If Good PC is stuttering, running below its expected frame rate, or crashing to the desktop, fix it in this order: verify the Steam installation, update or clean-install your GPU driver, disable overlays, cap FPS below your monitor refresh rate, and lower shadows, volumetric effects, reflections, and post-processing before sacrificing textures. That sequence targets the causes that most often create bad frame pacing instead of merely making the image look worse.
Don’t begin by dropping every option to Low. That can leave the game looking muddy while the real problem is shader compilation, a background overlay, a CPU bottleneck, or a damaged configuration file. Use the steps below as a controlled diagnostic pass. Change one group of settings at a time, play the same area for five minutes, and watch frame time rather than trusting the average FPS number alone.
Build a stable Good PC graphics profile first
Before troubleshooting crashes, establish a repeatable baseline. Set the desktop and Good PC to the same native resolution, turn off automatic resolution scaling, and select exclusive fullscreen if the game offers it. Borderless mode is convenient, but it can add another layer of Windows composition and makes it harder to identify whether the game or the desktop is causing hitching.
Use a sensible frame cap. For a 60 Hz monitor, start at 58 or 60 FPS. For 120 Hz, try 117 or 120 FPS; for 144 Hz, try 141 or 144 FPS; and for 165 Hz, try 162 or 165 FPS. A cap a few frames below refresh rate gives variable-refresh displays room to operate and often produces cleaner frame pacing than an uncapped GPU running at 99 percent usage.
| Setting | Recommended starting value | Performance impact | Visual trade-off |
|---|---|---|---|
| Resolution | Native monitor resolution | Very high if reduced | Lower resolution softens the entire image |
| Textures | High if VRAM allows | Low to medium | Higher detail; may cause streaming stutter when VRAM is full |
| Shadows | Medium | High | Shorter shadow distance and less contact detail |
| Reflections | Low or medium | High in reflective scenes | Less accurate surfaces and water |
| Volumetrics | Low | Medium to high | Less fog, smoke, and light scattering |
| Ambient occlusion | Medium or SSAO | Medium | Reduced depth around corners and objects |
| Motion blur | Off | Small | Sharper camera movement and easier troubleshooting |
| Upscaling | Quality mode | Medium to high gain | Possible shimmer or ghosting |
Textures are the unusual case. They mostly consume VRAM rather than raw shader horsepower. If your graphics card has 8 GB or more and the Good PC texture setting does not push the VRAM meter into the warning zone, keep textures on High while lowering shadows and volumetrics. If you see brief freezes when entering new rooms or turning the camera quickly, drop textures one step and restart the game so its streaming pool is rebuilt.
For more general graphics-tuning context, compare the workflow in our Filament settings guide and the performance-focused advice in our Far Cry 6 FPS settings guide. The menus differ, but the performance logic is the same: reduce expensive effects before destroying image clarity.
Stop stuttering by fixing frame pacing and shaders
Stuttering is not the same as low FPS. A game delivering 90 FPS can still feel awful if individual frames arrive at 8 ms, 35 ms, 9 ms, and 45 ms intervals. That uneven delivery is frame-time instability. Good PC may hitch while compiling shaders, loading a new area from storage, or waiting for a CPU thread even when the GPU is not fully occupied.
Use a cap and sensible synchronization
If you have FreeSync or G-SYNC, enable the monitor technology in your GPU control panel, enable VSync in the driver, and cap the game slightly below refresh rate with RTSS or the in-game limiter. For a 144 Hz display, 141 FPS is a practical starting point. If Good PC cannot hold that target, cap it at a stable 90, 72, or 60 rather than letting it swing between 70 and 140 FPS.
Without variable refresh, test both VSync On and VSync Off. VSync On removes tearing but can add latency and produce a noticeable drop when the game misses its refresh interval. VSync Off feels more immediate but exposes tearing. The best option depends on your monitor and controller sensitivity, so judge camera movement rather than a menu benchmark.
Let shader compilation finish
After a driver update, major game patch, or deleted shader cache, the first launch can stutter as shaders are rebuilt. Sit in the main menu for several minutes, complete any visible compilation process, then play through the same route twice. The first pass may hitch; the second should be the meaningful test. Repeated stutters in exactly the same location after three passes point more strongly to asset streaming, a CPU limit, or a game-side issue.
Close browser video tabs, RGB utilities, hardware monitors, and recording software for the test. Discord, Steam, Xbox Game Bar, NVIDIA ShadowPlay, AMD ReLive, and third-party overlays can all hook into rendering. Disable them temporarily instead of guessing. Steam’s official Steam support hub is also useful for checking client updates and common launch problems.
| Symptom | Likely bottleneck | What to change | What success looks like |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPU usage stays 95–99% | Graphics-card limit | Lower resolution, shadows, reflections, or upscaling quality | Higher sustained FPS and lower GPU load |
| GPU usage falls below 80% during drops | CPU, streaming, or background process | Close apps, use an SSD, lower crowd or view-distance settings | Fewer sharp frame-time spikes |
| Hitches only on first visit | Shader or asset compilation | Repeat the route and allow caches to rebuild | Later passes become smoother |
| Hitches after long sessions | VRAM or system RAM pressure | Lower textures, restart the game, close browsers | Memory use stops climbing between areas |
Fix low FPS with Windows, drivers, and power settings
Install the current driver directly from the official NVIDIA driver page or AMD support page, depending on your GPU. If the problem began immediately after an update, use the previous stable driver instead. For persistent crashes or a sudden performance collapse, run Display Driver Uninstaller in Windows Safe Mode, reboot, and install only the graphics driver plus the control panel. You don’t need recording tools or extra overlays during diagnosis.
In Windows 11, open Settings, System, Display, Graphics, select Good PC, choose Options, and assign High performance. On a laptop, connect the charger and select the manufacturer’s Performance mode. Windows power saver can cut CPU boost clocks, while a laptop running on battery may enforce a much lower GPU power limit. Check temperatures with HWiNFO or MSI Afterburner; sustained CPU temperatures near 95 degrees Celsius or GPU temperatures in the high 80s can trigger clock reductions.
Turn off Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling only as a test, not as a universal fix. It helps some systems and hurts others. Likewise, disable Windows Game Bar recording and background capture while diagnosing. Don’t stack several “optimizer” utilities on top of Windows; they often kill useful services, change scheduling behavior, and make the real cause harder to find.
Good PC also needs consistent storage access. Keep at least 15 percent free space on the SSD containing the game and avoid running it from an aging external hard drive. Windows may pause briefly when the drive is nearly full, while a hard drive can struggle with the small, frequent reads associated with modern asset streaming. If the game is installed through Steam, move it to an SSD library and retest before changing advanced settings.
If your issue involves another demanding PC title, our Everspace 2 crash and FPS troubleshooting guide follows the same GPU, storage, and frame-time checks. For older hardware, our ELEX PC fixes also explains why CPU limits can look like graphics-card problems.
Repair Good PC crashes without guessing
Start with Steam’s file repair tool: right-click Good PC in your Library, open Properties, choose Installed Files, and select Verify integrity of game files. Wait for the process to finish, then launch the game normally rather than through a third-party overlay. A failed update, interrupted download, or quarantined executable can leave the game apparently installed while one important asset is missing.
Next, reset only the game’s configuration and shader cache. Back up the folder first, then look in Documents, Saved Games, AppData Local, and AppData LocalLow for a folder named Good PC or the game’s publisher. Rename it to Good PC Backup instead of deleting it. This forces fresh settings while preserving your saves if they are stored there. Cloud synchronization can restore broken settings, so disable Steam Cloud temporarily if the same crash returns immediately after reset.
Remove launch options unless the developer specifically recommends them. Flags copied from an old forum post, such as forced DirectX versions, arbitrary memory values, or unsupported Vulkan switches, can create crashes after an engine update. Test the default executable first, then add only one documented option at a time.
For a crash with no message, open Windows Event Viewer, choose Windows Logs, Application, and inspect the entry matching the crash time. A faulting module mentioning a display driver points toward a driver or GPU stability problem. An audio DLL suggests testing audio enhancements and sample rate. A game executable or engine DLL makes file verification, configuration reset, and a clean reinstall more relevant. Don’t treat the module name as absolute proof, but use it to choose the next test.
| Crash timing | Best first test | Common cause | Escalation step |
|---|---|---|---|
| Immediately after launch | Verify files and remove launch options | Missing asset, bad config, incompatible overlay | Rename config folder and reinstall dependencies |
| When loading a save | Test a new game or older save | Corrupted save or streamed asset | Check cloud backups and developer reports |
| After 10–30 minutes | Monitor temperatures and RAM/VRAM | Heat, memory leak, unstable overclock | Return CPU/GPU/RAM to stock settings |
| During a major effect | Lower volumetrics and reflections | Driver timeout or GPU memory pressure | Clean-install driver and test another API |
Disable overclocks, undervolts, XMP or EXPO, and aggressive fan curves for one test session. A setting that is stable in a benchmark can still fail in a particular shader or memory workload. If Good PC becomes stable at stock speeds, the hardware is not necessarily defective; the previous tuning simply lacked enough margin.
Use a clean test plan and know when it is not your PC
The fastest diagnosis is controlled, not dramatic. Record your GPU model, CPU, RAM amount, Windows version, driver version, game build, resolution, and whether Good PC is installed on an SSD. Then change one variable, reproduce the same problem, and write down the result. A five-minute repeatable route is more useful than an hour of random setting changes.
A practical ten-minute troubleshooting order
- Restart Windows and launch Good PC with every overlay disabled.
- Verify the installation through Steam.
- Use native resolution, Medium shadows, Low volumetrics, and a frame cap below refresh rate.
- Play the same area twice to separate shader stutter from permanent hitching.
- Check GPU usage, CPU usage per core, VRAM, RAM, temperatures, and frame time.
- Update or clean-install the GPU driver if the issue remains.
- Rename the configuration folder and test a fresh profile.
- Return all overclocks and undervolts to stock.
- Move the game to an SSD if asset-streaming hitches continue.
Use Microsoft’s Windows Update guidance for pending system updates, but avoid updating the operating system, GPU driver, BIOS, and chipset all at once. If everything changes together, you lose the ability to identify what fixed or caused the problem.
Finally, check the official Good PC Steam discussion board and the developer’s patch notes before reinstalling Windows. If many players report identical crashes in the same scene, menu, or graphics option, that’s valuable evidence of a game-side bug. Capture the crash time, settings, hardware, and reproduction steps, then send that information to the developer rather than posting only that the game is broken.
The strongest final profile is usually not the one with every slider on Low. It’s the one that holds a predictable cap, leaves enough VRAM for streaming, avoids overlays, and keeps frame times level. Once Good PC is stable, raise textures first, then medium-cost effects one at a time. Stop when the frame-time graph starts spiking. Smooth 60 FPS beats an unstable 100 FPS every time, and that distinction is what turns these fixes from placebo into a genuinely better PC experience.