How to improve FPS in Company of Heroes 3 (PC)
Company of Heroes 3 pushes real-time destruction and squad tactics to the series' most ambitious point yet, with buildings that crumble piece by piece and terrain that reshapes mid-battle. The Essence Engine has to sustain dozens of individual units with detailed animations, rubble physics, and constant pathfinding, all at once on large maps like the ones in the Italy campaign. The 2023 launch was particularly rough on performance, with severe FPS drops in 4v4 battles and frequent stuttering, which Relic has been polishing with successive patches.
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Calculations based on our FPS model combined with the % gain of each setting (measured in public benchmarks).
1. Quick wins (no visual loss)
Start here. Each one adds a little, but together they give +57% free FPS.
Destruction Physics Detail
Rubble and building-collapse simulation are among the elements that consume the most CPU in large battles, especially in 4v4 with multiple structures falling at once.
Shadow Quality
Dynamic shadows on units and buildings in Italy's open maps have a high rendering cost, especially with lots of troops on screen.
Anti-Aliasing (TAA)
TAA helps smooth the edges of vegetation and rubble generated by destruction, but on Ultra it adds a noticeable rendering cost at high resolutions.
Post-Processing
Post-processing effects visually stack with smoke and dust from destruction during intense combat.
Texture Quality
High textures keep buildings and terrain crisp without demanding the extra VRAM that Ultra requires.
2. Medium impact settings
Here's where most of the FPS is. Minor visual impact, major performance impact.
Terrain Quality
Deformable terrain recalculates geometry and normals when artillery craters open or walls collapse, a process especially noticeable on large Italian maps.
Unit Detail / LOD
Per-unit level of detail controls how many polygons and individual animations are rendered per soldier, which scales poorly when 4 players are fielding full armies.
Foliage/Vegetation Density
Dense vegetation on Mediterranean maps adds objects with simple physics that consume CPU in addition to GPU.
Water Quality
Water reflections and refractions along coasts and rivers have a disproportionate GPU cost relative to their tactical relevance.
3. Upscaling (DLSS / FSR / XeSS)
The biggest gain in the game. Compatible with almost any modern GPU.
4. Tips by GPU
NVIDIA
- •Enable "Prefer Maximum Performance" mode in the NVIDIA control panel for this executable.
- •Force V-Sync off from the NVIDIA panel if the game keeps re-enabling it on its own.
- •Update to the latest Game Ready drivers before long campaign sessions.
AMD
- •Use Radeon Chill with a high upper cap instead of disabling it entirely.
- •Check that Radeon Anti-Lag is enabled to offset input latency.
- •If you notice shader stutter after a patch, run a quick skirmish before jumping into a competitive match.
Sistema
- •Prioritize a CPU with strong per-core performance over core count.
- •Install the game on an SSD, since loading destruction textures causes noticeable stuttering on mechanical drives.
- •Close third-party overlays during 4v4 matches.
5. Known game issues
Severe FPS drops in 4v4 matches with many units
At launch, 4-player matches with large armies and accumulated destruction could drop below 30 FPS even on powerful hardware.
Estado: Performance optimization patch, late 2023
Stuttering when large buildings collapse
Multi-story buildings on Italy's urban maps caused noticeable micro-stutters when collapsing.
Memory leaks in long campaign sessions
Campaign sessions longer than an hour could progressively accumulate VRAM usage until framerate drops occurred.
Estado: Staggered corrective patches during 2023-2024
6. Frequently asked questions
Why does my FPS drop so much in 4v4 matches but not in 1v1?▾
Does Company of Heroes 3 have DLSS or FSR?▾
Is it worth lowering terrain quality if I mainly play the campaign?▾
Is it normal for the game to stutter right after installing a patch?▾
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Calculate FPS for Company of Heroes 3 →Calculations based on consensus of technical sources and our own FPS model. More about our methodology →