2 weeks before the AoM launch last year, my GPU died, after 2k hours of GD. Couldn’t play the game anymore, so I gave up on buying the xpac. Yesterday I gave it a try and it ran smoothly (everything on low but who cares), then I decided to buy Ashes of Malmouth. Now it’s running poorly again, with low FPS (between 20-30, when before it was around 50-60). I just want to play this game, do you guys have any tips on improving performance even at the cost of even less graphical quality? 
Try this:
(Originally Posted by Skyquake )
First thing you have to do is to run te game with /d3d9.
To do this you must:
If you are on steam > open library > right click Grim Dawn > Properties > Set launch options /d3d9.
If you are on GOG Galaxy >Select Grim Dawn > More > Settings > /d3d9
If you have the GOG game without Galaxy > right click game shortcut > properties > write /d3d9 at the end of the path so it looks like this: …/grim dawn/grimdawn.exe/" /d3d9
Second thing.
It appears Lightning option eats the most resources. Turn it to low.
Third thing.
Shadows are the next on the list. If you still have trouble turn them off because the difference from low and high isn’t a big deal. So you either have them at high or off.
The other ingame options don’t matter much from what I’ve tested. Adjust them LAST to compare.
Quote from Zantai:
That said, for anyone having issues launching the game after the latest V1.0.2.0 update or have experienced problems with visuals or loss of FPS, please try the following:
- Verify Game Files in Steam
- Run Repair.exe located in your Grim Dawn install folder.
- Delete Options.txt from \Documents\my games\Grim Dawn\Settings
If none of those work, add “/d3d9” to your launch options for the game.
How to set Launch Options:
https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=1040-JWMT-2947
The /d3d9 part will most likely solve your problem.
I tried every “fix” that has been posted and nothing worked… Until i thought about setting my DPI to 100% in display settings. I use a 4k monitor and the dpi defaults to 325%.
Setting my screen resolution to 1080p and my dpi to 100% fixed every issue with GD I was having.
I run the game at 4k max settings now without any issues at all. Before I would have unexplained fps drops and overall poor performance at any settings or resolutions.
I am running windows 10, I7 6700, 1080ti, 16g ddr4 3200, GD installed on SSD. Desktop.
Make sure to put lighting on low. My FPS WITH maxed lighting in settings equals about 10 - 30 (mostly lower than 30, about 20-ish), with lighting on lowest, my FPS in certain locations is 60 (max I can pull off), and it sometimes drops to 20 - 30 if there is too much shit on my screen. I do have a trashy PC.
That’s nice to see a confirmation on that. It’s long been known that dpi’s over 100% could cause issues in the game but that’s the first I’ve seen of a connection to fps issues.
Every once in a while there is someone where none of the usual suspects seems to work for them and now I wonder if some of those cases are simply a dpi issue.
I’ve had my scaling set to 125% forever and never had issues with GD because of it. Maybe only on higher settings?
Yeah, in the past with my experimentation with the DPI setting lower settings like 125% didn’t usually cause any issue in-game but going higher did.
Well what i did i limit my fps to 30 and Vertical Sync to Fast Sync from Nvidia Inspector and it runs very smooth way better than before and almost all settings at max except for depth Of Field off, soft Particles off, deferred rendering off, ambient occlusion off, post processing and AA of. i know these settings can make the game look better but it also demands more power. https://imgur.com/a/rkrCr2y ignore the windowed mode i had to use Snipping Tool to take screnshots. In my case my laptop is set to 60fps so i had to limited to 30