How to fix No Man’s Sky’s massive performance issues

MyGaming recently reported on the somewhat tumultuous launch of No Man’s Sky on PC.

While opinion is split on the game itself, there can be no denying that technically it is a bit of a mess, with everything from hard crashes to terrible pop-in rendering ruining the game for many.

That’s why we took a look at some fixes to solve these issues and help you enjoy No Man’s Sky:

Have you checked your specifications?

It seems obvious, but while your “beast” of a PC may have been decimating games in the past, it could also be getting a little long in the tooth.

You may just need to bomb in more RAM or finally make the jump from Windows Vista.

Check out the game’s minimum specifications below:

OS: Windows 7/8.1/10 (64-bit versions)
Processor: Intel Core i3
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: nVidia GTX 480, AMD Radeon 7870
Storage: 10 GB available space
*Requires OpenGL 4.5, Intel cards are not supported.
*Core 2 CPUs and below are not supported

Framerate issues

While developer Sean Murray has promised that a patch is on the way to fix the game’s framerate issues, there is one strange way to fix these problems – keep playing.

According to RockPaperShotgun, playing the game for a longer amount of times seems to reduce some of the hitching and freezing.

Lowering the game’s generation details also reportedly helps with framerate issues, as does disabling G-Sync.

Fiddling with other typical video settings (like v-sync and anti-aliasing) should also improve your performance, although your mileage may vary.

Crackling sound

If you are experincing sound issues, including a loud crackling noise, you may need to change your quality settings in your sound panel.

Navigate to sound in your Control Panel or right-click the speaker in your system tray.

Right-click your outputting speakers, select properties and then select the “Advanced tab”.

From the top drop-down list select  pick “16 bit, 48000 Hz (DVD Quality)”.

Experiment

Hello Games is currently rolling out experimental patches that seem to fix the game in some ways, but also break it in others.

This means trying them out can be awfully risky as they could break saves, create new issues, or revert your progress.

If you are willing to take the risk you can activate the the Experimental beta testing by right-clicking on No Man’s Sky in Steam, selecting “BETAS” and then selecting “3xperimental”.

This should begin downloading the new updates automatically.

Don’t Alt-Tab

No Man’s Sky does not appear to allow for alt-tabbing out of the game while in full-screen mode at all.

Fortunately, this doesn’t necessarily mean you have lost all of your progress and provided the game hasn’t exited completely, you should still be able to salvage it through Task Manager.

First head to Task Manager (CTRL+ALT+DEL), find and then right-click on No Man’s Sky and then select bring to front.

Head to Steam and re-launch the game or GOG Galaxy and launch from there. The game will appear to launch again but will just bring you back to your old window.

This issue should be addressed in the upcoming patch.

If all else fails

You may just need to sit tight, as Hello Games has promised lots of patches and post-game support coming in the near future.

We also recommend updating to the latest hardware drivers and making sure that your antivirus and/or firewall are not interfering with the game.

Alternatively you can contact them directly (although please be nice) at [email protected].

Are you having any technical issues with No Man’s Sky? Let us know in the comments below and in our forums.

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