Doom Eternal lag stuttering fps drops crashing fix – Doom Eternal is a first-person shooter video game by Bethesda Softworks. The game is the direct sequel of the Doom that was released in 2016 and is the fifth game in the series.
If you have played Doom they you should know that players will once again play as the Doom Slayer, the main protagonist of the series. Just like the 2016 Doom, Doom Eternal also emphasizes on something you would call “push-forward” combat. Where players are encouraged to aggressively engage enemies in order to acquire health, ammo and armor.
There is a huge selection of firearms in the game. The popular ones are the Combat Shotgun, BFG 9000, Plasma Rifle, Super Shotgun, Heavy Cannon, Rocket Launcher, etc. There are melee weapons as well. Players will get to use the chainsaw, the red “Crucible Blade” energy sword and a retractable arm-blade “Doomblade” can also be used. The armor of the Doom Slayer now has some extra features like the Equipment Launcher that will allow players to lob grenades and ice bombs. There is a Flamethrower as well that provides protection from fire-based attacks. New features also include some new additions in the movement mechanics. Players will now be able to do wall-climbing, dash, and swing from horizontal bars.
If you are a fan of the enemies of Doom then you would be happy to know that new enemies have been added in Doom Eternal. Enemies like the Marauder and Doom Hunter, while others, such as the Pain Elemental, Arachnotron, and Archvile, will be making a comeback. Doom Eternal also features a mode called the “Battlemode”. It is is a 2v1 PvP multi-round match where 3 players would get to play at the time. Two get to control demons as they try to take on a Slayer. Also new to the game is the hub area, called “Fortress of Doom”, which players can visit between missions, containing a number rooms with upgrades and gear locked behind doors. If you were hoping that Doom Eternal will feature a campaign that supports multiplayer then I am sorry to say that it is not the case.
Now that you know what Doom Eternal is all about, lets go ahead and talk about the performance of the game. Let me make one thing clear, Doom Eternal is not a light game. If you were hoping to enjoy the game at max settings on your GTX 1050 ti then let me tell you, that won’t happen. Neither was Doom 2016 light when it came out nor is Doom Eternal. And that is visible from the amount of people complaining about lag, fps drops, stutters, freezes, etc. Doom Eternal is constantly crashing for a lot of players as well. That is why we decided to come up with a basic lag fix guide that will show you some simple tweaks that you can try in order to fix the performance issues that you are having. Here is how to fix lag, stuttering, crashes and fps drops in Doom Eternal.
Doom Eternal – Fix lag, stuttering, fps drops and crashing
How to fix crashing, stuttering, freezing, fps drops and lag in Doom Eternal – Step 1
Compare your hardware specifications with the System Requirements of Doom Eternal
I was checking some posts on the official Steam discussions page of Doom Eternal. And I was surprised to see how many people actually bought the game without checking the system requirements. This is something that is always recommended. Before buying any game just check it’s System Requirements or PC Requirements first.
Here are the System Requirements of Doom Eternal:
| Minimum (1080p / 60 FPS / Low Quality Settings) | Recommended (1080p / 60 FPS / High Quality Settings) | |
| OS | 64-bit Windows 7 / 64-Bit Windows 10 | 64-bit Windows 10 |
| Processor | Intel Core i5 @ 3.3 GHz or better, or AMD Ryzen 3 @ 3.1 GHz or better | Intel Core i7-6700K or better, or AMD Ryzen 7 1800X or better |
| Memory | 8 GB RAM | 8 GB RAM |
| Graphics | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050Ti (4GB), GTX 1060 (3GB), GTX 1650 (4GB) or AMD Radeon R9 280(3GB), AMD Radeon R9 290 (4GB), RX 470 (4GB) | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 (6GB), NVIDIA GeForce 970 (4GB), AMD RX 480 (8GB) |
| Network | Broadband Internet connection | Broadband Internet connection |
| Storage | 50 GB available space | 50 GB available space |
As you can see the requirements are really on the heavier side. One thing I am not sure about is the “Graphics” section. According to the minimum requirements, a Nvidia GTX 1050ti (4GB) and a GTX 1060 (3GB) will give the same performance. We have to really test this as there is a huge performance difference between a GTX 1050 ti and a GTX 1060. They are not similar cards.
Another thing is the OS requirements. It is written that the game will run on Windows 7 (64-bit). Sadly that wasn’t the case for us as the game didn’t even launch on our Windows 7 system.
How to fix crashing, stuttering, freezing, fps drops and lag in Doom Eternal – Step 2
Doom Eternal Best Graphics Settings
We are still trying to figure out the best graphics settings for Doom Eternal that would allow low end PC users to get some decent performance. Here are the specifications of our test rig:
- CPU : Intel i3 9100F
- GPU : Zotac GTX 1650
- RAM : 16GB DDR4 2400mhz
- HDD : 1 TB 7200 rpm
- Monitor Resolution : 1920×1080 144hz
We are trying to take the frame rates somewhat near 60 fps without sacrificing visuals too much. Just check back after a while.
Update: Here are the Best Graphics Settings for Doom Eternal.
How to fix crashing, stuttering, freezing, fps drops and lag in Doom Eternal – Step 3
Install the latest graphics drivers released for Doom Eternal
Both Nvidia and AMD have released graphics drivers optimized for Doom Eternal. So if you have not updated your graphics drivers yet then this is the perfect time to do so.
If you are a Nvidia user then you can directly update your driver from the Geforce Experience application. You can also download the driver directly from the link below.
If you are an AMD user then you can find the latest Adrenaline driver from the link given below.
If your game starts crashing after installing the new drivers then I would recommend you to go back to the previous driver and wait until a stable version is available.
How to fix crashing, stuttering, freezing, fps drops and lag in Doom Eternal – Step 4
Tweak some Discord settings if you are using it
Discord has become a really heavy application lately and can cause fps drops in games. Here is what you have to do:
- Launch Discord
- Go to User Settings
- Click on Voice & Video from the left sidebar
- Scroll down to Advanced section
- Disable “OpenH264 Video Codec provided by Cisco System, Inc.”
- Disable “Enable Quality of Service High Packet Priority”
- Click on Overlay from the sidebar
- Disable in-game overlay
- Click on Appearance from the left sidebar
- Scroll down all the way to the Advanced section
- Disable Hardware Acceleration
- Restart Discord
How to fix crashing, stuttering, freezing, fps drops and lag in Doom Eternal – Step 5
Adjust your Nvidia Control Panel Settings (Nvidia users)
The first thing you should do is click on ‘Adjust image settings with preview‘ located on the left side under 3D settings and make sure that ‘Use the advanced 3D image settings‘ is selected. Now:
- Open Nvidia Control Panel
- Click on Manage 3D settings on the left bar
- Click on Global Settings
- Now tweak the following settings:
Image Sharpening : Off
Threaded Optimization : On
Power Management : Prefer Maximum Performance
Low Latency Mode : Off
Texture filtering – Quality : Performance
How to fix crashing, stuttering, freezing, fps drops and lag in Doom Eternal – Step 6
Adjust your AMD Control Panel Settings (Radeon users)
Click on Global Graphics.
- Radeon Anti-Lag : Disabled
- Radeon Boost : Disabled
- Image Sharpening : Off
- Anti-Aliasing Mode : Use Application settings
- Anti-aliasing Method : Multi-sampling
- Morphological Filtering : Off
- Anisotropic Filtering : Disabled
- Texture Filtering Quality: Performance
- Surface Format Optimization: Enabled
- Tesselation Mode: AMD Optimized
- Wait for V-sync: Off
- OpenGL Triple Buffering: Off
- Shader Cache: AMD optimized
- Maximum Tesselation Level: Off
- GPU Workload: Graphics
- Radeon Chill: Off
- Frame Rate Target Control: Disabled
How to fix crashing, stuttering, freezing, fps drops and lag in Doom Eternal – Step 7
Repair the game from the Bethesda Launcher (Bethesda Launcher users only)
If your Doom Eternal is on the Bethesda launcher and you are experiencing crashes or errors then you can try to repair the game. Here is how to do it:
- Open Bethesda Launcher
- Click on Doom Eternal located on the left sidebar
- Now click on Game Options
- Select Scan and Repair
The whole process should take some time so be patient.
How to fix crashing, stuttering, freezing, fps drops and lag in Doom Eternal – Step 8
Verify the game files of Doom Eternal on Steam (Steam users only)
If you have bought Doom Eternal on Steam then you can verify the in-game files:
- Go to your Steam Library
- Right click on Doom Eternal
- Select Properties
- Click on the Local Files tab
- Click on Verify Integrity of Game Files
This process will take a while as well so be patient. If your game has some missing files then Steam will download it for you.
How to fix crashing, stuttering, freezing, fps drops and lag in Doom Eternal – Step 9
Buggy Windows 10 updates
Microsoft released an update for Windows 10 few days ago called KB4535996. The KB4535996 cumulative update for Windows 10 heavily buggy and is causing a lot of problems for Windows users. In order to know whether your PC is already running the update:
- Go to Windows Settings
- Click on Update and Security
- Click on View update history
If you see an update called KB4535996. You have to uninstall it.
On the Update History window only you will notice the option Uninstall updates on top. Click on it and from the list of updates installed select the one you want to uninstall. Right click on it and click on Uninstall.
How to fix crashing, stuttering, freezing, fps drops and lag in Doom Eternal – Step 10
Clear temporary files on your system
PCs end up gathering a lot of temporary files overtime. These files are completely useless and they only clog the system drive. Here is how to remove them:
- Press “Windows key + R” on your keyboard
- Type “%temp%” and press enter
- Now the temp folder will open for you
- Select every single file
- And press Shift+Delete
You might not be able to delete every single file or folder. In that case just ignore them and leave them as they are.
How to fix crashing, stuttering, freezing, fps drops and lag in Doom Eternal – Step 11
Run your CPU and Graphics card at default speed
If you have overclocked your GPU and you are experiencing crashing and stuttering in Doom Eternal then chances are they are being caused by the overclocking application or utility running in the background. A lot of games have been suffering from crashes lately due to applications like MSI Afterburner or Zotac firestorm. So it is best to stay on the safe side and run your graphics card on default speeds.
Let me make one thing clear, none of these methods are advanced and are pretty basic. There is no guarantee that these steps will fix your problem 100%. In order to check whether to issue you are facing is common or not, just go to the official Steam discussions page of Doom Eternal. You will find a lot of people discussing their problems there.
Also the developers have posted a launch faq that also contains all the known issues in the game. The link is below.
If you think this guide had helped you then let us know in the comment section below. Also, If you are facing problems that are not mentioned on this article then also you can comment below. We will try come out with a fix. Good luck!
That’s all folks!
Last Updated on October 21, 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.
Thank you for collecting all those information! I really appreciate it.