Gears of War 5 Performance Guide – Fix lag, fps drops, crashing and freezing

The first thing you would notice as soon you start Gears of War 5, is that the game looks pretty good. The graphics and textures are on point and are up to the 2019 standards. It has all the features that a AAA title needs to have, so you won’t be disappointed if the AAA experience is what you are looking for. But when it comes to performance, this game doesn’t perform that well.

Players have already started complaining about stuttering, low fps, lag, etc, all over the forums. Few people are also witnessing random crashes. That is why we decided to bring out this basic guide that might help eliminate the performance issues that you are witnessing. Here is how you can fix lag, fps drops, crashes and freezes in Gears of War 5:

How to fix lag, fps drops, crashing, and freezing in Gears of War 5

Compare the system requirements of Gears of War 5 with your hardware specifications

Lets take a look at the system requirements of Gears 5:

Minimum:

    • Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
    • OS: Windows 7 SP1 64-bit, Windows 10 64-bit
    • Processor: AMD FX-6000 series | Intel i3 Skylake
    • Memory: 8 GB RAM
    • Graphics: AMD Radeon R9 280 | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 (Windows 10) | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 (Windows 7)
    • DirectX: Version 12
    • Network: Broadband Internet connection
    • Storage: 80 GB available space
    • Sound Card: DirectX compatible

Recommended:

    • Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
    • OS: Windows 10 64-bit
    • Processor: AMD Ryzen 3 | Intel i5 Skylake
    • Memory: 8 GB RAM
    • Graphics: AMD Radeon RX 570 | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 (Windows 10) | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660ti (Windows 7)
    • DirectX: Version 12
    • Network: Broadband Internet connection
    • Storage: 80 GB available space
    • Sound Card: DirectX compatible

As you can see the system requirements for Gears 5 are pretty reasonable. A GTX 760 or AMD R9 280 as minimum and a GTX 970 or RX 570 as recommended. Now some might ask that how these requirements are reasonable. Well, you have to realize that Gears 5 is not a light game. It is infact a very demanding title and judging by that factor the system requirements are justified.

But that is not the main problem. The main problem arises for people who are not using Windows 10. The requirements I just mentioned above are only for users who are using Windows 10 as their OS. But if you are not a Windows 10 user then get ready for disappointment as according to the system requirements for non Windows 10 users you at least need a GTX 1050 to play this game on the lowest settings and a GTX 1660ti to play Gears 5 on ultra. That is a huge jump if you ask me and this jump is because of the API. Windows 10 supports DirectX 12 which allows better optimizations when compared to DirectX 11.

Update your Graphics Drivers

Make sure that your graphics drivers are all updated. Your PC might be sitting with an underperforming driver without you having any idea so it is always recommended to keep your graphics or video drivers up-to-date.

Here are the links to the latest drivers for AMD and Nvidia graphics cards:

  1. Nvidia Drivers
  2. AMD Drivers

Windows 10 updates

Recently, certain Windows 10 updates are causing huge problems for a lot of people. The recent Windows 10 1903 build 18362.329 (KB4512941) update is causing high CPU usage issues for a lot of Windows 10 users. Just after people installed this update they started noticing high CPU usage by Cortana and Windows search. This problem has not been fixed by Microsoft yet and people are still experiencing huge performance loss while playing demanding games.

If you have not installed the above mentioned update then wait for Microsoft to release a stable build. If you have unfortunately installed the update then also you have no choice but to wait for an official fix. But if you are impatient and eager to play Gears 5 then we have a fix for you.

Remember this is an advanced fix as it involves messing with the Registry Editor. This fix was suggested by a Reddit user with the name u/DefinitelyYou. Proceed only if you are willing to take the risk and in case if you end up breaking your OS, we are not responsible.

  • Press Windows+R keys on your keyboard
  • Type ‘regedit
  • Once the Registry Editor window opens go this location : HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Search
  • Delete the Search key
  • Restart your PC

Your high CPU high usage problem will get fixed but the search bar or the search feature on your windows taskbar won’t work anymore. So proceed with caution!

Nvidia Control Panel tweaks

[Note: This is for Nvidia users only]

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 the Program Settings tab
  • Locate Gears 5 from the drop down menu under “Select a program to customize”
  • If you don’t see the game on the list then click on the Add button and another list will appear
  • If you still cannot spot the game then you need to add the .exe file manually.
  • Click on Browse
  • Locate the folder where you have installed the game
  • Select the executable file or the .exe file which in this case should be gears5.exe
  • Once you have successfully added the game, you will then see the program settings become available for the game
  • Now tweak the following settings:
    Maximum pre-rendered frames : 2
    Threaded Optimization : On
    Power Management : Prefer Maximum Performance
    Low Latency Mode : Off
    Texture filtering – Quality : Performance

Xbox Application

Another reason for your performance issues with Gears 5 could be due to the new Xbox app for Windows 10. The app is still in its beta stage and needs further modifications. Re-installing the app fixed the random crashes and freezing for a lot of users.

Here is a link to the Xbox app for Windows:


That’s all, folks!

Last Updated on March 17, 2024

2 thoughts on “Gears of War 5 Performance Guide – Fix lag, fps drops, crashing and freezing”

  1. if you have updated nvidia drivers there is no longer a “maximum pre rendered frames” option in the Nvidia control panel>Manage 3d settings. This has been changed to “Low Latency Mode” and you either have it off-on-ultra. And previously you wouldn’t have used 2 in this setting for higher FPS you’d of used 1. Depending on your system you may benefit more using Ultra.

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