How to fix Stardew Valley's funky frame-rate issues

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Stardew Valley is a superb indie game that caters to a vibrant community of virtual farmers and dungeon explorers.

The game revolves around you inheriting and building up a neglected farm. Unfortunately, there's an issue you may encounter that causes slight Frame-Per-Second (FPS) drops at seemingly random intervals. But fear not. There's an easy fix that will get you back to your crops in no time.

Reinstall XNA

The problem has been narrowed down to Microsoft's XNA framework. You can reinstall the suite to see if that solves the issue and gets gameplay back to smooth levels. Here's how.

  1. Hit Windows Key + Q to bring up Cortana.
  2. Search "Add or Remove Programs".
  3. Choose the top result. (It should match your query.)
  4. Scroll down to the "Microsoft XNA" listing.

Stardew Valley

  1. Select the program.
  2. Hit "Modify".
  3. Select the "Repair" option in the wizard.

Relaunch Stardew Valley and see if that solved your problem. If not, try to import a working configuration for XNA.

Import a working config

If reinstalling XNA didn't work, some folks turned to hunting through the game files and locating an installer within the installation of Stardew Valley. This seemed to fix everything for some, but others were unable to run the executable file. Here's how to import a working configuration package and reinstall XNA.

  1. Navigate to your Stardew Valley installation. (This differs between platforms.)
  2. Backup the "_redist" or "_CommonRedist" folder.

Stardew Valley

  1. Download this file (kudos to Reddit user JamesIV4 for publishing his files).
  2. Copy the contents to your Stardew Valley installation (overwriting all files).
  3. Head into the "_redist" sub-folder, then the XNA folder and run "xnafx40_redist.msi".

You should now be able to move around without noticing any drop in frames. Sound off in the comments if you managed to solve this problem with the above walkthrough — or if you found another fix.

Rich Edmonds
Rich Edmonds

Rich Edmonds is Senior Editor of PC hardware at Windows Central, covering everything related to PC components and NAS. He's been involved in technology for more than a decade and knows a thing or two about the magic inside a PC chassis. You can follow him over on Twitter at @RichEdmonds.
6 Comments
  • Now fix the fishing mechanic... Nasty.
  • It's only hard for like the first 2 levels, fishing is a breeze after that.
  • I'm scared to talk to anyone about the game after sinking hundreds of hours into it. Scared I'm going to start again. :D
  • Go on, you know you want to. ;-)
  • Never had any performance issues with the game.
  • its hard to imagine SDV dropping frames. i mean its not that much of a resource eater, is it? this game needs to be brought to mobile. it will be worth it for the devs to push it out faster while everyone still has interest.