ARC Raiders Stuttering: Causes, Checks and Fixes (2026)

Stuttering in ARC Raiders rarely stems from a simple lack of raw GPU horsepower. Because Embark Studios built the extraction shooter on Unreal Engine 5, frame hitching is typically tied to Pipeline State Object (PSO) shader compilation, Virtual Shadow Map (VSM) calculation bursts, or thread contention across hybrid CPU architectures. When your hardware pauses to compile a shader or manage server-replicated Chaos physics destructions, the frametime graph spikes violently—dropping your 1% low framerate even if your average counter shows triple digits.

Diagnosing an ARC Raiders stuttering fix requires separating render-thread stalls from system-level memory bottlenecks and networking synchronization hitches. The troubleshooting sequence below covers the root engine behaviors, diagnostics, and step-by-step remedies updated for the 2026 performance landscape.

Likely Causes

Fix 1: Flush and Rebuild the DirectX Shader Cache

Unreal Engine 5 pre-caches many PSOs during launch, but dynamic runtime compilations can corrupt the local cache over time or after major game patches, causing noticeable hitches during combat encounters.

How to check

Run MSI Afterburner with RivaTuner Statistics Server (RTSS) frametime tracking enabled. If frametime spikes happen exclusively the first time a particle effect, ARC machine beam, or weapon ability triggers, your system is stalling on runtime shader compiles.

What to do

1. Exit ARC Raiders and close the Steam client completely.
2. Open the Windows Start Menu, type Disk Cleanup, and run it as Administrator.
3. Select your OS drive (usually C:), check DirectX Shader Cache, and uncheck all other options.
4. Click OK and confirm the deletion.
5. Manually clear the graphics cache folder: Press Win + R, paste %LOCALAPPDATA%\NVIDIA\DXCache (or %LOCALAPPDATA%\AMD\DxCache for AMD cards), and delete the contents inside. Skip any files currently locked by Windows.
6. Relaunch the game and allow the title screen to sit for 3–5 minutes while it rebuilds baseline shaders.

How to undo it

There is nothing to revert. Windows and your GPU driver will automatically generate clean cache files as you play.

Fix 2: Lower Virtual Shadow Maps and Global Illumination Quality

ARC Raiders uses Unreal Engine 5’s Nanite and Virtual Shadow Maps. High and Epic shadow presets force dynamic per-page shadow updates across extensive draw distances, overloading the GPU render thread during fast camera pans.

How to check

Position your character overlooking a dense outpost. Sweep the camera back and forth rapidly. If the frametime graph displays jagged peaks during motion but smooths out when standing stationary, shadow geometry is overtaxing the rasterizer.

What to do

1. Open the in-game Settings menu and navigate to Video > Advanced Graphics.
2. Set Shadow Quality to Medium (this switches the engine from heavy sub-pixel VSM filtering to optimized cascade/virtual boundaries).
3. Set Global Illumination to Screen Space or Low/Medium Lumen depending on hardware tiers.
4. Set Reflections to Screen Space to eliminate secondary Lumen ray bounces.
5. Apply changes and restart the client to clear existing lighting buffers from VRAM.

How to undo it

Return to Settings > Video > Advanced Graphics and restore Shadow Quality and Global Illumination to High or Epic.

Fix 3: Reconfigure Reflex and Frame Generation Sync

Enabling DLSS 3 or FSR Frame Generation without a strict frame cap or low-latency buffer can cause presentation queue desynchronization, resulting in perceived micro-stutters despite high reported frames per second.

How to check

Check if your framerate fluctuates wildly near your monitor’s maximum refresh rate (e.g., oscillating between 135 FPS and 144 FPS on a 144Hz panel), generating visual pacing judder.

What to do

1. In ARC Raiders settings, set NVIDIA Reflex Low Latency to On + Boost (or AMD Anti-Lag to Enabled).
2. If using Frame Generation, open the NVIDIA Control Panel (or AMD Software).
3. Navigate to Manage 3D Settings > Program Settings and select ARC Raiders.
4. Locate Max Frame Rate and set it to 3–4 FPS below your monitor’s native refresh rate (e.g., set to 140 FPS on a 144Hz screen, or 236 FPS on a 240Hz screen).
5. Ensure Vertical Sync is set to On in the driver control panel, but Off inside the game settings menu.

How to undo it

Reset the Max Frame Rate in your graphics control panel back to “Use Global Setting (Off)” and disable Frame Generation in the game menu.

Fix 4: Optimize the Texture Streaming Pool in Engine.ini

When VRAM capacity is exceeded, the Unreal Engine texture streamer rapidly swaps textures in and out of system RAM, producing severe periodic hitches during movement across large map sectors.

How to check

Monitor dedicated GPU memory usage via RTSS or Task Manager. If VRAM allocation hits 95%+ of your card’s physical capacity right before a stutter spike occurs, the streaming pool is thrashing.

What to do

1. Press Win + R, paste the following path, and hit Enter:
   
   %LOCALAPPDATA%\Pioneer\Saved\Config\WindowsClient
   
   (Note: Pioneer is Embark’s project engine identifier for the title.)
2. Open Engine.ini using a plain text editor like Notepad.
3. Scroll to the bottom and append the following lines:

   [ConsoleVariables]
   r.Streaming.PoolSize=0
   r.Streaming.LimitPoolSizeToVRAM=1
   r.Streaming.HLODStrategy=2

4. Save the file and close Notepad. Setting r.Streaming.PoolSize=0 allows the engine to dynamically manage the memory pool based on total available VRAM rather than a restrictive static default.

How to undo it

Reopen Engine.ini, delete the added lines under [ConsoleVariables], and save the file.

Fix 5: Assign CPU Core Affinity (Intel Hybrid CPUs)

12th-generation and newer Intel processors (and certain mixed-core configurations) can suffer from the Windows scheduler improperly assigning Unreal Engine audio or physics worker threads to low-power Efficiency cores (E-Cores).

How to check

Open Windows Task Manager, switch to the Performance tab, and right-click the CPU graph to select Change graph to > Logical processors. If small E-core clusters are maxed out while large P-cores show low activity during gameplay, scheduling conflicts are occurring.

What to do

1. Open Steam, right-click ARC Raiders, and select Properties.
2. Under the General tab, locate the Launch Options field.
3. Add the following launch argument:
   
   -useallavailablecores
4. If hitches persist, use a tool like Process Lasso or launch the game via a command script to restrict affinity exclusively to your Performance cores (e.g., CPU 0 through CPU 15 on an 8P+8E processor).

How to undo it

Clear the launch command from the Steam properties window and remove any custom profile assignments inside process management software.

Fix 6: Toggle Windows Hardware-Accelerated GPU Scheduling (HAGS)

Hardware-Accelerated GPU Scheduling offloads memory management tasks from the CPU to a dedicated GPU scheduling processor. While generally beneficial, it can introduce command buffer queue stalls in certain Unreal Engine 5 builds.

How to check

Check if micro-stutters persist even after lowering all in-game graphical settings and resolutions to minimums.

What to do

1. Open the Windows Settings app (Win + I).
2. Navigate to System > Display > Graphics (or Graphics Settings on Windows 10).
3. Click Change default graphics settings.
4. Toggle Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling to Off (or On if it was previously disabled).
5. Restart your PC for the kernel-level display driver changes to take effect.

How to undo it

Return to the same Windows menu, switch the HAGS toggle back to its original state, and restart your computer.

Fix 7: Perform a Clean GPU Driver Reinstallation via DDU

Leftover registry entries and broken driver components from previous graphics updates can cause the DirectX 12 command queue to hang intermittently.

How to check

Open Windows Event Viewer, navigate to Windows Logs > System, and search for warning events sourced from Display or nvlddmkm / amdkmdag corresponding to the exact timestamp of your game stutters.

What to do

1. Download the latest official graphics driver setup package from NVIDIA, AMD, or Intel.
2. Download Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) and extract the application.
3. Reboot Windows into Safe Mode (Hold Shift while clicking Restart in the Start Menu > Troubleshoot > Advanced Options > Startup Settings > Restart > Press 4).
4. Run DDU, select your device type (GPU), and choose Clean and restart.
5. Once Windows reboots normally, run the clean driver installer you downloaded earlier. Select Custom Installation and check Perform a clean installation if available.

How to undo it

A DDU cleanup cannot be reversed directly, but you can reinstall any preferred legacy driver version at any time using that driver’s official installer.

If Nothing Works

If client-side hardware adjustments fail to smooth out frame pacing, the issue may stem from server-side tick synchronization or anti-cheat interactions:

• Server-Side Replication Hitching: Embark Studios processes high-volume environmental destruction and ARC pathfinding on game servers. When server tick rates degrade under load, the client pauses local physics simulation to re-synchronize, which manifests as a rendering micro-stutter. Test during off-peak hours or switch matchmaking regions in the gameplay menu to isolate server performance.
• Easy Anti-Cheat (EAC) Hooking Conflicts: Third-party background utilities—including peripheral RGB suites (Razer Synapse, Corsair iCUE), aggressive antivirus real-time shields, and overlay software—can trigger CPU interrupts when EAC audits memory space. Perform a clean boot by disabling non-essential startup tasks in msconfig.
• Collect Diagnostic Logs: Check your crash and performance logs located at %LOCALAPPDATA%\Pioneer\Saved\Logs\Pioneer.log. Search for lines containing LogMemory: Warning or LogSlate: Window 'ARC Raiders' took X ms to draw to provide detailed technical data when submitting a ticket to Embark Customer Support.

FAQ

Why does ARC Raiders stutter even when my average FPS is high?

Average FPS measures total frames delivered over one full second, masking brief hardware stalls. If your system takes 80 milliseconds to render a single complex frame due to a shader compile or VRAM texture swap, you will see a jarring freeze even if the other 59 frames in that second arrived smoothly.

Does enabling DirectX 11 mode fix the stuttering?

ARC Raiders is built natively on Unreal Engine 5’s modern rendering pipeline, which relies strictly on DirectX 12 for hardware-level Nanite clustering, Virtual Shadow Maps, and Lumen. Forcing legacy DirectX 11 via launch flags (such as -dx11 or -d3d11) is not supported and will either cause launch crashes or visual artifacting.

Should I disable Fullscreen Optimizations for ARC Raiders?

On modern versions of Windows 11 and Windows 10, Borderless Fullscreen leverages the modern Independent Flip presentation model, which offers performance matching legacy exclusive fullscreen. Disabling Fullscreen Optimizations can disrupt proper HDR presentation and Variable Refresh Rate (G-Sync/FreeSync) handshakes, potentially worsening frametime inconsistency.

Will installing the game on an HDD cause stuttering?

Yes. ARC Raiders dynamically streams high-resolution geometry and audio packages continuously during map traversal. Mechanical hard drives cannot match the read throughput required by Unreal Engine 5, leading to severe asset-streaming hitches. The game must be installed on a fast NVMe or SATA SSD.