Boost Your Baldur's Gate 3 Gaming Experience on PC

If you're a fan of Baldur's Gate 3 on PC and are noticing some performance issues, there's an easy trick you likely haven't tried. While navigating the sprawling world of the acclaimed game from developer Larian Studios, it's undeniable that achieving sublime performance levels can prove strenuous. Regardless of whether you're adventuring through Act 1 or Act 2, there's always room for a performance push to help you immerse yourself more deeply into the DND-based RPG.

An Uncommon Solution

When considering performance improvements for a video game, one doesn't usually lay blame on the launcher. However, in the case of Baldur's Gate 3, the unlikely culprit affecting performance seems to be the Larian Launcher. This isn't inherently known by most, but bypassing this launcher altogether appears to have a positive influence on gameplay.

From the perspective of running an Nvidia RTX 2070 on 1440p settings, a typically ideal environment, frame rates have been observed to falter below the mark of 20 FPS, particularly in Act 2's intense Moonrise Tower region. Intriguingly, completely eliminating the usage of the Larian Launcher caused the frames to soar above 30 FPS consistently. That is a considerable improvement, especially in a tactical RPG like Baldur's Gate 3, where smooth frame rates can dramatically improve the gaming spectacle.

How To Disable the Larian Launcher

You may wonder: how can you achieve this level of performance improvement yourself? The solution lies in disabling the Larian Launcher. As the majority of players access Baldur’s Gate 3 via Steam, we'll use its interface for the walkthrough. Here's how to disable the launcher through Steam:

• Open up your Steam client and find Baldur’s Gate 3 in your game library
• Right-click the game title and choose "Manage", followed by "General"
• Scroll down to "Launch Options"
• Inside the launch options field, enter the command "--skip-launcher”. This command will bypass the Larian Launcher each time you run the game

Alternate Path: Direct Bypass

If you'd rather avoid using Steam to make changes, you can create a direct bypass to the Larian Launcher. For this, navigate to your Baldur's Gate 3 installation directory. Once there, enter the "Bin" folder. Here, you can choose to launch the game either by opening the bg3.exe file (which uses Vulkan) or the bg3_dx11.exe file (for DirectX 11) and wholly avoid the launcher.

Therefore, if you're pursuing peak performance in your journey through the thrilling saga of Baldur's Gate 3, consider bypassing the Larian Launcher. Whether your highest consideration is smoother gameplay, quicker action sequence loading, or all-around better performance, it could turn out to be the best decision you've made for your gaming experience.