 / i5-4460 paired with AMD R9 380 4GB / GTX 960 4GB minimum to play this game at the lowest possible settings, that to at 30 fps. This guide is for people who know that they have a good enough gaming PC and still they are experiencing issues. If you have an under-powered rig then this guide won’t be of any help to you.
Before you move further into the guide make sure you take a look at the minimum and recommended requirements of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. And also download the drivers optimized for the game. You can check out the system requirements from here. Nvidia users can download the latest drivers from here or via GeForce Experience. AMD users can download the latest drivers from here.
AC Valhalla – Optimal Graphics Settings
Check out my guide on the video settings of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. I have tried to cover everything that would help you run the game properly, even on a low-end PC
Overlays and Notifications
Ubisoft Connect
If you are playing Valhalla from Ubisoft Connect, then you need to turn off the in-game overlay and the desktop notifications. These notifications pop up randomly on the right side of your screen and could make full screen applications stutter.
- Go to Ubisoft Connect Settings
- Select the General tab
- Uncheck “Enable in-game overlay for supported games”
- Uncheck “Enable post game notifications for upcoming releases, events, promotions and additions to my games”
Epic Games Launcher
If you are playing AC Valhalla from Epic Game Launcher, you have to do the exact same thing
Just go the settings menu of Epic Games Launcher. Scroll down to the “Desktop Notifications” section and uncheck the boxes beside “Show Free Game Notifications” and “Show News and Special Offer Notifications”. Here is example of what happens when to leave EGL desktop notifications On:
If you have other overlays, like from Nvidia GeForce Experience or AMD Adrenaline, try turning them off as well.
Windows 10 features
There are a lot of features or utilities that are installed by default on Windows 10 and they keep running in the background, hogging a ton of resources, without you having any idea about it.
For example – If you have Background Recording enabled on your system then it can cause micro stutters and freezes. Basically the feature constantly records in the background when you are playing a game. If you do not have a powerful processor then the best thing would be to disable it. You can do that by heading over to the “Gaming” settings located inside the Windows Settings menu. There you should find something called “Captures” on the left. Click on it and disable the Background Recording feature inside it.
The Xbox Game Bar is another feature you need to disable. Go to Windows Settings > Gaming > Xbox Game Bar. Turn it off.
And finally the Game Mode feature, it is a complete hit or miss. In some games this features helps while it causes performance issues in some. So it is better to turn it off. Here is how to disable game mode:
- Open Windows 10 Settings menu
- Click on Gaming
- Select Game Mode from the left sidebar
- Turn it off
- Restart your game launcher
Try Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling
If you have the latest build of Windows 10 (2004) then you should make use of the brand new feature called hardware-accelerated gpu scheduling. If you have a decent graphics card then you might actually benefit from this. To turn it on head over to the Windows 10 settings menu and click on “System”. Select the Display tab from the left, scroll down and you will notice an option called Graphics Settings at the bottom. Click on it and turn on Hardware-accelerated GPU Scheduling. You will have to restart your system after you have made the changes.
Other than these you can try re-installing Assassin’s Creed Valhalla completely.
The game is still being tested. More fixes on the way!
Support
If the problem you are facing is a serious one then go here and submit a case to the Ubisoft support. And don’t forget to check out the Ubisoft Forum for Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.
If you think this guide had helped you then let us know in the comment section below. Also, if you are facing other problems with the game then try checking out our other guides on Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. Who knows, you might end up finding a fix.
That’s all folks!
Last Updated on November 9, 2020
Shoaib, 30, is a simple guy who loves to play video games, and enjoys new cuisines sporadically. He has been gaming since he was 7 years old, and with an experience of 22 years, under his belt, there is not a single AAA game in this world, that he hasn’t played. Despite being a MBA Graduate he decided to follow his passion. And because of his love for gaming, Frondtech came into existence.
