How to Fix Lags and Stutters on Cyberpunk 2077

Do you experience lags and stutters on Cyberpunk 2077?

Cyberpunk 2077 is one of the best games released in the last five years. The game was developed by CD Projekt and featured some of the most advanced graphics we’ve seen in a game. 

Due to this, Cyberpunk required some serious hardware to run at its full potential. If you want 4K resolution, ray tracing, and maxed-out settings, you’ll probably need to invest in a top-of-the-line graphics card. 

However, some players are reporting random lags and stutters on Cyberpunk 2077, even on a top-end gaming computer. 

Depending on the situation, this problem could be due to faulty display drivers, corrupted game resources, and third-party applications. 

To help you out, we’ve decided to make a guide for fixing lags and stutters on Cyberpunk 2077. 

Let’s jump right in!

1. Restart Your Computer. 

Before changing your configurations, we recommend restarting your computer if you encounter issues with Cyberpunk 2077. This should allow your system to reload its resources and eliminate temporary errors in the process. 

Here’s what you need to do: 

  1. On your keyboard, press the Windows key to open the Start Menu
  2. After that, access the Power Options tab. 
  3. Finally, choose Restart to reboot your system. 
lags and stutters on cyberpunk 2077

Relaunch the game afterward to check if the problem is solved. 

2. Check Cyberpunk’s System Requirements. 

As with other games and applications, Cyberpunk 2077 has a system requirement that needs to be met to run the game without issues. If you are struggling to run Cyberpunk on your computer, it might indicate that you don’t have to proper hardware to play the game. 

To confirm this, you can check Cyberpunk’s website to see what hardware you need to run the game. 

3. Lower Your Graphics Settings. 

While Cyberpunk requires the latest hardware to run at its full potential, this doesn’t mean that you can’t play the game if you are using a mid-level PC. If you experience lags and stutters on Cyberpunk 2077, you can lower the graphics settings to reduce the load on your system. 

One of the best ways to improve performance is to decrease the game’s resolution. If you are running it at 4K, try 1440p or 1080p. 

If that wasn’t enough, you can also tweak the actual graphics settings and set some of them to “Medium” or “Low”. You can also disable ray tracing to boost performance and reduce the render distance of the world. 

4. Verify Your Game Files. 

Corrupted or missing game resources could also cause lags and stutters on Cyberpunk 2077. Fortunately, Steam has a built-in tool that lets you scan your storage for missing game files and repair them. 

Here’s what you need to do: 

  1. First, launch Steam on your computer. 
  2. Access your account and go to the Library tab. 
  3. Right-click on Cyberpunk 2077 and choose Properties
  4. Go to the Local Files tab. 
  5. Lastly, click on Verify Integrity of Game Files and follow the prompts. 
lags and stutters on cyberpunk 2077

Go back to the game and see if you’ll still encounter performance issues. 

5. Update Your Graphics Drivers. 

Faulty or outdated graphics drivers could also be the reason for lags and stutters in the game. To rule this out, we suggest updating your GPU drivers to the latest version to patch bugs and other errors. 

Follow the steps below to update your drivers: 

  1. First, open the Device Manager on your computer. 
  2. After that, expand the Display Adapters tab. 
  3. Lastly, right-click on your graphics card and choose Update Driver
update drivers

Once done, restart your computer to apply the changes and check if the problem is solved. 

6. Close Unused Applications. 

Another way to increase the performance of your PC is to shut down unused and unnecessary applications running in the background. Since Cyberpunk 2077 puts a lot of load on your system, closing unnecessary applications should give the game more room to operate. 

Head to the Task Manager on your computer and identify the applications you currently don’t need while playing. 

Restart the game afterward and check if you’ll still encounter lags and stutters. 

7. Update Windows. 

If you still encounter random lags and stutters on Cyberpunk 2077, we recommend updating your OS to the latest version. This should patch your system files and fix errors that could be causing the game to malfunction. 

See the steps below to update Windows: 

  1. On your computer, access Windows Settings by pressing the Windows + I keys
  2. After that, go to Update & Security and click on Windows Update
  3. Finally, click Check for Updates and follow the prompts. 
update windows

Restart your system to apply the changes. Proceed to the next step if you still encounter lags in the game. 

8. Reinstall Cyberpunk 2077. 

At this point, the last thing you can do is reinstall the game on your computer. There might be some missing or broken resources on your storage that can no longer be fixed by Steam’s repair tool. 

Check out the steps below to reinstall Cyberpunk 2077: 

  1. Launch Steam on your computer. 
  2. Go to the Library and right-click on Cyberpunk 2077.
  3. Finally, click Uninstall and follow the prompts. 

Go back to the game and see if the problem is solved. 

That ends our guide on how to fix lags and stutters on Cyberpunk 2077. If you have questions or other concerns, please leave a comment below, and we’ll do our best to answer them. 

If this guide helped you, please share it. 🙂

Author

  • John Sixto

    John is a staff writer at Saint and comes from a SAP ABAP development background. He has a Bachelors in IT and has been writing since 2018, with over 500 posts published. He loves to build PCs and has a deep curiosity in understanding how different components and configurations work. John spends hundreds of hours at a time, researching and testing the software and apps, before he proceeds to write about it. LinkedIn X (Twitter)

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