Elden Ring on PC can freeze briefly when entering a new area, opening menus, passing fog gates, riding through open fields, or loading new effects. That often points to shader compilation, driver mismatch, or asset streaming rather than weak hardware alone.
These steps apply to Elden Ring on Windows through Steam, including the base game and Shadow of the Erdtree.
Does this affect you?
Use this if Elden Ring runs normally most of the time but hitches, freezes, or drops frames during area transitions, menus, or open-world traversal.
Clear shader cache and update drivers
- Update your GPU driver through NVIDIA, AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition, or Intel’s driver tool.
- Restart the PC after the driver update.
- In Steam, right-click Elden Ring and open Properties > Local Files.
- Choose Verify integrity of game files.
- Press Windows key + R, type %localappdata%, and press Enter.
- Delete the contents of shader cache folders such as D3DSCache or NVIDIADXCache if present.
- Launch Elden Ring and let the first few minutes settle while shaders rebuild.
A little stutter immediately after clearing shader cache is normal. It should improve as the cache rebuilds.
Adjust in-game and Windows settings
- Lower Texture Quality one step.
- Lower Shadow Quality one step.
- Turn off Motion Blur.
- Turn off Depth of Field.
- Lower Grass Quality if stutter happens while riding through open fields.
- On NVIDIA, set Power Management Mode to Prefer Maximum Performance for Elden Ring.
- Cap frame rate slightly below your display’s refresh rate if frame pacing feels uneven.
Close browsers, recording tools, and streaming apps. Elden Ring can be CPU-heavy in busy open-world areas.
Storage, mods, and updates
If Elden Ring is installed on a traditional hard drive, move it to an SSD through Steam’s Move Install Folder option. Asset streaming stutter is much more noticeable from slow storage.
Remove mods temporarily, including co-op mods and visual overlays, to rule out shader or performance conflicts.
Make sure the game itself is current in Steam. Elden Ring has received PC stutter fixes over time, and an old game build with a newer driver can behave badly.
Pause Windows Update or antivirus scans before playing if disk activity causes hitches on lower-end systems.
Sources
- FromSoftware – Elden Ring Official Support (2025)
- Steam Support – Verifying the Integrity of Game Files (2025)
- NVIDIA Support – Optimizing PC Performance for Gaming (2025)