Fix Apex Legends Stuttering, Lag, Crashing and FPS Drops [Updated 2023]

Apex Legends lag – Even though Apex Legends appears to be pretty optimized and smooth at the start, it can get pretty demanding in certain instances. Players have been reporting that they are facing quite a bit of performance issues in the game, especially during firefights. The listed requirements on the Origin website are not accurate, as this title appears to be quite demanding. Since Season 17, or the Arsenal Update, is here, I decided to revisit this article and update a few stuff.

Fix Apex Legends Stuttering, Lag, Crashing, and FPS Drops

[Note: The official system requirements are highly inaccurate, and Apex Legends require much better hardware than that]

#	MINIMUM	RECOMMENDED
OS	64-bit Windows 7	64-bit Windows 7
Processor (AMD)	AMD FX 4350 or Equivalent	Ryzen 5 CPU or Equivalent
Processor (Intel)	Intel Core i3 6300 or Equivalent	Intel Core i5 3570K or Equivalent
Memory	6 GB – DDR3 @1333 RAM	8 GB – DDR3 @1333 RAM
Graphics card (AMD)	AMD Radeon™ HD 7730	AMD Radeon™ R9 290
Graphics card (NVIDIA)	NVIDIA GeForce® GT 640	NVIDIA GeForce® GTX 970
DirectX	11 Compatible video card or equivalent	11 Compatible video card or equivalent
Online Connection Requirements	512 KBPS or faster Internet connection	Broadband Connection
Hard-drive space	78 GB	78 GB

I personally feel that the official system requirements are highly inaccurate, though. Here are the actual system requirements for Apex Legends:

[Note: These system requirements are recommended specifically by Frondtech, as these have been tested thoroughly]

Minimum: [1080p, 80 fps, lowest settings]

• OS: WINDOWS 10 (64-BIT Required)
• Processor: Intel Core i3 8100 or AMD Ryzen 3 1200 or better
• Memory: 8 GB DDR4 RAM
• Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050ti or AMD Radeon RX 470 with 2 GB Video RAM
• DirectX: Version 11

Recommended: [1080p, 144 fps, medium-high settings]

• OS: WINDOWS 7, 8, 8.1, 10 (64-BIT Required)
• Processor: Intel Core i7 8700 or AMD Ryzen 5 2700x or better
• Memory: 16 GB DDR4 RAM
• Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 or AMD Radeon RX 580 with 6 GB VRAM
• DirectX: Version 11

2. Apex Legends – Best Graphics Settings [Updated 2023]

• Display Mode: Full Screen
• Aspect Ratio: Depends on your Monitor
• Resolution: 1920×1080
• Field of View: 100
  
• FOV Ability Scaling: Enabled
• Sprint View Shake: Minimal
• V-Sync: Disabled
• NVidia Reflex: Enabled
• Adaptive Resolution FPS Target: 0
• Adaptive Supersampling: Disabled
• Anti-aliasing: TSAA
  
• Texture Streaming Budget: Very Low (2 VRAM)
• 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: Disabled
• Ragdolls: Low

Here are the full specifications of the rig we tested the game on:

CPU	Ryzen 5 5600x
GPU	Zotac GTX 1650 Super
RAM	16 GB DDR4 3200mhz
SSD	Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1 TB + 500 GB
Monitor Resolution	1920×1080
Graphics Driver	Nvidia Game Ready Driver v511.65 [Release Date: 02/01/2022]

Now, I know what a lot of you might be thinking. That all I did was set most of the settings to low. Well, there is a reason for that. Apex doesn’t look that bad at low settings. In fact, you get better visibility at low settings. So if visuals don’t remain the issue, why not squeeze out some extra FPS, by tweaking the settings properly? I would still recommend these settings, even if you are a RTX 3090 user.

3. Tweaking Nvidia Control Panel for Apex Legends

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

4. AMD Adrenalin 2023 Settings

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

5. Update your Graphics Drivers

This should be pretty obvious. I don’t see a reason for not installing the latest graphics or video drivers that have been already released by AMD and Nvidia. Graphics drivers are something that you should keep updated all the time. So go ahead and update the drivers if you haven’t done it yet. Here are the links:

1. Nvidia Drivers
2. AMD Drivers

6. Clear temporary files on your system

Yes, we know this is an obvious thing. But it still works, and you will be surprised to know how many Windows users never touch their Temp folders. PCs end up gathering a lot of temporary files over time. 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

7. Try Repairing Via Steam or Origin

Here is how to repair the game using Origin. Doing this will verify the in-game files and the launcher will download any sort of missing files. In most cases, doing this will fix the crashing:

1. Open Origin
2. Go to My Game Library
3. Select Apex Legends
4. Click on the Settings icon
5. Select Repair

If you are using Steam, then:

1. Go to your Steam Library
2. Right Click on Apex Legends
3. Click on Properties
4. Select Local Files
5. Click on “Verify integrity of game files…”
   

8. Try Increasing the priority of the game from the Windows Task Manager

• Start Apex Legends
  
• Press Alt+Tab to minimize the game
• Open Task Manager
• Click on the Details tab
• Search for the process r5apex.exe from the list.
• Right-click on the process and Set Priority to High

9. Update your Windows OS

If you are using Windows 10 or 11 there is a huge chance that you are using an outdated version. Microsoft releases updates for Windows 10 and 11 occasionally. So the version or build of the OS you are currently sitting with, might not be an optimized one. Or you might be using a buggy update, that is harming the performance of your system.

Microsoft is now known for releasing buggy updates, and the problem has only gotten bigger on Windows 11. So check whether you have pending Windows updates or not and update your OS. Here is how to do it:

• Go to your Windows Settings
• Click on Update & Security
• Click on Check for updates
• Wait until all the updates are installed
• Restart your PC

Update – 04/05/2021

A fix was posted recently by a user on the EA forums and a lot of users have confirmed that this method is working for them. Here is the fix that user Zeelmaekers has posted:

I have seen people fix this issue by deleting EAC in the Apex Legends folders.

Open your File explorer and locate to: C:\Program Files (x86)\Origin Games\Apex
And delete the following files:

• EasyAntiCheat
• EasyAntiCheat_launcher.exe
• EasyAntiCheat_x64.dll

Then locate to:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Origin Games\Apex\__Installer\customcomponent 

And delete the following files:

• EasyAntiCheat

Then restart Origin, go to Game Library, click on Apex Legends.
Then go to settings -> Game Properties and repair the game.

Update – 08/09/2022

It’s August 2022, and Season 14, or the Hunted Update, is just about to drop in Apex Legends. Here are some new working fixes that you can try:

If you are experiencing Lag in Apex Legends, make sure you have picked the right server. The majority of the Lag and Connection issues in Apex Legends take place when you are on a server that has very high latency.

If Apex Legends is Stuttering for you, then you can try checking for demanding applications running in the background. Just open your Task Manager, and see which process is eating the most memory, CPU, and Disk. If you notice a process or application eating too many resources, which is not a Windows process, close it immediately.

If you have a weak Processor, I would suggest that you disable all sorts of overlays. I am talking about Origin, Steam, Nvidia GFE, etc. Overlays, nowadays, eat a lot of CPU. As they come with multiple features.

Disable Nvidia Desktop Capture and Windows Background Recording.

1. Open the Nvidia GFE Overlay (by pressing Alt + Z)
2. Click on Instant replay and turn it off, so that we can change the settings
3. Open the settings with the cog on the right
4. Scroll down and click on the “Privacy Control” tab
5. Disable “desktop capture”. This prevents you from using instant replay on your normal desktop

To Disable Win Background Recording:

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

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That’s all, folks!

Last Updated on May 9, 2023