The Ascent frame drops, FPS lag, stuttering, and freezing are common problems with the new release, with it suffering from various performance issues at launch. This seems particularly common in the Xbox Game Pass version of the game when running on PC, with there being various options such as Nvidia’s DLSS that aren’t available at launch. So how do you fix these annoying performance problems?
How to fix The Ascent frame drops and performance issues
The Ascent’s performance issues may persist until developer Neon Giant deploys an update, though anecdotally we found that the following change greatly improved performance and stopped stuttering and most frame drops.
To fix The Ascent’s performance issues, follow these steps:
- Go to Settings
- Go to Graphics
- Select DX12 under Advanced
- Restart The Ascent
- Go to Ray Tracing in Graphics and disable all RT options
Oddly, when re-enabling ray-tracing in the game and disabling it again, the stuttering persisted for us. As a result, to ensure you don’t experience stuttering, we advise players to leave ray-tracing unselected or restart the game if they continue to have problems.
Additionally, players should always install the latest graphics drivers to ensure they’re up-to-date, along with lowering their graphics settings to see if that helps any. Players should also turn on Vsync, which can be found in the Display menu.
It’s unclear when Neon Giant plans to release a patch fixing these issues, though they’re common enough to have already attracted many complaints from its early players. Hopefully, these problems will be rectified sooner rather than later.
This isn’t the only teething issue that The Ascent has suffered from. Players have also reported that the game has been deleting their character and weapon skins, too. As a result, many are hoping that these fixes will be deployed as it continues along its DLC roadmap.
