Insane stuttering/constant freezes on Vic 3 (PLEASE HELP I REALLY WANNA PLAY VICTORIA 3)

[MrBubbsXD]

yo guys i have an insane stuttering issue on victoria 3, it goes away if i have a little tab open Infront of the game but i cant interact with the game, as soon as i tab back in it just becomes unplayable lag it isn't like a don't tab out issue its unplayable from the get go but it becomes magically playable if i even press the windows key the problem is i cant interact with the game i have tried verifying game files, changing graphics setting to absolute minimum with tiny resolutions, performance mods, updating all drivers, optimized windows installations, and MemReduct, this doesn't happen for me on any other PDX game I have thousands of hours on eu4 and hoi4 its just this game, has anyone else had this issue and how did you fix it?


These are my specs

 

[MrBubbsXD]

I have an insane stuttering issue on victoria 3, it goes away MAGICALLY if i have a little tab open Infront of the game but i cant interact with the game, as soon as i tab back in it just becomes unplayable lag it isn't like a don't tab out issue its unplayable from the get go but it becomes magically playable if i even press the windows key the problem is i cant interact with the game i have tried verifying game files, fully uninstalling (and removing all VIC3 documentation) then reinstalling, changing graphics setting to absolute minimum with tiny resolutions, performance mods, updating all drivers, optimized windows installations, and MemReduct, this doesn't happen for me on any other PDX game I have thousands of hours on eu4 and hoi4 its just this game, has anyone else had this issue and how did you fix it?


These are my specs

Computer Information:​

Manufacturer: HP
Model: Victus by HP Laptop 16-d1xxx
Form Factor: Laptop
No Touch Input Detected

Processor Information:​

CPU Vendor: GenuineIntel
CPU Brand: 12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-12700H
CPU Family: 0x6
CPU Model: 0x9a
CPU Stepping: 0x3
CPU Type: 0x0
Speed: 2688 MHz
20 logical processors
14 physical processors
Hyper-threading: Supported
FCMOV: Supported
SSE2: Supported
SSE3: Supported
SSSE3: Supported
SSE4a: Unsupported
SSE41: Supported
SSE42: Supported
AES: Supported
AVX: Supported
AVX2: Supported
AVX512F: Unsupported
AVX512PF: Unsupported
AVX512ER: Unsupported
AVX512CD: Unsupported
AVX512VNNI: Unsupported
SHA: Supported
CMPXCHG16B: Supported
LAHF/SAHF: Supported
PrefetchW: Unsupported
BMI1: Supported
BMI2: Supported
F16C: Supported
FMA: Supported

Operating System Version:​

Windows 11 (64 bit)
NTFS: Supported
Crypto Provider Codes: Supported 311 0x0 0x0 0x0

Client Information:​

Version: 1745876290
Browser GPU Acceleration Status: Enabled
Browser Canvas: Enabled
Browser Canvas out-of-process rasterization: Enabled
Browser Direct Rendering Display Compositor: Disabled
Browser Compositing: Enabled
Browser Multiple Raster Threads: Enabled
Browser OpenGL: Enabled
Browser Rasterization: Enabled
Browser Raw Draw: Disabled
Browser Skia Graphite: Disabled
Browser Video Decode: Enabled
Browser Video Encode: Enabled
Browser Vulkan: Disabled
Browser WebGL: Enabled
Browser WebGL2: Enabled
Browser WebGPU: Enabled
Browser WebNN: Disabled

Video Card:​

Driver: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Laptop GPU
DirectX Driver Name: nvldumd.dll
Driver Version: 32.0.15.7628
DirectX Driver Version: 32.0.15.7628
Driver Date: 4 27 2025
Desktop Color Depth: 32 bits per pixel
Monitor Refresh Rate: 144 Hz
DirectX Card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Laptop GPU
VendorID: 0x10de
DeviceID: 0x2520
Revision: 0xa1
Number of Monitors: 1
Number of Logical Video Cards: 1
No SLI or Crossfire Detected
Primary Display Resolution: 1920 x 1080
Desktop Resolution: 1920 x 1080
Primary Display Size: 13.98" x 7.83" (15.98" diag), 35.5cm x 19.9cm (40.6cm diag)
Primary Bus: PCI Express 8x
Primary VRAM: 6143 MB
Supported MSAA Modes: 2x 4x 8x

Sound card:​

Audio device: Headset (EarPods)

Memory:​

RAM: 16051 Mb

VR Hardware:​

VR Headset: None detected

Miscellaneous:​

UI Language: English
Media Type: Undetermined
Total Hard Disk Space Available: 975473 MB
Largest Free Hard Disk Block: 261697 MB
OS Install Date: Apr 06 2025
Game Controller: None detected
MAC Address hash: 7e470dfcc150fe0f6d73c579af728f960b98e8b5

Storage:​

Disk serial number hash: af7ebad2
Number of SSDs: 1
SSD sizes: 1024G
Number of HDDs: 0
Number of removable drives: 0
Compare Your HardwareClose

 

[AndrewT]

Right click on victoria3.exe , properties, compatibility. Tick "disable fullScreen optimisations" untick every other box in that dialog, Apply and exit.
Then in the launcher Game Settings menu, select fullScreen display mode, Vsync off, cap refresh rate at 60.

If those don't help:
DXDIAG is a program you run from the Windows search box on the task bar. After running it will open a window and start collecting info with a progress bar in the lower-left corner. When it completes click the 'save all information' button and save it to a file then attach that file here.
IF dxdiag.txt fails to attach here, rename it to dxdiag.log , or zip it up.

Please attach here your Documents/Paradox Interactive/Victoria3/pdx_settings.json .
From your Documents/Paradox Interactive/Victoria3/logs/ folder, attach here system.log , error.log

 

[PDX_Pelly]

Moving to tech support!

 

[AndrewT]

Merged threads

 

[MrBubbsXD]

Right click on victoria3.exe , properties, compatibility. Tick "disable fullScreen optimisations" untick every other box in that dialog, Apply and exit.
Then in the launcher Game Settings menu, select fullScreen display mode, Vsync off, cap refresh rate at 60.

If those don't help:
DXDIAG is a program you run from the Windows search box on the task bar. After running it will open a window and start collecting info with a progress bar in the lower-left corner. When it completes click the 'save all information' button and save it to a file then attach that file here.
IF dxdiag.txt fails to attach here, rename it to dxdiag.log , or zip it up.

Please attach here your Documents/Paradox Interactive/Victoria3/pdx_settings.json .
From your Documents/Paradox Interactive/Victoria3/logs/ folder, attach here system.log , error.log

Here are the requested files, The initial fix to tick "disable fullScreen optimisations" did not work for me.

 

[AndrewT]

I see you have the problematic Windows 11 24H2 version, but generally that triggers crashes rather than poor performance. But try this anyway:

- Right click the game in your Steam library
- Go to properties
- Select Set Launch Options
- Copy and Paste -vulkan into the input box
- Select Ok

Also, if GeForce Experience or the Nvidia app are running, exit them before starting the game.

Any better?

 

[MrBubbsXD]

I see you have the problematic Windows 11 24H2 version, but generally that triggers crashes rather than poor performance. But try this anyway:

- Right click the game in your Steam library
- Go to properties
- Select Set Launch Options
- Copy and Paste -vulkan into the input box
- Select Ok

Also, if GeForce Experience or the Nvidia app are running, exit them before starting the game.

Any better?

that didn't seem to fix the issue, I tried to exit the Nvidia app but it stays open in the background no matter what i do and i cant kill the process through task manager.

 

[AndrewT]

that didn't seem to fix the issue, I tried to exit the Nvidia app but it stays open in the background no matter what i do and i cant kill the process through task manager.

Go into Startup Apps and prevent it loading at boot time, then reboot.

 

[MrBubbsXD]

Go into Startup Apps and prevent it loading at boot time, then reboot.

i have no idea if this was the solution because it was lagging when i started the game, i then went to the washroom for 15 minutes and when i came back the game was running fairly smoothly, only stutters at 5 speed, 4 speed is a completely playable experience, the game seems to need like 15 - 20 minutes to "warm up" then it runs fairly smoothly and only experiences performance issues when i max zoom in and out very fast and repetitively, and when im on 5 speed, if there is anything else i could try please let me know, if not it's fairly playable at this point if not a little annoying to set up.

 

[Diskianterezh]

i have no idea if this was the solution because it was lagging when i started the game, i then went to the washroom for 15 minutes and when i came back the game was running fairly smoothly, only stutters at 5 speed, 4 speed is a completely playable experience, the game seems to need like 15 - 20 minutes to "warm up" then it runs fairly smoothly and only experiences performance issues when i max zoom in and out very fast and repetitively, and when im on 5 speed, if there is anything else i could try please let me know, if not it's fairly playable at this point if not a little annoying to set up.

I noticed the same

 

[AndrewT]

i have no idea if this was the solution because it was lagging when i started the game, i then went to the washroom for 15 minutes and when i came back the game was running fairly smoothly, only stutters at 5 speed, 4 speed is a completely playable experience, the game seems to need like 15 - 20 minutes to "warm up" then it runs fairly smoothly and only experiences performance issues when i max zoom in and out very fast and repetitively, and when im on 5 speed, if there is anything else i could try please let me know, if not it's fairly playable at this point if not a little annoying to set up.

I can't explain that experience I'm afraid. Even if Windows needed to swap stuff out to disk to make room for the game in memory, that should take seconds, not minutes.

If unloading every other app you can before starting the game, and unloading those Nvidia apps, does not help, I don't know what is doing this to you I'm sorry!