This article will discuss how to fix Fortnite Lag Issues. Lag issues can be a result of your PC or internet not meeting the system requirements for Fortnite. Before reading this article, it would be good to take a couple of basic troubleshooting steps that should come first before you alter game-specific settings. If you are experiencing Fortnite’s Unrecoverable Error, read this on what to do.
If you have noticed that your game used to run fine before the latest season 2 release and all of a sudden, your gameplay has gone to crap, skip ahead to step 5. Otherwise, read on for the steps below. You may also want to read our guide on fixing gaming laptop performance issues if you have a mobile device.
Fix Fortnite Lag
Step 1: Make sure Fortnite’s servers are operational. Head over to Epic Games Public Status to see if any of the servers are down.
Step 2: Before you go into too much game-specific configuration changes, make sure you have already done some basic troubleshooting with your internet and operating system. Read How to Fix Lag, Stuttering, and Low FPS in PC Games in 2022 for a broad overview of troubleshooting steps you can do to fix lag and low FPS.
Step 3: If you have gone through the troubleshooting steps in that article, make sure your graphics card is capable of meeting the demands of Fortnite. Read Will My NVIDIA Graphics Card Handle Fortnite or Will My AMD Radeon Graphics Card Handle Fortnite, depending on which manufacturer you have installed.
Step 4: Check automatic updates and make sure you are on the latest version of the game.
Step 5: Fortnite Chapter 3, Season: 2 introduced a switch from DirectX11 to DirectX12. Fortnite was built on DirectX11 but has recently switched over to the Unreal 5 engine, which has a lot of great features like Raytracing. That being said, a lot of people are complaining that it has ruined their gaming experience. What you can do is revert back to DirectX11.
How to Go Back to DirectX11 from DirectX12 in Fortnite:
- Open the Epic Games Launcher.
- Scroll down and expand Fortnite.
- Check the box for Additional Command Line Arguments.
- Enter d3d11, and then relaunch Fortnite.
- Note: In order to switch back to DirectX 12 you need to delete the command/uncheck the box.
Step 6: Verify your game files.
- Open the Epic Games Launcher.
- Go to your Library.
- Click the three dots next to Fortnite.
- Click Verify.
Step 7: Adjust your graphics quality. If you’ve gone through the previous steps and everything checks out, then there are a few graphics settings you can adjust in the game that would have an impact on your performance. When you’re in the game, navigate to settings and go into the section that details graphics quality. Make the following changes:
- Quality Presets: Low
- 3D Resolution: 100%
- View Distance: Near
- Shadows: Off
- Anti-Aliasing: Off
- Textures: Low
- Effects: Low
- Post Processing: Low
- V-Sync: Off
- Motion Blur: Off
- Rendering Mode: DIRECTX11
- Nvidia Reflex Low Latency: On + Boost
- Ray Tracing: Off
Hopefully you have some fortune and these steps have resolved your issues. If you’re still stuck, you can submit a ticket to the Fortnite developer team. They will ask you to provide a description of the problem, steps already taken, game log files, and a DxDiag file. Good luck!