Elden Ring has finally been released to widespread critical acclaim and what many believe will be record sales for a FromSoftware title, but the PC version of the much-anticipated game has sadly been plagued by various bugs, glitches, and general performance issues that are preventing many players from diving into the open-world RPG epic.
While it’s entirely possible to play Elden Ring on PC and not encounter significant performance problems, most PC players can expect to encounter some technical issues at some point. FromSoftware has been pushing out patches for the game, but it seems like some of those patches may have actually exasperated the game’s issues rather than address them as intended.
So while there are quite a few technical problems you may encounter while playing Elden Ring on PC, here is how to fix a few of the most common issues.
Elden Ring: How to Fix Screen Tearing
While screen tearing is thankfully not that common in Elden Ring (at least compared to other issues), some PC players are reporting instances of a small visual “tear” appearing in-game during especially demanding moments such as major boss fights. That’s not good.
What’s worse is that there is no easy way to fix this issue in Elden Ring‘s settings. You can try to play the game in Borderless Window Mode, which does seem to help a lot of people but isn’t the universal fix that it would ideally be.
A slightly better option may be to go into your GPU settings and play with your V-Sync options. If you’ve previously disabled V-Sync via your global GPU settings, that may be causing Elden Ring to not run properly. You’ll need to make sure that V-Sync is at least running for that program. Here’s how you do that for Nvidia and AMD GPUs:
Nvidia
- Open the Nvidia Control Panel
- Click “Manage 3D Settings” under the 3D Settings section
- Go to the “Global Setttings” tab and find “Vertical Sync.” You can either choose to have it “On” (which is a global effect) or select “Use the 3D application Setting” to manage specific programs.
- From the “Application Setting” menu, add Elden Ring to the available program list.
AMD
- Open your AMD Radeon program.
- Select “Settings” in the top right.
- Select the “Graphics” tab.
- Choose “Wait for Vertical Refresh” and “off, unless application specifies.”
Between those tips, you should be able to eliminate most instances of screen tearing.
Elden Ring: How to Fix The Invisible Enemies Glitch
It seems that some Elden Ring PC players have reported running into an unusual number of invisible enemies. Some players thought the game was simply trolling then, but it turns out this glitch can be caused by the game failing to load enemy assets properly.
At this time, it’s not entirely clear what is actually causing this problem. It seems like it’s far more likely to occur on less powerful PCs that barely meet the game’s RAM requirements, but there’s no obvious, universal way to fix it.
However, here are a few things you can try to do to fix the issue:
- Restart your game.
- Load a previous save (if you have access to one that existed before the problem began).
- Update your GPU drivers (or Elden Ring itself if a game udpate is still avaiable).
- Verify the integrity of your game file via Steam.
- Reinstall the game.
The last step is obviously your last resort measure, and I honestly doubt that most people will have to rely on it if they’ve tried every other troubleshooting step and are already running the game with optimized settings.
Elden Ring: How to Fix the “Frame Rate Unsuitable for Online Play” Error Message and Framerate Drops
One of Elden Ring‘s most annoying (and seemingly most common) PC performance issues is a somewhat strange error message that reads “Frame Rate Unsuitable for Online Play.” While this error is obviously trying to tell you that your current frame rate isn’t good enough to sustain ideal online play, some players are discovering that they still receive this message even when that seemingly isn’t the case.
Like too many of Elden Ring‘s performance problems, there really isn’t a perfect solution to this error message that will work for everyone. If you’ve already tried restarting your game and upgrading your GPU drivers and still seem to be encountering this issue, you should probably make sure that your Windows Graphics are set to “High-Performance Mode.” Here’s how you can check that:
- Search for Graphics Settings via your Windows search bar.
- Under “Choose an App to Set Preference,” choose “Desktop app” and select “Browse.”
- Select “Elden Ring” and choose to change the game’s settings to “High Performance” (if that’s not already enabled).
That should help improve your general frame rate and get rid of this error, but again, there is a chance you’re seeing this error because you’re trying to run Elden Ring on a PC that just isn’t capable of running it optimally.
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Elden Ring: How to Fix the “White Screen” Crash
Elden Ring‘s “white screen crash” (also known as the “White Screen of Death”) is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. When it happens, your game will crash and you’ll be left staring at a blank white screen.
Like so many of Elden Ring’s PC performance issues, this one can typically be resolved by updating your GPU drivers, making sure the game is updated, optimizing your in-game settings, making sure Windows is running Elden Ring in high-performance mode, or doing pretty much any of the other things we’ve recommended so far.
In this particular instance, though, the issue may be that you’re running an older version of a DirectX 12 driver. Here’s how you can check that:
- Search for “dxdiag” in the Windows search bar.
- Choose the “Display 1” tab.
- Make sure your Feature Levels is at 12_0 or above.
If you’re running an older version of DirectX 12 and are unable to update it, you may not be able to properly run Elden Ring until a future update fixes some of this game’s apparent compatibility issues.
Elden Ring: How to Fix the Network Status Failed Error Message
It’s always annoying to receive the dreaded “Network Status Failed” message in Elden Ring and realize that you aren’t able to utilize any of the game’s online features.
Unfortunately, there’s no real trick to fixing this error. It seems like Elden Ring‘s servers have been taking a beating in recent days, which means that some players simply haven’t been able to connect to them whenever they launch the game. You can try to restart your router or check your internet connection when these network errors occur to make sure that isn’t the problem, but the real issue is almost always on the game’s end.
Elden Ring: How to Fix Controller Connection Errors
Elden Ring‘s keyboard and mouse support is actually surprisingly good, but most people will still probably prefer to play the game with a controller. Unfortunately, some PC players have reported that the game will occasionally fail to recognize that they have a valid controller plugged into their computer.
As suggested above, the first thing you want to do is make sure that you’re using a compatible controller and that Windows is properly recognizing that it’s plugged in. To do that, simply open the Control Panel, go to “Devices and Printers,” and make sure that your PC recognizes your controller. If it doesn’t, you may have to try unplugging it and plugging it back in or playing with your Windows settings.
If that’s not the problem, here are a few other things you can try:
- Try restarting the game.
- Try restarting your PC/game launcher
- Make sure that “Vjoy” and any other third-party controller programs are uinstalled.
- Enable “Xbox Configuration Support” and “Generic Gamepad Configuration Support” from the Steam settings menu.
- Try disabling Steam Overlay.
- Try unplugging your mouse and keyboard and making sure that your controller is the only available input.
If none of that works, and you’re positive the controller works for other PC games, then it might be time to consider reinstalling Elden Ring.