DbD has become increasingly hostile towards weaker rigs
Back when I started (early 2018) I still was able to play the game without any significant problems on my machine (16 GB RAM / 2 GB VRAM) but nowadays this has become pretty much impossible. The several visual updates (in particular to the various maps) have led to crazy performance issues on my end and no amount of setting modifications seem to be able to remedy this.
There needs to be a setting below "low", they might as well call it "potato" or "console" but as long as it exists I'll be satisfied. Currenlty I'm experiencing multiple freezes during a match which last up to 5 seconds (!) each. These can occcur during chases, kicking gens and pallets or by simply traversing the map. It makes the game borderline unplayable for me and that's without even considering the framerate. I'm glad if I can even keep a stable 30 fps with the graphics card I have.
Please tell me I'm not the only one who'd really like to see an optimization for lower end machines. My only alternative would be to get a brandnew pc because my mainboard can't support any newer graphics cards due it being a DDR3 device.
Comments
Since you already unlocked your FPS I'll just skip to the launch options.
Try these launch options by right clicking Dead by Daylight and under Properties -> General -> Launch Options
You can also try -DX12 which some players have said fixed most of their stuttering issues. I don't use it because OBS will pickup the Steam overlay with that option. DBD is written for DX11 but the option does seem to help some.
-NOTEXTURESTREAMING
Always use high resolution textures. When an object is far away its texture is replaced by a low res alternative. When you get closer it is replaced by a high-res texture. This can cause frame lag and stuttering. This option disables loading low res textures.
-USEALLAVAILABLECORES
If you have a large multi-core cpu, try this option.
I registered an account just to thank you for this. I have a i7 7700, 32gb 2400mhz RAM, 3070 RTX, M2 Nvme and SSD, however I was still facing performance hiccups with DBD, mainly steep frame rate drops. Using both DX12 and NOTEXTURESTREAMING seems to have addressed my problem.
Just for reference if anyone finds this thread. Using Performance Monitor during gameplay you may identify what could be leading into the frame drops. I noted that whenever I had the issue there was a spike at disk r/w (mind that even on Nvme or SSD issue was the same). So based on @Mr_K comment I added the parameters and it seems to have resolved it, likely the demand on the high def textures was underperforming.
I have another useful tip which wasn't brought up yet: try disabling the Steam overlay if you're on pc, it actually makes a great difference.
Simply rightclick the game in your library, select properties and then take the cross off the first option. It's a true gamechanger.
Glad it helped