How to Fix Lag Spikes has maybe five realistic causes. The list below is ordered by how often each one turns out to be the answer.

If you are short on time, the first section alone is usually enough. If it broke right after an update, the update is the suspect until proven otherwise. Anti-virus software quietly interferes with more games than its reputation suggests. Corrupted shader caches produce dramatic symptoms and clear in seconds.

The summary

Disable overlays and background capture tools before anything else; they cause more of these reports than the game does.

If it is still broken

If it works for other people on the same version, the cause is local by definition. The version you are running matters more than the platform you are running it on. Check whether the service is down before spending an hour on your own machine.

The error message is often accurate and rarely helpful, which is a frustrating combination. A corrupted cache produces symptoms that look nothing like a corrupted cache.

Check these first

A second user account on the same machine isolates configuration problems in one step. Confirming that how to fix lag spikes is not a server-side problem takes thirty seconds and saves an evening. Driver updates fix this often enough to be worth trying, and break it often enough to be worth noting first. Treat the numbers as a guideline; your exact result depends on your setup and current version.

  • Check the launcher settings as well as the in-game ones.
  • Set aside enough time to finish, since stopping halfway causes most of the confusion.
  • Free up disk space if the drive is close to full.
  • Test with a clean profile or new save to isolate the cause.
  • Keep a spare loadout for the attempts that go badly.

Isolating the cause

Two people can follow identical steps and get different results purely because of when they started. The fix for how to fix lag spikes is usually trivial; finding it is not, which is what this shortens. Reverting one change at a time is slower than reverting everything and far more informative.

A problem that survives a full reinstall was never in the installation. The error text for how to fix lag spikes is accurate and unhelpful at the same time, which is a frustrating combination.

What changed recently

Network problems and server problems look identical from your side, which is why the status page comes first. Peripherals cause a surprising share of launch failures, and unplugging is a fast test. Rushing the setup is the single most reliable way to spend longer overall. Symptoms that appear only after several minutes usually point at heat or memory rather than the game.

Overlays from other applications cause more of these problems than anything the game does. Community threads are useful for identifying the pattern and unreliable for the fix itself.

When it is not your problem at all

Almost every case of how to fix lag spikes traces back to something that changed in the last week. Bookmarking the exact step you stopped at saves more time than remembering the whole guide. People reporting how to fix lag spikes have usually already tried the obvious restart. Anything that started after a Windows or system update deserves suspicion in that direction.

Things that waste the most time

  • Applying six fixes at once and never learning which one worked.
  • Leaving mods enabled while insisting the base game is broken.
  • Skipping the preparation step because it looks boring, then repeating the hard part four times.
  • Reinstalling first and losing an hour to a problem a restart would have fixed.
  • Changing several settings at once, then having no idea which one helped.

Frequently asked questions

Is any of this reversible?

Nearly all of it. Anything that is not is flagged in the steps, and there is normally a safer alternative worth considering first.

Is my save at risk?

Rarely from the steps above. Verifying files and clearing caches leave saves alone, though backing up first costs nothing.

Do I need to finish the story first?

No, though a few things are simpler afterwards. Where progression matters, the relevant step says so.

Why do other guides say something different?

Most of them describe an earlier version, and a few describe a method that worked once and was never re-tested.

The method above is deliberately unexciting, which is exactly why it keeps working.