Project Cars 3 – Fix Lag, FPS Drops, Crashing and Stuttering

Project Cars 3 lag fps drops crashing and stuttering fix – Project Cars 3 is an arcade racing game by Bandai Namco Entertainment. This title is completely different from it’s predecessor, Projects 2, which is actually a Simulator.

The game features more customizable cars compared to the earlier versions. There are over 140 global circuits. The career mode has been completely re-designed with the AI being enhanced. The game also features 24-hour cycles, various seasons, and weather effects.

Now that the basic info about the game has been covered, lets talk about the performance of Project Cars 3 on PC. The game is quite demanding and you can easily tell that by look at the system requirements. Users have already started complaining about various issues. That is why we decided to come up with a basic guide that will show you some simple tweaks that you can try in order to fix the performance issues that you are having.

Project Cars 3 – Fix Lag, FPS Drops, Crashing and Stuttering

Project Cars 3 – System Requirements

Lets take a look at the minimum and recommended system requirements of Project Cars 3. Because by taking a look at the requirements only you would be able to tell whether your system is capable of running this game or not.

MINIMUM

  • OS: Window 10 (+ Specific versions of Windows 7)
  • Processor: 3.5 GHz Intel Core i5 3450 or 4.0 GHz AMD FX-8350
  • Memory: 8 GB RAM
  • Graphics: GTX680 or equivalent
  • DirectX: Version 11
  • Storage: 50 GB available space
  • Sound Card: Direct X compatible sound card
  • Additional Notes: For VR or triple screen use, GTX980 or equivalent

RECOMMENDED

  • OS: Windows 10
  • Processor: Intel i7 8700k or AMD Ryzen 7 2700X
  • Memory: 16 GB RAM
  • Graphics: Nvidia RTX 2070 or AMD RX5700
  • DirectX: Version 11
  • Storage: 50 GB available space
  • Sound Card: DirectX compatible sound card
  • Additional Notes: For VR or triple screen use, RTX 2080 or equivalent

As you can see, if you want to get an average of 60 FPS in Project Cars 3 at 1080p resolution on high settings then you need something similar to an i7 8700k and an RTX 2070. Also don’t forget the 16 GB RAM.

Nvidia users update your Video Driver to v452.06

The GeForce Game Ready Driver v452.06 is one of the most stable drivers we had in a while. So if your graphics driver is not updated then go ahead and do it.

You can download the driver directly from the link below. Just fill up the details and your driver should be available for download.

AMD users update your driver Adrenalin 2020 Edition 20.8.2

The Adrenaline 2020 Edition v20.8.2 driver is actually an optional graphics driver which is different from the recommended one (v20.4.2). But this driver has been quite stable so far and you should not face any performance downgrade. Here is the link below:

Project Cars 3 – Best Graphics settings

Tweaking the graphics settings of a game is probably one of the easiest ways of squeezing more performance out of it. Here are the graphics settings we decided to go with:

  • TEXTURE RESOLUTION : Medium
  • TEXTURE FILTERING : Anisotropic 16X
  • V-SYNC : No
  • SUPER SAMPLING : Off
  • REFLECTIONS : Medium
  • ENVIRONMENT MAP : Medium
  • CAR DETAIL : Medium
  • TRACK DETAIL : Medium

You can find the full Project Cars 3 graphics settings guide here. The guide includes benchmark results and everything.

Check your DirectX version

Now this game won’t run for you if your DirectX version is lower than 11. There are a lot of PC users who are still on Windows 7. And a lot of them might be actually sitting on DirectX 10. If that is the case then update it. Here is how to do it:

  • Go to the official Microsoft DirectX download page. Here is the link
  • Choose language
  • Now click on the download button
  • Once the download is completed, open the “dxwebsetup.exe” file
  • Follow the instructions
  • Restart your PC

Here is a Microsoft DirectX compatiblity chart that will help choose the best version for your PC:

DirectX Version Details
DirectX 9 Supported in Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista and XP. The oldest version of DirectX.
DirectX 10 Supported in Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista and XP.
DirectX 11.0 Supported in Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista and XP. Both 32-bit and 64-bit versions can be downloaded from the Windows website.
DirectX 11.1 Supported in Windows 10, Windows 8 and 7. Can be installed in Windows 7 (SP1) but requires an update
DirectX 11.2 Supported in Windows 10 and Windows 8 (8.1+) only
DirectX 11.4 & 11.3 Only supported in Windows 10.
DirectX 12 DirectX 12 comes preinstalled with every Windows 10 installation. It cannot be used with an older version of Windows. Updates can only be downloaded through windows update as there is no standalone installer available.

Verify the in-games files of Projects Cars 3 via Steam

You can actually verify the in-game files of the game to check whether your system is missing any files that might be causing the game to crash or freeze:

  • Go to your Steam Library
  • Right click on Project Cars 3
  • Select Properties
  • Click on the Local Files tab
  • Click on Verify Integrity of Game File

Project Cars 3 – Nvidia Control Panel Settings

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:

  1. Open Nvidia Control Panel
  2. Click on Manage 3D settings on the left bar
  3. Click on the Program Settings tab
  4. Locate Project Cars 3 from the drop down menu under “Select a program to customize”
  5. If you don’t see the game on the list then click on the Add button and another list will appear
  6. If you still cannot spot the game then you need to add the .exe file manually.
  7. Click on Browse
  8. Locate the folder where you have installed the game
  9. Select the executable file or the .exe file which in this case should be pCARS3.exe
  10. Once you have successfully added the game, you will then see the program settings become available for the game
  11. Now tweak the following settings :
    Threaded Optimization : On
    OpenGL rendering GPU : Your dedicated GPU
    Shader Cache : On
    Power Management : Prefer Maximum Performance
    Low Latency Mode : Off
    Texture filtering – Quality : Performance

Project Cars 3 – AMD Adrenaline 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

Turn off Captures

The Captures tool on Windows 10 often tend to take up a lot of resources and the Background Recording feature always records in the background while you are playing any game. So turn it off would immediately give you a boost. Here is how to do it:

  • Open Windows Settings
  • Click on Gaming
  • Select Captures
  • Turn off Background Recording

Whitelist Project Cars 3 on your Anti-Virus Software

Try disabling your Anti-Virus software temporarily and then run Project Cars 3. It may also be necessary to add exceptions for Project Cars 3 in your AV configuration.

If you are using Windows Defender instead of a third-party AV software then here is how to add Project Cars 3 on the exceptions list of Windows Defender:

  • Go to Windows 10 settings
  • Click on Update & Security
  • Select Windows Security from the left sidebar
  • Click on Virus & threat protection
  • Under Virus & threat protection click on Manage settings
  • Under Exclusions click on Add or remove exclusions
  • Click on Add an exclusion
  • Select File
  • Select the pCARS.exe file
  • Restart your PC

These are all the fixes we have for people who are facing performance issues in Project Cars 3. The game just launched so the number of problems ands bug is quite high at the moment. It will significantly go down once the developers start releasing updates.

Click here to check out the Official Steam Discussions page of Project Cars 3. A lot of people are posting their issues there.


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 August 28, 2020

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