Valheim is an open-world survival game that has taken the gaming world by storm with its stunning visuals and immersive gameplay. However, one of the major challenges that gamers face is how to boost FPS and overall performance to enhance their experience. While there are several ways to achieve this, not all are effective or easy to implement. This article will explore some of the most effective methods to boost FPS and overall performance in Valheim.

Optimize the Valheim In-Game Settings

Changing your Valheim in-game settings usually makes the biggest performance improvement for low to mid-end systems. Open up your settings, and make changes according to your system’s specifications. Most of the setting changes showcased are applicable for low-end PCs. If you experience performance issues while using the recommended system requirements, then follow the next steps.

2021-02-14 16_27_45-.jpg — Valheim > Settings > Graphics

Navigate to your graphics settings and set the resolution to your native monitor resolution and refresh rate. The next settings will depend on your system’s hardware and will be set for low-end PCs. Make sure to increase these in case you have some frames to spare:

Set Vegetation Quality to Low
Set Particle Lights to Medium
Set Draw Distance/Level of Detail to High
Set Shadow Quality to Low
Disable Bloom, SSAO, Depth of Field, Anti-Aliasing, Chromatic Aberration, and V-Sync.

Change the Valheim Process Priority

To further increase the game’s performance on your PC, we will change the application’s priority compared to other programs running in the background. Right-click your taskbar to open up your Task Manager. In the Processes tab, right-click the game process and select Go to Details. In the Details tab, the application should be highlighted. Right-click the game process and set the priority to high.

Task Manager > Processes > Valheim > Go to Details

This will, in turn, allocate more resources to playing the game and should increase your performance, especially if you have other programs running in the background. To reduce the CPU utilization from other programs, I suggest you end some programs from running in the background, which you don't need when playing the game. Make sure to only end programs from running that won't break your operating system. You can prevent programs from starting on system boot in the Startup tab.

Use Launch Options for Valheim

Open your Steam library, right-click Valheim, and navigate to the game’s properties. Valheim’s fullscreen mode essentially functions as a borderless windowed fullscreen mode instead of a true fullscreen mode. This can cause a significant performance loss on some systems. Use the launch options: -window-mode exclusive -screen-fullscreen. This command will take effect every time you launch Valheim.

Steam Library > Vahleim Properties > General > Launch Options

Update Graphics Card Driver

NVIDIA graphics cards can utilize the GeForce Experience application. Click here to download the application to your system. When the download is completed, open up the application, and in the Drivers tab, select Download. This will download and install the latest GPU update and should take a few minutes to complete.

Update Operating System

To optimize your system for performance, you should ensure your operating system is up to date. In your Check for updates system settings window, make sure to download the latest update and make sure to restart your PC after that the download is completed. This will, in any case help you with performance issues.

win+check+for+update.jpg — Windows Settings > Windows Update

Disable Windows Game Bar Recording

Some native Windows 10 settings can reduce your overall performance while in-game. Disable the Game Bar recording option, as it continuously records your gameplay and audio. In your taskbar search, enter: Game Bar to open the game bar system settings.

Uncheck the recording option. In the Captures tab, disable the background recording option additionally. These settings will only reduce your performance. If you want to record your gameplay when I suggest using OBS Studio, or an external capture card if you lack performance.

Optimize NVIDIA Control Panel Settings

Making changes to your NVIDIA control panel can be essential. Change a few options in your NVIDIA control panel to improve the game’s performance on your system. To open your NVIDIA control panel, right-click your desktop and select NVIDIA Control Panel. In your control panel, navigate to Manage 3D Settings > Program Settings.

NVIDIA Control Panel > Manage 3D Settings

Select Add a program to customize and then add the game from the program list. If you can’t find the game in the program list, click on Browse. In your file explorer, you must locate the drive and path on which you installed the game and add it to the program list. Make sure that the CUDA setting is set to your main GPU, set the Power management mode to Prefer maximum performance, and set the texture filtering quality to Performance.

Change the Graphics Preference for Valheim

Windows 10 allows you to utilize power user settings, such as your graphics settings. To change your graphics settings, enter Graphics Settings in your taskbar search to open up your native settings.

Graphics Settings > Graphics Preference > High Performance

When selecting Browse your file explorer will open up, where you will have to navigate to the drive and path where the game is saved. After adding the program to your graphics settings list, the operating system lets you choose between the following:

Let Windows choose
Power Saving (Usually Intel HD Graphics)
High Performance (Usually, your graphics card(s)
Specific GPU (Choose which GPU to use)

For the most system performance, use the High-Performance option. If your GPU is bottlenecking your performance, you should set it to Let Windows Decide. Don't forget to apply your changes.

Delete the Windows Temporary Files

Your hard-drive might be cluttered with unwanted files. These files will induce lag if not removed properly. You can delete your temporary files manually or use PC cleanup programs, such as CCleaner. These applications are usually the best choice as they will automatically keep your hard-drive clean for you. To manually delete your temporary files, enter %temp% in your taskbar search and hit enter. A new folder will open up. Make sure to delete the content of your temporary files folder.

Delete the temporary files to clean up your hard-drive

Sometimes, this can take a couple of minutes if you haven’t done this before. Some files will most likely stay in your temp folder, as these are still in use by your programs. To completely delete these files, you should also make sure to empty your recycle bin.

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