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- Fix stuttering and crashing by verifying your game files, installing Easy Anti-Cheat, and updating drivers.
- Check your antivirus and disable Ray Tracing as well as DLSS to ensure a stable gaming experience.
After numerous beta tests, The First Descendant is finally live on PC and consoles. Naturally, there are some performance issues and errors that are plaguing early adopters. Crashes prevent you from entering the game while stutters make it near unplayable. We’ve taken a deep dive and explored a variety of solutions to make the game run better on our machines and these solutions should help you get back into the action.
Our best fixes to resolve crashes and stuttering
The game has had a rocky launch so far, with broken microtransactions in addition to stutters and crashing errors. Here are some solutions that should minimize the odds of facing crashes and stuttering in The First Descendant:
- Verify the integrity of your game files to fix crashes on PC
- Manually install Easy Anti-Cheat to resolve ‘Easy Anti-Cheat is not installed’ error
- Update your graphic card drivers to fix ‘preparing shaders’ error
- Disable Ray Tracing and DLSS to resolve ‘Out of Video Memory’ and ‘black screen’ error
- Ensure that your antivirus program isn’t interfering with the game
Verify the integrity of your game files to fix crashes on PC
This is usually a good first step to follow when you encounter game crashes. Here’s how you can verify the integrity of game files on Steam:
- Right-click The First Descendant on Steam and select ‘Properties’.
- Here, head over to the ‘Installed Files’ tab and you’ll find the ‘Verify integrity of game files’ option to the right.
- This will trigger an automatic check and will re-download any missing game files that may have been skipped while downloading/updating the game earlier.
Manually install Easy Anti-Cheat to resolve ‘Easy Anti-Cheat is not installed’ error
This issue doesn’t affect most users but if you’re struggling to play the game due to an anti-cheat error, you can reinstall this portion of the game yourself. You don’t need an additional download. Here’s how you can manually install Easy Anti-Cheat:
- Simply head to ‘C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\The First Descendant\EasyAntiCheat’. Replace ‘C:’ with which drive you’ve installed the game in.
- Here, the EasyAntiCheat_EOS_Setup file will let you install this service.
- Remember to run it as an Administrator to ensure it has access to admin-level privileges during installation.
Update your graphic card drivers to fix ‘preparing shaders’ error
Nvidia’s new 556.12 update includes improvements specifically for The First Descendant so Nvidia GPU owners should definitely update their drivers. You can do so by heading to the GeForce Experience application, picking Drivers, and then selecting the ‘Check for updates’ option. The same goes for AMD and Intel graphics card users via AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition and Intel Arc Control. This will ensure that your machines are up to date and are getting the best performance in newer games. Both AMD and NVD have had graphics driver updates recently, which could very well be the reason why’re having as many troubles as you are currently having.
Disable Ray Tracing and DLSS to resolve ‘Out of Video Memory’ and ‘black screen’ errors
‘Out of Video Memory’ or ‘black screen’ errors mean your graphics card isn’t keeping up with the game at the settings you have chosen. Even if you meet the system requirements for the game, disabling Ray Tracing should be your first step as it’s a particularly demanding feature. And while Nvidia’s DLSS tech normally improves performance via upscaling, a bug in the service seems to be causing the opposite effect. Disabling both of these should give you a noticeable boost in performance. In addition, you can use the Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc) to close programs running in the background. The other big memory eaters are the textures and spell effects of the game. Try to run down the effects and main textures to lower the amount of memory being used by your graphics card. This is especially the case with Nvidia cards, since it seems like NVD cards are not being properly utilised at the moment. AMD cards don’t seem to be suffering based on our tests as the Adrenalin Software does show 99% utilisation of graphics cards.
Ensure that your antivirus program isn’t interfering with the game
According to a blog post from the developers, some players using Bitdefender and McAfee Agent antivirus programs are facing client termination issues after being blocked by their respective firewalls. Here’s how you can resolve them:
- If you’re using Bitdefender, head to ‘System Protection’ and then ‘Advanced Threat Detection (ATD’’.
- In the ‘Manage Exclusions’ menu, select the file or folder that has The First Descendant, and press save.
- And if you’re using McAfee, go to ‘McAfee Security’ and then ‘Navigation’.
- In the ‘Quarantined and Trusted Items’ section, select ‘TheFirstDescendant.exe’ from the quarantined programs list and then restore it.
