Helldivers 2: How to fix stuttering and lag

Arrowhead Game Studios has implemented a lot of bug fixes and optimization changes to Helldivers 2 already. However, despite the updates, some players are still experiencing stuttering and lag. Here are some ways how to fix stuttering and lag in Helldivers 2.

Fix for stuttering and lag in Helldivers 2

The solution that seems to work for most players to fix stuttering in Helldivers 2 is to lock your FPS. For some reason, a recent Helldivers 2 update is causing some players to get stuttering and lag when their FPS is not locked.

To lock your FPS in Helldivers 2, simply enter the Options menu, go to Display, and enable Framerate Limit. Then, make sure you set the Framerate Limit to match whatever your refresh rate is. For most people, this is 60FPS, though it could also be 120, 144, 165, etc. This should fix the stuttering for most players. Also, make sure you are on Full Screen and not Windowed Full Screen or Windowed mode. While those two options can be useful, it doesn’t make full use of certain hardware configurations so this will help isolate the issue.

Other solutions for stuttering and lag

If locking your FPS doesn’t help your issue, there are a few other solutions we can try. Keep in mind the solution will usually vary based on your hardware configuration, but at least one of these solutions should do the trick.

• Lower your graphic settings — Helldivers 2 actually has a lot going on graphically, so it can be quite hardware intensive. Try lowering your graphics settings and see if that fixes things. If so, slowly raise things one by one until you can isolate which setting is causing the stutter and lag.
• Make sure you are using an SSD — Unfortunately, Helldivers 2 requires an SSD to play on 60FPS or higher. In fact, only 30FPS at 1080p is supported for HDD. I know this isn’t an easy fix, but if you are trying to play on high graphic settings with an HDD that could certainly cause the stuttering and lag.
• Update your graphics driver — Both AMD and Nvidia has released several optimization driver updates for Helldivers 2 specifically, so make sure you’re updated to the latest driver.
• Verify your Helldivers 2 files — Right-click on Helldivers 2 in Steam then go to Properties, then Installed Files, and click the Verify integrity of game files button. It will take a few minutes to do the scan, but this will make sure you don’t have any corrupted files causing issues.

Those are all the ways we know how to fix stuttering and lag in Helldivers 2. If you’ve tried all the above solutions and are still having the issue, you could try doing a complete reinstall of Helldivers 2 as well.