![Steam forum reply by Priscilla, flagged [developer], listing six steps for UE crash errors including adding -dx11 as a launch parameter](/media/evidence/dev-reply-crash-fix-list.webp)
The fix list the developers never put in a patch note
The single most useful thing published about this game’s crashes is a forum reply. On 1 August a Bellring account flagged [developer] by Steam answered a thread titled “Freezing on startup” with a six-step list for “the UE crash errors occurring during gameplay”, and said it should resolve them for the vast majority of users on Intel or NVIDIA hardware. It has never appeared in an announcement, a patch note or a support page, which is why most players hitting the crash have never seen it. The order below is theirs.
- Step 4 is not free. The Steam store page lists DirectX 12 at both requirement tiers, so “-dx11” runs the game off its shipped target, and in the same thread family a player reports that forcing DirectX 11 cut the crashes but introduced long freezes. Treat it as a trade rather than a fix, and try it after the first three.
- A second player, on 30 July, says a DirectX 11 shortcut was the only thing that helped them at all. Two reports pointing the same way is why it is on this page rather than in the discard pile at the bottom.
- If none of it works, the same reply points at the official Discord for a one-to-one ticket. That is the developers’ own escalation path, not ours.
| Step | What they say to do | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Update your graphics driver to the latest official stable version | The only step with no downside. Do it first. |
| 2 | Disable AI frame interpolation in the NVIDIA app | NVIDIA Smooth Motion. The unbadged staff post in June named this one too, so it is the fix that appears twice. |
| 3 | Disable Intel AI Boost in Device Manager | Their own post says this applies only to some Intel CPUs. |
| 4 | Add “-dx11” as a Steam launch parameter | Steam → right-click the game → Properties → launch options. See the caveat below: this one has a documented cost. |
| 5 | Step ray tracing down, turn vertical sync off, lower graphics quality | Overlaps the settings table further down, and every outlet agrees on the ray tracing half. |
| 6 | Disable the Steam overlay | Last in their order, and the cheapest to undo if it changes nothing. |
1
- What they say to do
- Update your graphics driver to the latest official stable version
- Notes
- The only step with no downside. Do it first.
2
- What they say to do
- Disable AI frame interpolation in the NVIDIA app
- Notes
- NVIDIA Smooth Motion. The unbadged staff post in June named this one too, so it is the fix that appears twice.
3
- What they say to do
- Disable Intel AI Boost in Device Manager
- Notes
- Their own post says this applies only to some Intel CPUs.
4
- What they say to do
- Add “-dx11” as a Steam launch parameter
- Notes
- Steam → right-click the game → Properties → launch options. See the caveat below: this one has a documented cost.
5
- What they say to do
- Step ray tracing down, turn vertical sync off, lower graphics quality
- Notes
- Overlaps the settings table further down, and every outlet agrees on the ray tracing half.
6
- What they say to do
- Disable the Steam overlay
- Notes
- Last in their order, and the cheapest to undo if it changes nothing.
Why it stutters for the first few matches and then stops
The most common performance complaint about this game is not a low frame rate — it is micro-stutter during combat and traversal, reported on hardware far above the recommended tier, including 5090 and 9800X3D machines. The best-supported explanation is Unreal Engine shader precompilation, and the strongest evidence for it is that Bellring uses that exact phrase themselves: DevNote #7 lists “loading stutters caused by Unreal Engine shader precompilation” among the things they resolved before launch. Players in the launch-week threads describe the same arc — bad for the first session, noticeably better after a restart and several matches.
- This is why “it got better on its own” and “it is still broken” are both true reports from different players on the same build. The first ones have finished compiling and the second ones have not.
- It is not universal. Owners of a 5070 Ti and a 4060 report no stutter at all, which is the detail that rules out a simple hardware threshold.
- Bellring said on 4 August that stuttering and latency reports were under investigation, and the 7 August server notice said the in-stage causes are complex and being worked case by case with no one-shot fix promised. So this is acknowledged and open, not fixed.
- The live status of each individual report is tracked on the known issues page rather than here — this page is what you can do about it, that one is what is broken.
Four settings guides, and the one row they split on
Four outlets published a settings table for this game inside ten days. On most rows they agree completely, which is worth more than any single recommendation — and on the frame rate cap they split three to one. Every other Mistfall Hunter settings page you will find picks one of these and reprints it without saying that the others exist.
- The cap is the row that matters and the split is not even. Three of the four cap at 60, the staff-voiced June post said to limit the frame rate to 60 or 120, and the dissenter tested on an i9-14900HX with an RTX 4080 averaging 140 frames — which is to say the one guide that says you do not need a cap is the one whose machine did not need one.
- GAMES.GG states the reason in a sentence worth keeping: 60 with no hitches plays far better than 90 that drops unpredictably. This game’s parries and dodges are timing windows, so pacing beats peak.
- Frame generation is the second disagreement and it points the same way: two say off, one says 2x. Generated frames add latency, and the thing you are timing is a parry.
- Destructoid alone recommends turning GPU crash debugging on. It is an Unreal diagnostic rather than a performance option and no other source suggests it, so it is listed here for completeness and left out of the checklist.
| Setting | Destructoid (29 Jul) | Game Rant (30 Jul) | GAMES.GG (30 Jul) | KeenGamer (7 Aug) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frame rate limit | 60 | Unlimited | 60 | 60 as a baseline, test upward |
| Ray tracing | Off | Off | Off | Off |
| Shadow quality | Low | Low | Low | Low |
| Motion blur | Off | Off | Off | Off |
| Anti-aliasing | FSR (AMD) / TSR (NVIDIA) | DLSS (NVIDIA) / FSR (AMD) | FSR / TSR | DLSS / FSR / TSR |
| Upscaler mode | Balance or Performance | Balanced | Balance | Balanced |
| Frame generation | Off | 2x | Not stated | Off |
| View distance | Moderate / High | High or Epic | Moderate or High | Moderate or High |
| Post-processing | Moderate | Low | Moderate | Low or Moderate |
| Global illumination | Moderate | Low or Medium | Moderate | Low or Moderate |
| Texture quality | Low / Moderate | By VRAM: 6GB Med, 8GB High, 12GB+ Epic | Not stated | By available GPU memory |
Frame rate limit
- Destructoid (29 Jul)
- 60
- Game Rant (30 Jul)
- Unlimited
- GAMES.GG (30 Jul)
- 60
- KeenGamer (7 Aug)
- 60 as a baseline, test upward
Ray tracing
- Destructoid (29 Jul)
- Off
- Game Rant (30 Jul)
- Off
- GAMES.GG (30 Jul)
- Off
- KeenGamer (7 Aug)
- Off
Shadow quality
- Destructoid (29 Jul)
- Low
- Game Rant (30 Jul)
- Low
- GAMES.GG (30 Jul)
- Low
- KeenGamer (7 Aug)
- Low
Motion blur
- Destructoid (29 Jul)
- Off
- Game Rant (30 Jul)
- Off
- GAMES.GG (30 Jul)
- Off
- KeenGamer (7 Aug)
- Off
Anti-aliasing
- Destructoid (29 Jul)
- FSR (AMD) / TSR (NVIDIA)
- Game Rant (30 Jul)
- DLSS (NVIDIA) / FSR (AMD)
- GAMES.GG (30 Jul)
- FSR / TSR
- KeenGamer (7 Aug)
- DLSS / FSR / TSR
Upscaler mode
- Destructoid (29 Jul)
- Balance or Performance
- Game Rant (30 Jul)
- Balanced
- GAMES.GG (30 Jul)
- Balance
- KeenGamer (7 Aug)
- Balanced
Frame generation
- Destructoid (29 Jul)
- Off
- Game Rant (30 Jul)
- 2x
- GAMES.GG (30 Jul)
- Not stated
- KeenGamer (7 Aug)
- Off
View distance
- Destructoid (29 Jul)
- Moderate / High
- Game Rant (30 Jul)
- High or Epic
- GAMES.GG (30 Jul)
- Moderate or High
- KeenGamer (7 Aug)
- Moderate or High
Post-processing
- Destructoid (29 Jul)
- Moderate
- Game Rant (30 Jul)
- Low
- GAMES.GG (30 Jul)
- Moderate
- KeenGamer (7 Aug)
- Low or Moderate
Global illumination
- Destructoid (29 Jul)
- Moderate
- Game Rant (30 Jul)
- Low or Medium
- GAMES.GG (30 Jul)
- Moderate
- KeenGamer (7 Aug)
- Low or Moderate
Texture quality
- Destructoid (29 Jul)
- Low / Moderate
- Game Rant (30 Jul)
- By VRAM: 6GB Med, 8GB High, 12GB+ Epic
- GAMES.GG (30 Jul)
- Not stated
- KeenGamer (7 Aug)
- By available GPU memory
What all four agree on, which is the part to actually do
Strip out the disputed rows and what remains is unanimous across four independent hands-on tests, and it lines up with what the developers said in June. Ray tracing off, shadows low, motion blur off, upscaling on in balanced mode. Those four are the whole of the reliable advice, they cost nothing to try, and between them they cover the settings that load a GPU hardest.
- Shadows at low is a readability win as well as a performance one — two of the four make that argument explicitly, and this site’s settings guide reaches it from the other direction, that anything obscuring an attack tell is costing you loot.
- View distance is the row to spend on rather than save on. Both guides that explain themselves say it costs less than players expect and buys you the sight of someone approaching, which in an extraction game is the setting that pays.
- Install on an SSD. It is the only performance advice on the Steam store page itself, printed at both requirement tiers.
Crash fixes, ordered by how much anyone should trust them
Below the badged developer list, the reports thin out fast. These are worth trying in this order, and the order is by how well attested each one is rather than by how likely it sounds. Nothing in this section is a fix the publisher has confirmed.
- The ASLR change is a Windows-wide security setting, not a game setting. It is the one item on this page that touches something outside the game, which is a reason to leave it until the cheaper steps have failed.
- Game Pass players are hitting a different wall. Fatal Error after the Unreal Engine logo, and stuck-on-connecting, are tracked separately as open community-watch items with no verified workaround.
| Fix | Who says so | How well attested |
|---|---|---|
| Turn Mandatory ASLR off — Windows Security › App & browser control › Exploit protection › Force randomization for images › Off by default, then restart | A staff-voiced Steam post with no [developer] badge, June 2026 | Claimed to resolve it for most players hitting that exact error — but posted during the June playtest, six weeks before launch, on a build that was then wiped |
| Run the game in DirectX 11 | The badged developer list, plus two players independently | Best attested of the community-side fixes, and the only one with a reported downside: long freezes |
| Disable NVIDIA Smooth Motion | Both the badged post and the staff-voiced one | The only step that appears in two separate publisher-side posts |
| Use a Windows username with no accented characters | One player, 30 July 2026 | One post, no corroboration, no reply confirming it worked for anyone else. Listed because it is specific and falsifiable, not because it is likely |
Turn Mandatory ASLR off — Windows Security › App & browser control › Exploit protection › Force randomization for images › Off by default, then restart
- Who says so
- A staff-voiced Steam post with no [developer] badge, June 2026
- How well attested
- Claimed to resolve it for most players hitting that exact error — but posted during the June playtest, six weeks before launch, on a build that was then wiped
Run the game in DirectX 11
- Who says so
- The badged developer list, plus two players independently
- How well attested
- Best attested of the community-side fixes, and the only one with a reported downside: long freezes
Disable NVIDIA Smooth Motion
- Who says so
- Both the badged post and the staff-voiced one
- How well attested
- The only step that appears in two separate publisher-side posts
Use a Windows username with no accented characters
- Who says so
- One player, 30 July 2026
- How well attested
- One post, no corroboration, no reply confirming it worked for anyone else. Listed because it is specific and falsifiable, not because it is likely
What this page will not tell you
Every settings guide for this game is competing on confidence, and the honest position is that a good deal of what circulates cannot be checked. Four things were considered for this page and left off it, and saying which is more useful than quietly padding the list.
- No frame-rate gain is attached to any single setting anywhere in this page, because no published source measured one. A guide telling you a setting is worth “up to 30 FPS” has invented that number.
- The 60 cap is presented as a three-to-one split rather than as settled, because it is one. No player has posted saying the cap fixed their stutter — the case for it is four journalists and a staff post, which is a different and weaker thing than a reproduction.
- Claims that the kernel-level anti-cheat breaks overlay and monitoring tools trace back to a vendor page that cannot be read, so there is nothing here to cite either way.
- Network “boosters” and VPN products are absent on purpose. Most of the pages recommending them sell one, and the developers explicitly said they published no workaround for the server-side lag.