How to improve PC performance in Valheim

Boost Valheim.

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

WhileValheimhas sold millions of copies in record time, the game is still very much an Early Access title. That means there are plenty ofValheim bugsthat you’ll come across in your travels, even if most of them aren’t game-breaking. One that’s most annoying, however, is the strangely-low performance of the game. Given the pseudo-PS1 style visuals of the game, it’s a bit surprising to see even thebest gaming PCsrun it so poorly. Thankfully, you can do a few easy things to improve the game’s performance while developer Iron Gate Studio works on optimizing the game during the Early Access period.

How to improve Valheim performance with Vulkan

As of the February 25, 2021 update (version 0.146.8), Valheim officially supports the Vulkan API. If you’re not familiar with coding APIs, know this about Vulkan: it’s a modern coding architecture designed to run more efficiently than older APIs. That means, on most PCs, using Vulkan should significantly improve performance without affecting visual quality. Just the opposite, in fact! Running Vulkan normally means you can crank up the graphics even higher while maintaining a playable framerate.

For note, this change will work better on some hardware than others. On my laptop, which runs an Intel Core-i7 6700HQ processor, 16GB RAM, and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M, Valheim normally runs between 22 and 24 FPS average on medium-high settings at 1080p resolution. Switching over to Vulkan without changing any settings brought that performance up to 30-32 FPS average.

Conversely, on my desktop computer, which runs an Intel Core-i7 8700k, 16GB RAM, and an NVIDIA GeForce 1080Ti, Valheim normally runs 28-30FPS on the highest settings at 4k resolution. Switching over to Vulkan doubled my framerate to 60FPS average without adjusting any settings.

Fixing terraforming slow-downs in Valheim

Terraforming, or changing the height of the land in Valheim, used to create unnecessary slowdown when a lot of land was changed in a small area. If you’ve been playing a while and have built a massive base, you no doubt have experienced lower framerates. Valheim version 0.150.3 introduced a new way to change up the landscape that doesn’t affect performance like it used to, but maps aren’t automatically converted over to the new system. In order to that you’ll need to issue one simple command that’ll get it done. Here’s how to do that:

Any terrain changes made after the version 0.150.3 patch will use this new optimized version of terraforming, so you’ll only need to run this command once on any worlds created prior to version 0.150.3.

Other ways of improving performance in Valheim

Some players have reported that running Vulkan either doesn’t improve performance much or at all. Others, still, have reported that running Valheim using Vulkan makes the game more unstable. If you’re having issues with Vulkan and need to stick with the original rendering API, here are a few ways to improve performance in that mode.

Get the Windows Central Newsletter

All the latest news, reviews, and guides for Windows and Xbox diehards.

Optimizing Windows settings

With the latest releases, Microsoft has added some new generic performance improvements within Windows that could actually help Valheim players see higher framerates in the game. Not all computers will have the ability to use the hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling option, but you should enable it if your computer supports it.

Optimizing hidden Valheim settings

Some additional hidden graphics settings can be changed within Valheim’s configuration files, found in the Valheim installation directory. If you’re not comfortable with adjusting configuration files, feel free to skip this section. Playerson Redditwho have adjusted these settings have found that framerates drastically increase in the game without affecting visual details at all.

Once you have the boot.config file open in Notepad, make the following adjustments:

Now that the settings have been added head back to Steam.

Try playing in exclusive windowed mode

Some players find that full-screen games don’t perform as well as windowed ones. You can enable this special exclusive windowed mode option by adding one simple command to the Steam launcher by following these steps:

Enjoy playing a far smoother-running Valheim! Just keep in mind that you might not see a massive increase in performance even if you enact all of the changes made here. Don’t worry though, as developer Iron Gate Studio is working hard to optimize Valheim for all sorts of configurations and make it thebest survival game on PC.

Early Access doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try it

Valheim is an early access survival game that has you living the life of a Viking stuck between Earth and Valhalla. Will you make it to see paradise?

Nick started with DOS and NES and uses those fond memories of floppy disks and cartridges to fuel his opinions on modern tech. Whether it’s VR, smart home gadgets, or something else that beeps and boops, he’s been writing about it since 2011. Reach him on Twitter or Instagram @Gwanatu