Troubleshooting

Marvel Rivals Stuttering Fix: FPS Drops and Hitches (2026)

RIVALSFPS.GG July 10, 2026 Updated October 12, 2026 7 min read

Marvel Rivals stutter has different causes depending on when it happens: in the first match after a patch or a launch, on corner turns, in team fights, or all the time. Find your row in the table below and start with the fix it points to.

A hitch is a frame that arrives late, so a game can stutter while its average FPS looks fine. That is why this guide sorts stutter by when it happens rather than by the FPS counter. If your frame rate is low everywhere, not only uneven, start with how to increase FPS in Marvel Rivals instead.

Why is Marvel Rivals stuttering?

Each kind of stutter has a likely cause. Match yours to a row, try the fix, then check the result the way How to measure stutter properly describes.

When it happens	Likely cause	What to try
The first match after a patch, or right after you start the game	The game warming up. In RIVALSFPS.GG's own testing, the first run after every game launch is always slower.	Play a match or two before you judge anything or change a setting.
Turning corners and entering new areas	Video memory and texture streaming	Lower Texture Quality and check the High-Resolution Pack (Fix 1).
Team fights with many abilities going off at once	Effects and CPU load	Lower the game's effects setting and cap the frame rate (Fix 2 and Fix 3).
Right after you set Shadows: Reduced, or the Max FPS preset that includes it, in RIVALSFPS.GG	The app's own note on that setting: some players see stutter in the first match or two, and it settles.	Give it a match or two, or set Shadows back to Default and press Apply.
All the time, wherever you are	Background apps, overlays or the power plan	Clean up the Windows side (Fix 4).

Fix 1: Free up video memory

If the card runs short of video memory, textures are swapped in and out while you play, and each swap can show up as a hitch when you move into a new part of the map. Lower Texture Quality one step, play a match, and repeat until the corner-turn hitches stop or you reach Low.

The High-Resolution Pack is an optional download of sharper textures, and by RIVALSFPS.GG's own note, keeping it off frees up video memory. Whether to remove it, and how to do that on Steam or in RIVALSFPS.GG, is in the High-Resolution Pack section of the low-end guide.

Fix 2: Cap your frame rate

An uncapped frame rate can cause frame drops of its own. When the GPU runs at 100 percent it has no headroom, so frame times spike as soon as a fight gets busy. A cap a few frames below what your PC can hold keeps frame times even.

Set the cap a little under your typical frame rate: around 237 if you usually sit near 240, or 138 if you hover near 140. Set it in the game's own video settings, or in your GPU driver's control panel if you want the cap to apply to every game.

Fix 3: Turn off the frame-eaters

A few effects cost frame time while adding little in a fast hero shooter. Turn these off:

Motion Blur. It smears the picture during fast turns.
Depth of Field. It blurs the background, which a team fight does not need.
V-Sync. It adds input latency, so leave it off and use the frame cap from Fix 2 instead.

Then turn on an upscaler by choosing FSR or TSR in Anti-Aliasing and Super Resolution Type (DLSS and XeSS also work). Drawing fewer pixels and upscaling the result takes load off the GPU, which helps when team fights are what stutter.

Fix 4: Clean up the Windows side

If the stutter lines up with something happening outside the game, the fix is on the system, not in the settings menu.

Turn on Hardware-Accelerated GPU Scheduling under Settings > System > Display > Graphics, then restart.
Set your Windows power plan to High performance.
Close Chrome, Discord streams and anything else doing heavy background work before you queue, and turn off overlays you do not use.
Keep your GPU driver up to date.

Lower the render load

When the table points at load rather than memory or warm-up, give the GPU less to draw: fewer pixels, or less in the map. Lower Render Resolution on any graphics card handles the pixels, the Max FPS preset trims lights, shadows and the far skyline, and how to increase FPS in Marvel Rivals gives the order to try things in.

To change one thing at a time, RIVALSFPS.GG, a free Windows app, keeps its Quality tab settings, Lower Render Resolution (any graphics card) and the Quality presets (NVIDIA only), to the session you start with Launch Marvel Rivals and puts them back when the game closes.

Free for Windows 10 and 11.

Download for Windows

How to measure stutter properly

Marvel Rivals has its own benchmark, the Performance Test in the game's Settings. It plays the same camera flight through one map every time, so runs can be compared. To test a change:

Start the game and run the Performance Test once, then ignore that result, for the warm-up reason in the table above.
Run it at least twice more and write down the average FPS of each run.
Make one change and run the test the same way again, including the throwaway first run if you restarted the game.
Compare the averages. The 1% low swings a lot from run to run, so compare it across several runs, never from a single one.

The Performance Test has little combat, so a change that only matters in team fights may not show there. Check those in a real match or the Practice Range as well.

Frequently asked questions

Why does Marvel Rivals stutter when I turn a corner?

Corner-turn hitches line up with the game streaming in the next area, so video memory is the likely cause, more so on cards with less of it. Lower Texture Quality first, and turn off the High-Resolution Pack if it is installed.

Does capping my frame rate reduce stutter?

It can. With no cap, the GPU runs at full load and has nothing in reserve when a fight gets busy, so frame times jump. A cap a few frames under your usual rate, such as 237 when you usually see 240, keeps frame pacing more even.

Why does Marvel Rivals stutter at the start of a match?

Hitches early in the first match after a launch or a patch are likely the game warming up: in RIVALSFPS.GG's benchmarks, the first run after each launch is always slower than the ones after it. Play a match or two before you change settings, and if the hitches stay, find your row in the symptom table in this guide.

How do I tell if my stutter is a VRAM or a CPU problem?

Watch when it happens. Memory and streaming hitches follow movement and new areas, such as turning corners or walls breaking. CPU and background hitches follow something outside the game, such as an overlay or a browser tab doing work. An overlay that shows video memory use helps you tell the two apart.

Will a graphic pack fix stuttering?

Not on its own. A graphic pack swaps map textures for simpler ones and lowers the render load a little, which only matters when load is the cause, and it is no fix for warm-up or background-app stutter. If you use Graphic Pack Settings, the app's own note on Shadows: Reduced says some players see stutter in the first match or two, and that it settles.

Related guides

Best settings for a low-end PC: a full settings table for 4 GB to 8 GB cards
Best competitive settings: frame caps and latency settings for ranked
Windows Optimizations for Marvel Rivals: the 14 Windows settings the app can change and revert