BG3 started lagging and stuttering out of nowhere

[auremin]

Can anyone help, please?

I was playing for about 6 hours on Saturday, all smooth sailing. Then I shut down my laptop on Saturday night and wanted to play again on Sunday, so I booted up my laptop and started the game. Out of nowhere, the game is now stuttering (audio stutters and video lagging) to a point where it's actually unplayable.

I found another topic about stuttering and followed the suggestions (adding a text file to change priority, adding "skip-launcher" and disabling Dynamic crowds).
I also made Steam verify my files and when this didn't help, I even deleted and reinstalled the game (6 hours wait). No change.
I checked an old save to see if the problem was with the latest save. No dice. Slow as ever.

The only thing that changed between Saturday night and Sunday is that I tried to install a mod to add WASD controls via Nexus Mods, but after I noticed the lag, I deleted the mods and reinstalled the game.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

[crimson]

what're your specs? I was having pretty similar lag issues which caused me to refund, I was able to find a "fix", it didn't work that well for me but it might work for you; Have you tried giving bg3 high priority in task manager and turning off full screen optimisation? (search up how if you dont know already) this did help raise my frame rates but not enough to be a drastic change, although it may vary for you.

[Ironwu]

On Laptops, first thing to check is to make sure that it is using the Graphics Card and not the built in graphics. That would certainly cause this issue.

It could also be residual effects of having the Mods installed. The Mod data and other effects are NOT deleted when a normal Uninstall or BG3 is done.

[Mojo]

Did you just transition out of ACT 2 to ACT 3?
ACT 3 is more demanding and lots of people have issues like you describe after hitting ACT 3.

Since you have a laptop I am going to assume you have a SSD and not a HDD, as HDD do tend to slow down the game the farther in you get as well.

[crimson]

Originally posted by Ironwu:

On Laptops, first thing to check is to make sure that it is using the Graphics Card and not the built in graphics. That would certainly cause this issue.

It could also be residual effects of having the Mods installed. The Mod data and other effects are NOT deleted when a normal Uninstall or BG3 is done.

forgot to mention that, always make sure its using your graphics card and not integrated, I remember playing xenoverse 2 and it used my integrated instead of my actual card, always; ALWAYS check if it uses your actual card, even if you think it would.

[blaz]

May not be that but try starting the game with "high performances" in power options in windows

Delete the mod folder "%LocalAppData%\Larian Studios\Baldur's Gate 3\Mods" and start the game again


Try setting ALL bg3 settings to default ig, quit and start again

if nothing changes, try to uninstall the game, delete the "baldur's gate 3" folder manually in "steamapps" (if not done previously)
Reinstall and try

If still struggling try updating and resetting your gpu driver (new setup option for nvidia, must be one for AMD/Intel too)

After that resetting BIOS and/or OS, maybe it comes from somewhere else

[blaz]

Originally posted by TheCrimsonKing:

Originally posted by Ironwu:

On Laptops, first thing to check is to make sure that it is using the Graphics Card and not the built in graphics. That would certainly cause this issue.

It could also be residual effects of having the Mods installed. The Mod data and other effects are NOT deleted when a normal Uninstall or BG3 is done.

forgot to mention that, always make sure its using your graphics card and not integrated, I remember playing xenoverse 2 and it used my integrated instead of my actual card, always; ALWAYS check if it uses your actual card, even if you think it would.

Could be this too

[cirugo]

make sure you put:

--skip-launcher

in launch options under properties. Aside from making sure that my graphics card driver was up to date this was what took care of the stuttering and lagging for me. No idea why but I haven't encountered it since I did that.

[Photonboy]

Do you use VSYNC?
My issue seems to be related to TRIPLE BUFFERING. When I changed to DOUBLE BUFFERING my stutter went away, but every time I start the game it FORGETS those settings.

(I messed around with the settings and it also CHANGED what it forget about. Right now it's only defaulting to TRIPLE BUFFERING and Disabling DLSS so I have to change those every time).

I believe I'm using DX not Vulkan. But try both because things seem a bit wonky. Don't skip the launcher as that, AFAIK, just bypasses your choice to switch between DX and Vulkan so make sure you're certain which you want before skipping that launcher. IF IT ACTUALLY HELPS then great. Otherwise, not yet.

Also, my FPS kept tanking for no obvious reason. I turned off VSYNC and discovered I was at 80FPS but turned back on VSYNC and it dropped to near 50FPS (60Hz monitor so should have been 60FPS VSYNC'd). So two, probably related VSYNC issues?

Not sure if this did anything but I changed to "Prefer Maximum Performance" for BG3 in my NVidia Control Panel. SO:

1) BACKUP your game with Steam
2) Open the FOLDER the game is stored in (navigate from the BG3 page in Steam..)
3) UNINSTALL the game
4) DELETE both the Steam game folder AND the Documents folder

5) RESTORE the backup you made
6) Get back up and running
7) Go look at my first advice (and experiment with Double-Buffering, or GSync, DX/VK etc)

[Photonboy]

Update:
"Prefer Maximum Performance" is probably a bad idea for a laptop. Apparently it causes FPS issues in SOME situations if your game load is much LOWER than what your GPU can handle because the software triggers the GPU frequency to drop (i.e. 2000MHz down to 1200MHz) and this can apparently cause missed frames (too aggressive) and thus stutter. I can't verify that's actually a problem, but it seems to be with my GTX4070 for some games. My POWER USAGE went up a bit, so again, probably a bad idea for a laptop. (I also MODDED to Noctua fans and now it's dead silent so I don't care about the small power increase).

*There are MULTIPLE REASONS why a game like BG3 might stutter. So it's going to be Trial and Error (and patches)... and a GSync/Freesync setup with an FPS cap for BG3 (i.e. between 40 and 60FPS depending on hardware) is likely ideal for many laptops.

[auremin]

Originally posted by Mojo:

Did you just transition out of ACT 2 to ACT 3?
ACT 3 is more demanding and lots of people have issues like you describe after hitting ACT 3.

Since you have a laptop I am going to assume you have a SSD and not a HDD, as HDD do tend to slow down the game the farther in you get as well.

Thank you for your swift reply!
My laptop has the following storage: 128 GB SSD + 1 TB HDD.

I have installed the game on the HDD (1 TB).
I am still in Act 1.

[auremin]

Originally posted by cirugo:

make sure you put:

--skip-launcher

in launch options under properties. Aside from making sure that my graphics card driver was up to date this was what took care of the stuttering and lagging for me. No idea why but I haven't encountered it since I did that.

Thank you for your swift reply!
I have indeed added the text with two dashes --
I just checked: my GeForce driver is up to date.

[crimson]

Originally posted by auremin:

Originally posted by cirugo:

make sure you put:

--skip-launcher

in launch options under properties. Aside from making sure that my graphics card driver was up to date this was what took care of the stuttering and lagging for me. No idea why but I haven't encountered it since I did that.

Thank you for your swift reply!
I have indeed added the text with two dashes --
I just checked: my GeForce driver is up to date.

for my own sake, what are your specs?

[auremin]

Originally posted by TheCrimsonKing:

what're your specs? I was having pretty similar lag issues which caused me to refund, I was able to find a "fix", it didn't work that well for me but it might work for you; Have you tried giving bg3 high priority in task manager and turning off full screen optimisation? (search up how if you dont know already) this did help raise my frame rates but not enough to be a drastic change, although it may vary for you.

Thank you for your swift reply!
Here's my specs:

Lenovo IdeaPad 330-15ICH 81FK003XM
Intel Core i5-8300H 4 x 2.3 - 4 GHz, Coffee Lake-H.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Mobile.
Memory. 8 GB.
Display. 15.60 inch 16:9, 1920 x 1080 pixel 141 PPI, glossy: no.
Storage. 128 GB SSD + 1 TB HDD.

I have installed the game on the HDD.
I just tried both your suggestions, alas, no change..

[auremin]

Originally posted by TheCrimsonKing:

Originally posted by auremin:

Thank you for your swift reply!
I have indeed added the text with two dashes --
I just checked: my GeForce driver is up to date.

for my own sake, what are your specs?

Here's my specs:

Lenovo IdeaPad 330-15ICH 81FK003XM
Intel Core i5-8300H 4 x 2.3 - 4 GHz, Coffee Lake-H.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Mobile.
Memory. 8 GB.
Display. 15.60 inch 16:9, 1920 x 1080 pixel 141 PPI, glossy: no.
Storage. 128 GB SSD + 1 TB HDD.

[Lani]

Originally posted by auremin:

Originally posted by TheCrimsonKing:

what're your specs? I was having pretty similar lag issues which caused me to refund, I was able to find a "fix", it didn't work that well for me but it might work for you; Have you tried giving bg3 high priority in task manager and turning off full screen optimisation? (search up how if you dont know already) this did help raise my frame rates but not enough to be a drastic change, although it may vary for you.

Thank you for your swift reply!
Here's my specs:

Lenovo IdeaPad 330-15ICH 81FK003XM
Intel Core i5-8300H 4 x 2.3 - 4 GHz, Coffee Lake-H.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Mobile.
Memory. 8 GB.
Display. 15.60 inch 16:9, 1920 x 1080 pixel 141 PPI, glossy: no.
Storage. 128 GB SSD + 1 TB HDD.

I have installed the game on the HDD.
I just tried both your suggestions, alas, no change..

Are you running the game in HDD mode?
You'll have longer load times but better gaming performance