The Ascent is a new solo or co-op RPG based in a Cyberpunk world. But, players who have jumped to play the game are facing stutters at random scenes throughout the game. It’s not one scene or place in the game that stutters, instead, any demanding scene such as explosions, first boss fight, mission start, etc. appears to be a stuttering mess. The current state of the game requires a patch, but there are some things you can do on your end to fix The Ascent stuttering mid-game. If you have encountered the stutter, here is what you need to do.
How to Fix The Ascent Freezing and Stuttering
There are a few reasons the game could be stuttering including a problem with the implementation of DirectX 12. But, it’s also likely that the game is loading the Shaders. The developers should have the option for the game to preload Shaders, but until then, here are all the solutions we suggest to fix the stuttering issue with The Ascent.
Switch to DirectX 12
DirectX 12 is great. It brings a lot of new features, but you can do without it and not see any significant change in the game appearance. At the current state of the game, it does not seem to work well with DirectX 12. Hence, to fix the stuttering we suggest that you start with DirectX 11. You won’t be able to do it from the game. Instead, use the Steam Launch options. Here are the steps you can follow.
- Launch Steam and go to the Library
- Right-click on the game and select Properties
- In the General tab, under Launch Options type -dx11
Play the Game in Fullscreen Mode
If you are playing the game in a windowed mode that could be the reason behind the stuttering. Anything besides the Fullscreen mode can stutter the game.
Reinstall the Visual C++ Redistributable Runtimes
A problem with the Visual C++ Redistributable Runtimes can also lead to games stuttering. We suggest that you uninstall all the Visual C++ Redistributable Runtimes, and download and install a fresh copy. You can download the Visual Studio 2015, 2017, and 2019 from the official website using the link.
Set the GPU for Max Performance
From the Nvidia control panel, let the below:
- Right-click on Desktop and select NVIDIA Control Panel
- Expand 3D Settings and click on Adjust image settings with preview
- Check Use my preference emphasizing: Quality (for users who have a powerful PC, you can allow the app to decide and select Let the 3D application decide)
- Drag the bar to Performance (there are three options Performance – Balanced – Quality)
- Click on Apply to implement the changes
- Next, go to the Manage 3D settings under 3D Settings
- Click on Program Settings and select The Ascent (if the game is not in the drop-down list, click Add, browse and add the game)
- Under 2. Select the preferred graphics processor for this program: choose High-performance NVIDIA processor
Under 3. Specify the settings for this program, set Power management mode to Prefer maximum performance and Virtual Reality pre-rendered frames to 1
That’s all we have in this guide, hopefully, The Ascent stuttering is gone or improved. If you have a better solution share them in the comments.