Conan Exiles has seen its share of performance issues but many have been patched or the game updated. However, some players have reported stuttering or lagging especially around their bases, so how do you fix Conan Exiles stuttering?
Fixing Conan Exiles stuttering will be achieved via editing configuration files, making sure your video card is working well, editing audio issues and verifying game files. You’ll also want to make sure your hardware is up to the recommended specifications.
Let’s look at how and why these stuttering issues occur, the best strategies to mitigate them as well as what settings you should alter and those you shouldn’t to get the best performance out of this game and get it to a smooth experience.
How to Fix Conan Exiles Stuttering?
Edit Configuration for Garbage
One way to do it is to navigate to the DefaultEngine.ini file located in your Steam install, more specifically per the path [1]:
Steam\steamapps\common\Conan Exiles Client\ConanSandbox\Config\DefaultEngine.ini
Copy this file to somewhere else so you have an original if you make any mistakes, and then open it up in a text editor, such as Notepad.
Find the section, /Script/Engine.GarbageCollectionSettings and change gc.BlueprintClusteringEnabled=True to gc.BlueprintClusteringEnabled=False
Video Card Changes
Another method is to use the nVidia Control Panel. Open it up by either right-clicking on the desktop and selecting the nVidia Control Panel, or open it from the notification panel down the bottom right.
Reset everything to default settings by going to Manage 3D Settings on the left and then hitting Restore.
Type Power Settings in the Windows search bar and bring up the Power Settings, then hit Additional Power Settings, and then set it to Balanced and then tap on Change Plan Settings and then Change Advanced Power Settings, then turn it off for PCI Express.
You can also manage power settings by opening up the nVidia control panel and clicking Manage 3D settings and then click the Program Settings and click Add. Select Conan Exiles from the list, then click on the Add Selected Program button.
Go through the available settings and ensure that Power Management Mode is set to Prefer Maximum Performance and that Vertical sync is set to Off.
If you’re on an AMD card, it’s worth opening the AMD Radeon Settings window and clicking on the Gaming tab and then clicking on Global Settings.
Go to the Anti-aliasing mode and choose Override application settings and set the Anti-aliasing level to 2X and also turn on Anisotropic Filtering Mode. Set Anisotropic Filtering Level to 2X and set the Texture Filtering Quality to Performance.
Click on Wait for Vertical Refresh and select to Always off.
Override application settings for Tessellation Mode and set Maximum Tessellation Level to 32X or lower.
The constant saving of the game has been shown to have performance issues, so make sure you have an SSD such as a NVMe M.2 drive if your motherboard supports it, while also making sure Conan Exiles is installed there.
Audio Threading
Go to the directory steamapps/common/Conan Exiles/Engine/Config/BaseEngine.ini and open it up in a text editor.
Find the [Audio] section and set UseAudioThread=false and this should reduce audio crackling.
Then find the steamapps/common/Conan Exiles/ConanSandbox/Saved/Config/WindowsNoEditor/Engine.ini file and open it up in a text editor.
Go to the bottom of the Engine.ini file and add the following lines to the end, and it’s best to put a blank (empty) line before adding the lines:
[/script/engine.audiosettings]
bDisableMasterEQ=True
Game Settings
Turn off V-Sync and set maximum FPS to 30 or 60 by going into the game’s settings menu and go to the Video section and disable V-Sync. Here you can also setFPS to 30, or perhaps 60.
Validating / Verifying / Repairing Files in Steam
While doing verification of game files within Steam on Conan Exiles can help fix some issues, keep in mind that it will reset a lot of the configuration settings gone through above, so make sure to go back in and replace these settings if they helped fix the stuttering issues.
Open up your Steam Library and right click on Conan Exiles, then hit Local Files on the left-hand side, and then hit the third option. The verification may take some time and it’s best not to do anything on the computer for the duration.
Why Is Conan Exiles Stuttering?
There are several causes of Conan Exiles stuttering, some local and some due to how the game operates.
If you notice that the audio crackles or stutters, then this is because the audio isn’t able to play properly under the current settings, and audio can place quite a large strain on many games, so optimizing it can fix gameplay issues.
The reason why reducing the FPS and turning off V-Sync helps is that the game itself hasn’t been coded very well.
If you limit the game to a lower frame rate, it doesn’t try to render so many frames which can be very hard on your system, which even for a medium- to high-end system won’t run well, causing the stuttering.
So while it won’t be the best choice, it will still give you the best performance and limit stuttering.
How Do You Make Conan Exiles Run Better?
One thing to keep in mind is you want to make sure your computer is meeting the recommended system requirements.
This means you’ll want an Intel Quad Core i7 3770K or AMD Ryzen 5 1600X. For the GPU, get an Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 Ti or 970 or 1070, or the AMD R9 290 or AMD RX480.
You’ll want to make sure the card supports DirectX 11 and you have system RAM of 8GB with 50GB of available system storage space.
You can try setting some launch options, but the effect these have on game performance isn’t very significant.
Go to the list of games in the Steam library and right-click the Conan Exiles entry and click Properties, click the Set Launch Options in the General tab and then type or paste the following commands into the box in the incoming window:
-USEALLAVAILABLECORES
If you’re playing via the Epic Games Launcher, open up Settings then tap Manage Games then go to Conan Exiles and paste the same line into Additional Command Line Arguments.
You’ll want to do the usual things like making sure your video card and chipset drivers are fully up to date, you can get these off the video card manufacturer and motherboard producer respectively.
