How to Solve Dota 2 FPS Drops and Game Crash
Dota 2 is one of the most popular eSports titles, and it is also one of the most popular MOBA games. While the primary reason for its popularity is that it provides an enjoyable competitive gaming experience, another major reason is its accessibility. Dota 2 is one of the easiest games to run. You can get decent performance even from really old laptops or gaming PCs. However, frequent FPS drops and game crashes are very common.
Imagine that you are playing Dota 2, your team is fully farmed, is in the lead, and is about to destroy the enemy Ancient but all of a sudden, your game crashes. This can be a super frustrating thing. FPS drops also cause tons of issues in a critical situation like in the middle of a critical fight. Here we aim to present an extensive picture of how to solve Dota 2 FPS drops and game crashes.
Fixing FPS Drops and Game Crashes for Dota 2 – The Basics
Framerate drops, stuttering, and came crashes are issues that have to deal with the performance of your computer or laptop. Here are all the basic fixes that you can try to fix the framerate drops, game crashes, or any other performance issues that you are experiencing in Dota 2.
System Requirements
As we have already mentioned, Dota 2 is not one of those games that are difficult to run. It is highly unlikely that you are experiencing performance issues due to your computer or laptop not meeting the system requirements for Dota 2. However, it may be so for some of the older laptops, so it is better to check whether your computer meets the system requirements for Dota 2, so you can cross it out from the list of potential issues.
Dota 2 Recommended System Requirements:
Operating System: Windows 7 64-bit
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E7400 2.8 GHz or better / AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 5600+ or better
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GTS 512MB or better / AMD Radeon HD 2600 Pro or better
RAM: 4 GB
Available Space: 15 GB
Network: Broadband Internet Connection
Direct X: Version 9.0c
While these system requirements work fine for most people, they should be taken with a grain of salt. This is because regular updates for the game and hardware components may cause you to experience some stuttering even if you meet the recommended system requirements. That said, it is always best to have better specs than what is recommended, which helps you get even more performance with a much lower chance of FPS drops and game crashes. One thing that we recommend is getting at least 8 GB or 16 GB of RAM.
Exclusive Fullscreen Mode
The most common thing that causes a drop in performance is that gamers forget to make sure that they are running the game on the exclusive fullscreen mode. It is quite common that gamers accidentally start playing Dota 2 on the borderless windowed or the windowed mode without even knowing how much of a performance dip it is causing. So it is best to make sure that you are running the game on the "Exclusive Fullscreen Mode".
Resolution
Even if you meet or exceed the recommended system requirements for Dota 2, it does not mean that you can start playing the game at 4k resolution. This is because the recommended system requirements are made for 1080p which is the most commonly used resolution used by PC gamers. A higher resolution means that your graphics card will need to render much more pixels, which will, in turn, cause tons of stress on it. If all the resources of your graphics card are being allocated towards resolution then there will be little to no performance left for pushing out more frames.
On a higher resolution not only will your average FPS be lower, but the framerate drops will also be much more significant. For example, if you are getting around 140 FPS, then a drop of 5, or even 10, fps is not that significant, but if all you are getting is 45 FPS, then a drop of only 5 FPS will be enough to hinder your in-game performance. Hence, you should make sure that you are not running the game anything over 1080p. If you are playing the game on 4k or 1440p, then lowering the resolution will get you a serious performance boost, resulting in less frequent framerate drops and game crashes.
However, if your computer does not meet the system requirements for Dota 2 then you might need to lower your resolution even more. This is a great trick for gamers that use an old laptop as their primary gaming device. This is because laptops usually have a small screen on which a 720p resolution does not feel like a major downgrade in terms of sharpness. Even if you play on a large monitor, try reducing your resolution to 720p to see if it’s playable. It will certainly lower the frequency of framerate drops.
Graphics Settings
Right after the resolution, the next thing that you can adjust is the graphics settings. Just like resolution, meeting the recommended system requirements for a game does not automatically mean that you can start playing on Ultra Graphics Settings. Just like higher resolutions, high graphics also requires tons of resources from your graphics card. If your card is too busy trying to create an image with high graphics, there will be no performance left for the framerate.
If you are experiencing frequent framerate drops and crashes in Dota 2, you should try lowering your graphics settings. This applies to all gamers regardless of their specifications. Lower the graphics settings to the point that the game does not look too bad, and you also get good performance.
Background Applications
When you are trying to squeeze the maximum performance from your gaming system, allocating some of the system resources to other unnecessary applications is not a great idea. People unknowingly do this quite often and run tons of applications in the background while playing games. Playing a highly competitive game like Dota 2 where you can use all the performance you can get, you should not need to run tons of chrome tabs in the background. That's like driving a race car using half of the engine's horsepower to generate electricity for a house. It's counter-productive, to say the least.
While it will almost always cause framerate drops, you may even experience game crashes in Dota 2 if you are running too many background applications. It is best to close all applications that you are not using from the task manager. However, you should be careful while closing applications from the task manager by making sure that you do not accidentally close any applications that you don't know about. Some applications are necessary for Windows to function properly. Hence, only close those applications that you are sure you don't need running in the background. You don't have to worry about discord or TeamSpeak, as both these applications can be used without causing a significant performance drop while playing Dota 2.
Fixing FPS Drops and Game Crashes for Dota 2 – Other Fixes
Here are some of the more complicated fixes that not a lot of people know about.
Try verifying your game files. Corrupted game files may cause frequent game crashes.
Make sure that you are running on the latest hardware drivers. However, sometimes new hardware may cause even more FPS drops, so if that’s the case with you, try reverting to a previous version of drivers.
Developers for Dota 2 are constantly working to improve the game and release regular updates that fix most issues. So it is recommended that you make sure that have updated your game.
If you are playing Dota 2 on a laptop, make sure that you have the Best Performance option for the Power Plan.
Try setting your game to launch as high priority application. This may reduce framerate drops or game crashes.
Players usually don’t have performance issues with Dota 2, but it is quite common for players with very old laptops. Old laptops or low-end computers may cause performance issues but can be mitigated by lowering some of the graphics settings or the resolution. We have thoroughly tested all the fixes that we have mentioned here, and we have seen impressive results in terms of performance.
Applying any of these fixes resulted in either an FPS boost or a reduction in the frequency of framerate drops and game crashes. However, they are not a guaranteed fix as some other issue may be causing your framerate to drop or your game to crash. Try some of these fixes for a potential fix for the framerate drop issue or game crash issue that you are facing.
