Stray: How To Fix Lagging and Freezing | Black Screen Fix 2023

Oh, to be a cat meowing through a post-apocalyptic world. In July 2022, Stray, a cat adventure third-person cyberpunk video game, was launched by indie game devs by the name of BlueTwelve Studio and Annapurna Interactive for PlayStation & Windows. In the game, a ‘Stray’ cat goes on a journey through a series of puzzles to get back to where it belongs. 

The game needs a sufficient hardware setup to run at full resolution and at a higher frame rate. The majority of PC games employ it because they are performance-intensive. In this article, we’ll walk you through the fixes you can try out to have an enjoyable experience when playing Stray. 

Several problems, including stuttering, are being experienced by certain Stray PC gamers. It may be a serious problem for some PCs, depending on the compatibility aspect. Therefore, it’s preferable to solve the issue so you can play the game at a respectable FPS level. There could be a number of causes for this problem.

Stray Stuttering & Lagging Fix:

This list may contain the game’s screen resolution and pretty much any visual effects ranging from the maximum frame rate to texture quality that needs additional graphics or resources. Accordingly, depending on the resolution and quality of the game you’re playing, you can try the techniques below to eliminate lag or frame drops to some extent, in addition to frames per second.

1. Going Full Screen

To improve frames per second and have a game run smoothly, especially stray: You have to run the game in full screen, but if the game doesn’t launch or is freezing a lot, then you need to put in a launch code in order to force the game to run in fullscreen mode automatically. Here’s how: 

• Right-click on Stray (can be found in Steam → Library)
• Select Properties > On the General tab, you’ll find Launch Options.
• Type in “-fullscreen” Close.

2. Update Graphics Drivers

Oftentimes, new-generation games such as Stray cannot run on a graphics driver that is outdated. To update your graphic driver, follow these steps: 

• Right-click on the start menu & go to device manager.
• Double-click the Display adapters tab, and you’ll find your graphic card named there.
• Right-click on it, choose update driver and then automatically search for an updated version of your driver.

Depending on how outdated your driver is, the most recent version will be downloaded & installed automatically.

3. Running Stray As Administrator

Running steam & it’s game as administrator automatically fixes many problems PC gamers face with new-age games. 

• If there is a stray.exe on your desktop, right-click it & choose properties
• Go to the compatibility tab, where you will find a “run as administrator” option
• Check the box & close it.

4. Going High Priority

When you set a game to high priority, windows works overtime to make sure no other tasks are given as much usage & the computer is in game mode. 

• Press ctrl-alt-del & then open task manager.
• Open the processes tab through clicking right clicking “Stray”.
• Choose & set priority to “High” or real-time.
• Close & restart the game.

5. Verifying Game Files

Often times when Stray is not working, it’s because the installation process is messed up and the files are corrupted. To check this, you need to verify the installed files. Here’s how:

• Find Stray in your steam library & right-click it.
• From there, select properties & and go to “local files”
• Select verify integrity of game files and let the process happen.
• Once it’s done, restart your computer & run Stray!

6. Set A Frame Rate Limit

Stuttering won’t go away if a frame rate limit is set, but it might become less obvious. With its built-in frame rate limiter set to 60 frames per second, Stray significantly reduces stuttering that may be felt while playing. You can adjust a frame rate restriction outside of the game if you have a high refresh rate display and would like a few more frames,

Open the Nvidia Control Panel, choose Manage 3D settings, and scroll down to Max frame rate under the Global settings tab if you have an Nvidia GPU. AMD is equally simple. Open Radeon Software, select Graphics from the Parameters menu, click the Advanced button to reveal the settings, and then search for Frame rate target control. In the same menu, the Radeon setting allows you to adjust the frame rate as well.

During the time I personally spent playing the game, Stray’s frame rate was far from consistent. As new spaces and outside scenes can result in significant drops, I advise being cautious when setting your limiter.

7. Flush Your Shader Cache

Finally, you can enable your shader cache to lessen Stray’s stuttering. You can choose to give the shader cache on Nvidia GPUs as much space as it requires in the Nvidia Control Panel. Open it up, select Manage 3D settings, and change Shader cache size to Unlimited under Global settings.

If you want to give Stray more room, you can flush your shader cache even if AMD users don’t have the same option. Locate the Reset shader cache option under Settings > Graphics > Advanced in Radeon Software. Select it, then press Apply.

8. Change GPU Settings

Sometimes changing the 3d settings in Nvidia or whatever graphic card you use does wonders. Stray is a GPU-extensive game, and it relies on the 3d settings of the graphic card to perform well. Here are what GPU settings you can opt for:

• For Nvidia
• Open up Nvidia’s Control Panel > Right-click on the desktop screen.
• Go to manage 3d settings

To set these settings for all games, just continue globally, or add Stray through “add a program”. 

• Maximum Pre-rendered frames: 2
• Power Management: Prefer Maximum Performance
• Note: You should have ultimate performance enabled in power plan settings.
• Texture Filtering – Quality: Performance

9. Disabling Full-Screen Optimization

Sometimes the default settings of windows have full-screen optimization and dpi settings enabled, which can cause lag & stutter in Stray. To fix this:

• Locate Stray game directory.
• Right-click on the Stray.exe file.
• Go to properties and then the compatibility tab
• Checkmark the ‘Disable Full-Screen Optimizations’ box.
• You’ll also find a “Change high DPI setting” tab; open it.
• Checkmark the ‘Override high DPI scaling behaviour’
• Click on Apply and then OK to save changes.

9. Update Stray

Since Stray has come out, the devs have constantly pushed out updates on Steam so the game can run smoother on several different computer builds. If Stray was working for you in the past, but isn’t working now. Go to steam and update the game so everything is how it should be. To do this, follow these simple steps:

Go to steam → library → locate Stray → click it 

If you see an update button where the play button previously was, there’s an update waiting for you. Click the Update button & let steam continue with the installation process in the background. Put steam in the background and do some chores while the game updates. Once it’s updated, reboot your computer & play it. It should be working for you now! 

Conclusion:

Getting Stray to work properly has been a struggle for many, but this guide has helped out many in the past, and hopefully, it will continue to do so in the future! That’s it for today. Partake in the beauty Stray has to offer & be sure to comment which fix worked best for you!