Computer games have come a long way in a short time – something you can play on your phone today would have needed a desktop computer to run 20 years ago. We have incredibly talented designers and artists working on our games, and we want you to experience their work at its best.
It’s important to check the system requirements (sometimes called minimum specifications or min specs) for your game to make sure your computer can run a game properly.
Meeting minimum requirements means that the game will run on your computer, not that it will run well at the highest settings. If you barely meet minimum requirements, you will have to sacrifice some fancy visuals for better performance.
If you’re close to minimum requirements, try not to run other programs in the background while you’re gaming, so that your computer can use all its processing power on your game.
Even if your computer can run the base game, it’s possible that you won’t be able to run expansions or an updated version of the game later.
Keep your graphics card driver up to date. It’s important. Most graphics card manufacturers release new drivers when a big, new game comes out, and some of our games will keep you from playing until you have the latest one.
To download the latest driver, you’ll first want to figure out what graphics card you have.
After you know your graphics card, you can go to the manufacturers website to find, download, and install the latest driver for your card:
Make sure to do a clean install when you install your new driver. This means there’s a lower chance of your old drivers messing with your new one.
Graphic driver problems can happen when you add a new driver on top of your old ones without doing a clean install.
To fix this, try removing all the graphics drivers from your system and reinstalling the latest version:
If you’re close to the minimum specs, you may need to adjust your graphics options in-game to make it run more smoothly.
Each game has a different way of getting to the graphics options. It’s usually in the main menu, then Options, then either Video or Graphics options.
Once you get in there, lower some of the settings, then restart the game to apply them if you’re asked to.
Most computers have processors that can run basic graphics, but to get the best out of your games you need to be sure that you run them using a separate (dedicated, sometimes called discrete) graphics card (GPU).
Most recent games won’t run well, or not at all, without a dedicated graphics card.
To make sure your system always uses your dedicated graphics card to play your game (especially if you’re playing on a laptop), set up a gaming profile.
Graphics card manufacturers have different ways of setting up gaming profiles. Choose your card manufacturer below:
Overclocking means using software to turn up the speed of your processor (either your main processor or your GPU). Many modern graphics cards are already factory overclocked, which means they’ve already been set to run faster than their base speed but within safe limits.
Increasing the speed more (using special software or tweaks like those in Radeon settings for AMD cards) can lead to overheating and other stability problems.
Setting your clock speed back to the factory default is an important first step in figuring out problems.
If your system runs better at default clock speeds, then your problems may have been caused by your overclocking settings.
Check the list of symptoms below to find some possible causes:
This can happen for lots of reasons, but it’s usually your game running at a higher refresh rate than your monitor can handle.
You’ll sometimes hear that disabling v-sync can give you better performance, but if you’re seeing tearing in-game, we’d recommend toggling v-sync to On in your game settings to help clear it up.
Microstuttering (tiny shudders and jolts in movement) can happen in a game that isn’t properly optimized, especially if it’s playable under multiple Direct X versions.
You can sometimes clear this up in the video settings of the game by disabling the latest Direct X version and restarting your game. If you’ve had to do this, keep an eye on patch notes for the game to see when it’s ok to re-enable it.
Microstuttering can also be down to a driver issue, whether it’s a driver conflict or the latest driver for your graphics card not working well with your new game. You may just need to wait for a new driver to fix it.
Rubberbanding (where your player character runs like they have a rubber band attached to them, and then get snapped back to their starting position) is usually a connection issue (high latency or a very jittery/spiky connection) rather than a graphics issue.
Artifacting is when a series of pixels on your screen change colours, often to bright green, pink, or rainbow colors, and then stay that way no matter what else is happening on the screen.
This means that your graphics card is under strain, overheating, or that there’s a hardware problem with the card.
If you’ve got a desktop computer, check that your card is properly seated and that the fans on it are working the right way.
Don’t open your PC if it would void your warranty and/or if you’re not confident about working safely on your computer’s hardware. Get it checked by a professional if you’re worried about a possible hardware fault.
For other issues on your PC, you can try using CCleaner to clear out issues and errors.
While we suggest using CCleaner, EA does not provide user support for this program; using it is done so at your own risk. Please follow any installation guides straight from CCleaner when installing and performing program set-up. You can find help from CCleaner’s support page.
EA does not benefit in any way, monetarily or otherwise, from promotion of this program.
