Horizon Zero Dawn: Fix Low FPS, Crashes and PC Performance

In this guide, we’ll show you how fix low FPS, stuttering with FPS drops, lags and crashes.

So first of all before you starting it, if you have any issue with your game, like crashes then search for the PSOCache.bin in your game. Delete this file it will be approximately like 1.4 gig. It's your cache. It's your shader and then just reopen the game. It will re-optimize the game for you and it will recompile your shader and it will help you a lot.


A lot of people have some crashing issue. Also, make sure that you have enough space in your disk drive because you need more space to install your shader. So make sure that you have space on your drive, if you're crashing in the optimization section of the game then it's probably because of this.


Also, make sure that you remove the game mode from your Window. So make sure that the game mode is set to off, your game bar is set to off and all those capture feature on Windows are set to off. 


Make sure also that you disable all your overlays. So if you have a discord overlay and video overlay AMD overlay. It's always causing like stuttering in game not always but in some games, so make sure everything is at off. 


Also, if you have the latest version of Windows then open your graphic setting (type GPU in the search bar) and make sure that your hardware accelerated GPU scheduling is set to on and after that re-start your computer.


Finally, Anisotropic Filtering is not working in the game right now. So you need to force it by your driver software. So open the Nvidia control panel, you have pretty much the same thing if you have an AMDS card. So there in the Anisotropic filtering if you have like a really old Nvidia card go with 2x or 4x. If you have like a RTX card then you can run easy at 16x, and if you have like a middle range, I don't know an old like 960 go with 8x. And you will have Anisotropic filtering in the game. So the texture will be a lot less blurry.


Also, I heard a couple of people had some issue with the 16x. I think you need the latest driver from Nvidia the latest hotfix. So make sure that you update your driver because I think it's causing some flickering when you're using the 16x. So i'm not too sure about it because I don't have this issue right now.


Next power management mode, make sure that you are using prefer maximum power not the optimal one. 


So that's pretty much the optimization that you need to do in your manage 3d setting.


One last parameter that you will need to do is go where you installed the game. Search for the game Horizon Zero Down you will have an execute file right click on it go to properties. Go to compatibility make sure that Disabled Full Screen Optimization is checked.


Go to change DPI setting make sure that override DPI settings is checked, press ok, press ok.


And now you're good with your windows setup. So now let's go inside of the game.


So now in the game, so first of all, make sure that you're playing your display resolution so that it it's matching with your monitor after that Field of View. It's more like a preference thing I'm using 90 when I play this game.


Adaptive performance FPS go with off fps limit. You can lock it if you want if you don't want your GPU to work. 


Display mode if you feel like your game is kind of blurry. I had an issue I think the second time I launched the game it was at borderless. I went to fullscreen and it was weird it was like I was low resolution but everything was full and even my MSI after burner was low res so you press borderless again go to full screen and apply and it should fix the problem or just restart your game.


After that Refresh rate 144 hertz, depending again with your monitor. So if you have a 60 hertz screen go with 60 if you have a 144 hertz, put 144 hertz.


I'm putting vsync off. I don't use vsync and I think vsync is broken right now, so just set it to off.


Finally, the graphics: so first of all texture I'm using ultra I didn't see any difference in my VRAM ultra high and medium. The only difference that I see it's low. You're getting 1GB of VRAM. So if you have like a 2GB VRAM video card go with low but honestly, no difference between medium and ultra so go with ultra.


Horizon Zero Dawn, Fix Low FPS, Crashes, Improve PC Performance


Model quality: here two percent for each bracket. So I'm using medium and I'm getting four percent at medium. So it's the best that you can get and this tropic filter doesn't change anything right now. So I put it at low, I don't know if they're gonna patch it, but right now it doesn't change anything.


Shadows: ultra to medium normally with shadow. You can gain a lot of FPS here. I'm getting five percent at medium. But if I compare medium with off I was gaining like two percent. Not a huge increase over there. 


Reflections is weird a little bit. Honestly, I did a different comparison between high and low I was near like water.  I was at 98 fps or 99 something like that at ultra when I test the parameter at low, I was at 116 fps. So I was really surprised how reflection was affecting my fps. So this one really important put this one at low.


Clouds: Go with medium.


Anti-aliasing: if you have like a three years old video card go with TAA.


Honestly, if you have like an old GPU integrated video card just go it off.


Honestly, FXAA doesn't it's not worth it and you're losing FPS so just go with off and you will see that your image quality decrease a lot because you have a lot of foliage in this game and yeah, you will see a lot of aliasing and even TAA in this game is not good. I feel like the game is a bit blurry and I still see aliasing in the foliage. But anyway, so really depends here on your GPU.

 

So motion blur off. I really don't like this effect. On any game if you like motion blur, you can put this one out on you will gain 1 fps. So it's not a huge chunk and I'm beyond inclusion. I put medium. I saw three percent of increase ultra versus medium, but medium versus off not a huge increase.


It's like one person and you still want a bit of ambient inclusion because the game feel a little bit weird without it.


So that's about it guys for the guide.

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