[Updated] Dark and Darker crashing and lagging? Here are some potential workarounds

New updates are being added at the bottom of this story…….

Original story (published on August 08, 2023) follows:

Here’s the crux of the article in video form:

Dark and Darker players are experiencing from a frustrating combination of FPS stutter, lagging, and crashing issues. These problems can turn a promising gaming session into a nightmare.

And this is especially true for a game that is releasing today after generating a large following through multiple playtests over the past year.

However, players are already facing multiple issues with the game such as Blacksmith launcher getting stuck or not loading.

Now, to further compound players’ frustration, the game is not functioning as it should as gameplay is lagging and stuttering.

Dark and Darker is known for its atmospheric visuals and intricate storytelling, has garnered a dedicated fanbase eager to delve into its mysteries.

Yet, the initial excitement of stepping into its dark and mysterious world can quickly give way to frustration as players encounter stuttering frame rates and lag spikes.

This is particularly puzzling because players often report that the game runs smoothly at the beginning, only to degrade over time.

Yeah, I’m getting a lot of stutter since the server patch too. Didn’t happen until then.
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I have a very high end gaming PC, I have nothing else running, I’m running on medium graphics (to test) and this game just stutters every 3-5 seconds for about half a second. It is extremely disruptive and just testing out the game with goblins I have died do to the game freezing on my end and the goblin head-shotting me.
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Similarly, the game’s constant crashing stops players from delving deep into the gameplay (1,2,3).

The affected players say that the game crashes after the loading screen, sometimes in the lobby or after a few minutes of gameplay.

There is no specific error message that players get, which is making it difficult to pinpoint the causes of these crashes.

This is especially infuriating as players have been waiting for the game’s launch for a while.

I’ve lowered all the settings and limited fps but the game just constantly crashes even at character select. It just doesn’t want to work.
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Fortunately, we have got you covered. If you are facing FPS shuttering or lag, try this workaround. Firstly, change this display setting:

Options > Display > AntiAliasing & Super Resolution > It was on TSR, change to off or to DLSS if you have Nvidia graphics card and FXAA if you have AMD…. or just turn it off.
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Another option is to launch the game in ‘Windowed Fullscreen’ mode:

relaunched my game a couple times playing with windowed fullscreen mode and graphical options and it seems fixed, I don’t know what I did
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And now for the crashing issue, update your graphics card drivers and turn off ‘Firewall’ settings for Dark and Darker:

03:52 pm (IST): Ironmace support has acknowledged the stuttering issue and said that a fix will be deployed in couple of hours:

Meanwhile, here’s another workaround:

There’s a temporary fix currently. In blacksmith hit the button in the top left. Click game. Turn on launch options. Then in the box type in “-dx11” without the quotes and then it should stop stuttering
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Note: We have more such stories in our dedicated gaming section so be sure to follow them as well.

Featured image source: Dark and Darker.

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