As you can tell from our Elden Ring review, the Tom’s Guide crew likes FromSoftware’s latest game quite a bit. We love its ambitious open world; we love its tight gameplay; we love its mysterious story and setting. One thing we don’t love, however, is that the game has some significant technical issues on PC. And, frustratingly, there’s not a whole lot the average player can do to address them at the moment.
I didn’t discuss Elden Ring’s PC performance in my review, as it’s always difficult to gauge whether technical issues are widespread, or limited to your particular hardware setup. However, all you need is one glance at Elden Ring’s Steam page to see that the game doesn’t run as well as it could. Most of the game’s negative reviews have nothing to do with Elden Ring’s demanding gameplay or opaque story; they’re all about how poorly the game runs, even on powerful GPUs.
I can vouch for this firsthand. I played the game on both an MSI gaming laptop with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 and a custom-built desktop with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070, and both of them suffered from almost identical issues. The frame rate stuttering was a significant issue, as was a serious graphical glitch that made enemies become invisible. The game is supposed to be hard, but not that hard.
Some of these issues have workarounds; most don’t. But here are some issues that Elden Ring is currently experiencing on PC, and whether you can do anything about them.
Elden Ring frame rate stuttering
The issue: While playing Elden Ring on PC, no matter how powerful your system, the game will occasionally start chugging, dropping frames one moment, then compensating with wildly fast animations the next. This is obviously a death sentence in a game that demands split-second-precision.
The fix: This probably goes without saying, but you should update your graphics card driver to the latest version. If you have an Nvidia GPU, you can do this in the GeForce experience software; if you have an AMD GPU, you can do this in the Radeon software. I realize most players have probably already tried this, but it’s worth double-checking — I had forgotten to do this before I started other troubleshooting methods, and it would have saved me a lot of time.
Otherwise, FromSoftware claims on Steam that it is “constantly working to improve the game so that it can be played comfortably on various PC environments and platforms.” In other words: Hang tight and wait for a patch. It’s not an ideal solution, but it’s the only one we’ve got.
Elden Ring frame rate lock
The issue: Elden Ring is locked at 60 frames per second, which isn’t ideal in a game that benefits from fast, fluid animations. It’s especially frustrating if you’re playing on a powerful system that could easily support higher frame rates.
The fix: Again, this is one of those “wait for a patch” issues — if FromSoftware decides to uncap the frame rate, which it may not do. In the meantime, there’s a mod available to unlock the frame rate. We wouldn’t necessarily recommend using it, however, as unauthorized mods and tightly regulated online play don’t usually mix well together.
Elden Ring invisible enemy glitch
The issue: While it’s not as widespread as some of the other issues, some systems suffer from a glitch that turns all enemies in Elden Ring invisible as soon as you target-lock them. Even untargeting them doesn’t restore their visibility. In a game that’s as difficult as Elden Ring, this additional hurdle makes it nearly impossible to play.
The fix: From my own experience, I can say that updating my GPU drivers seemed to clear this up. If you’re having similar problems and you’re absolutely sure your GPU drivers are up to date, you might consider a clean driver install — or just hang tight for a patch.
Elden Ring Easy Anti-Cheat issues
The issue: Elden Ring uses the Easy Anti-Cheat program to ensure that online play is fair for everyone. However, Easy Anti-Cheat sometimes refuses to launch, which means that the whole game refuses to launch alongside it.
The fix: Elden Ring’s patch 1.02.1 seems to have fixed this issue. The fix went live on Feb. 26, so if you haven’t downloaded it yet, get on Steam and do so. Your client should automatically download the patch before the game starts.
If that fails, I was able to work around this issue by uninstalling and reinstalling the game, although that’s admittedly an extreme fix.
Elden Ring mouse sensitivity
The issue: Elden Ring’s mouse sensitivity is way higher than it should be, making it difficult to move the camera or navigate through menus.
The fix: If you insist on playing Elden Ring with a mouse and keyboard, you have a few options. The simplest is to wait for a patch, as FromSoftware is aware of this issue and currently working on it. If you have a gaming mouse, however, you can use your software (such as Razer Synapse or Logitech G Hub) to lower your mouse DPI and hopefully find a happy medium.
The other alternative would be to just use a gamepad, such as an Xbox or DualSense controller. It’s an expensive option, but frankly, Elden Ring is a console game at heart. It’s much easier to control with a gamepad than it is with a mouse and keyboard, even when everything is working properly.
Read next: Don’t buy The Last Of Us Part 1 on PC yet — it’s a mess.
