Battlefield 2042 PC issues: How to fix performance and known workarounds

Battlefield 2042 Orbital
Battlefield 2042 Orbital (Image credit: Electronic Arts)

EA and DICE's highly-anticipated multiplayer shooter Battlefield 2042 is finally here, and like many previous Battlefield releases, the game has plenty of performance and stability issues that are affecting players around the world. These problems are present on all platforms, but they're especially prevalent on PC — regardless of how capable your gaming rig is.

If you're struggling to play on PC due to Battlefield 2042 bugs and launch issues, don't worry; we've been experimenting with some workarounds, and while it's impossible to get Battlefield 2042 running perfectly, there are several tweaks you can make in the game's settings menus to significantly improve performance. Here's how you can fix Battlefield 2042's performance on PC with some known workarounds.

Source: Electronic Arts (Image credit: Source: Electronic Arts)

Check if your PC meets Battlefield 2042's requirements

First thing's first: before doing anything else, make sure that your system meets the Battlefield 2042 system requirements provided by EA and DICE. The developers have released two tiers of hardware, including both minimum and recommended specs. These tiers highlight what type of CPU, GPU, RAM, hard drive, and operating system you'll need to be able to play Battlefield 2042.

Players with hardware that falls under Battlefield 2042's minimum specifications will likely be unable to play the game smoothly even with all the graphics settings turned down, although you may still be able to make the game playable by reducing its resolution size.

Turn on NVIDIA DLSS

One excellent way to boost Battlefield 2042's PC performance is to turn on NVIDIA DLSS in the settings menu, which is available to players using an NVIDIA RTX graphics card. In simple terms, DLSS is a technology that renders your game at a lower resolution and then upscales it to your target resolution, resulting in better performance without much of a difference in image quality.

There are multiple DLSS presets available to use, ranging from Best Quality to Ultra Performance. For the best balance between image quality and performance improvements, we recommend using the Balanced preset. However, you should try out the Performance and Ultra Performance presets if you're still encountering issues.

Turn down graphics settings

Another great way to improve Battlefield 2042's performance is to turn down your graphics settings. Battlefield 2042 automatically detects your hardware when you play for the first time and auto-selects Ultra settings if you have a good gaming rig, which can result in a serious drop in performance. Therefore, we recommend manually turning the graphics settings down to make the game run better. For a good balance between quality and performance, use Medium settings. Turn the settings down to Low if issues persist.

Use borderless fullscreen

In addition to using DLSS and lower graphics settings, it's also possible to improve your performance by using the Borderless Fullscreen display option instead of the regular Fullscreen mode. Visually, this option doesn't look any different than normal fullscreen. However, it's functionally less taxing on your system and will help smooth out some of Battlefield 2042's rough performance edges.

Restart the game

Finally, simply restarting Battlefield 2042 can often fix many issues related to stuttering and low FPS. If you notice that Battlefield 2042 suddenly begins to perform poorly and none of the above workarounds are helping, try restarting the game to see if it resolves your issues.

It's likely that these aren't the only workarounds you can use to make Battlefield 2042 run better on PC, so we're going to continue searching for more and will update this article when we find them. Battlefield 2042 has the potential to become one of the best PC games available for shooter fans, but until EA and DICE are able to deploy fixes, these workarounds are your best bet if you want to play the game with good performance.

Brendan Lowry

Brendan Lowry is a Windows Central writer and Oakland University graduate with a burning passion for video games, of which he's been an avid fan since childhood. You'll find him doing reviews, editorials, and general coverage on everything Xbox and PC. Follow him on Twitter.