Hitman 3 is finally out on all major platforms. The final installation in the Assassination Trilogy along with Hitman 1 and 2. If we actually compare the visuals and the gameplay details with the previous installment, we can very well say that the improvement is huge. Both visually and in terms of gameplay details. The reflections seem perfect. Even though the Agent 47 model lacks a bit of skin detailing but overall the game looks incredible.

In terms of system requirements, the game is a little demanding hence there could be a lot of performance issues for setups under the minimum requirements. However, there are users with pretty great builds complaining about the performance issues even after lowering the in-game graphics settings. Let’s see how we can get this fixed :

Hitman 3 – Lag / FPS Drops/ Stuttering Fix | Performance Guide

There could be a lot of factors leading to lag, random FPS drops, and stuttering. The difficult part is to know which is the main reason for the poor performance. It could be the hardware, it could be an app that takes too much of your CPU usage or it could be your GPU control panel settings which might not have been set correctly. In order to get a boost in performance we have to follow just a few simple steps :

Check for the Right Setup :

Often we try to run a game that might require a setup much higher than what we originally have. Maybe we might be able to run the game. But we sure have to deal with very poor performance, lag, drops, and stuttering. The minimum requirement to run a game is just what we need to barely run the game.

The recommended setup is what you are looking for if you wish to enjoy the game at playable frames without any drop in fps or any kind of performance issues. Let’s see what the requirements of Hitman 3 look like :

Minimum	Recommended
Windows OS OS 64-bit Windows 10	Windows OS OS 64-bit Windows 10
CPU Intel CPU Core i5-2500K 3.3GHz / AMD CPU Phenom II X4 940	CPU Intel CPU Core i7 4790 4 GHz
Memory 8	Memory 16
Storage 80 GB	Storage 80 GB
Direct X 12	Direct X 12
GPU NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 / Radeon HD 7870	GPU Nvidia GPU GeForce GTX 1070 / AMD GPU Radeon RX Vega 56 8GB

Any setup close to the Recommended requirement or higher is what you need to play this game smoothly.

Driver Updates are a must :

Updating your GPU drivers to their latest version is extremely important when it comes to performance. AAA games like Hitman 3 normally get dedicated drivers. Therefore be sure to check and see if your drivers are updated or not. If not be sure to update them as soon as possible. Check below for the required links :

• AMD Drivers
• NVIDIA Drivers

Tweaking the NVIDIA Control Panel Settings (Nvidia Users Only) :

NVIDIA users have access to its control panel which basically allows them to make several changes that directly impact the performance of a game. This actually done to make sure how video cards will run when it comes to particular games. We can do these settings for Hitman 3 :

• Right-Click on your desktop and click on  NVIDIA Control Panel
• Click on Manage 3D settings.
• Select Program Settings and look for Hitman 3 on the list.
• If you cannot find Hitman 3 in the given list then click on Add option and then select Browse
• Now, all we need to do is to go to the folder where the game is installed and select the .exe file from there. For this case, it would be Hitman 3.exe
• Set the Preferred refresh rate to “Highest available”.
• Set Maximum pre-rendered frames to 1.
• Set Threaded optimization to ON.
• Set Power Management Mode to “Prefer maximum performance”.
• Set Vertical sync to OFF.
• Click on Apply and close the window.

Tweaking the AMD Control Panel Settings (AMD Users Only) :

Similar to NVIDIA users AMD uses to have a control panel that works the same way. You can make these changes in order to get a performance boost for Hitman 3.

• Anti-Aliasing Mode: Use Application settings
• Anti-aliasing Method: Multi-sampling
• Morphological Filtering: Off
• Anisotropic Filtering Mode: Use application settings
• Texture Filtering Quality: Performance
• Surface Format Optimization: On
• Wait for V-sync: Off
• OpenGL Triple Buffering: Off
• Shader Cache: AMD optimized
• Tesselation Mode: Override application settings
• Maximum Tesselation Level: Off
• GPU Workload: Graphics
• Chill: Off
• Frame Rate Target Control: Disabled

Hardware-Accelerated GPU Scheduling (Windows 10 only) :

This comes with only the latest build for Windows 10. If you have a decent video card make use of this new feature as it gives quite a performance boost.

• Type Settings in the search bar
• Click on System
• Select the Display from the left side
• Just scroll down and select Graphics Settings
• Or you can just type Graphics Settings in the search bar
• Turn On Hardware-accelerated GPU Scheduling
• Restart the PC

Nvidia Geforce Experience In Game Overlay to be Turned OFF (Nvidia users) :

The Geforce Experience is a pretty cool app if you consider how useful it is for recording gameplay and taking screenshots. But this runs with a lot of background processes which cranks up your CPU usage. One such process is the NVIDIA Container. In order to get smoother gameplay it is recommended you have the in-game overlay turned off if you are not planning to record your gameplay or take snaps.

• Start Nvidia Geforce Experience
• Click on the Settings icon on the top right
• Select the General Tab
• Turn Off In-Game Overlay
• Restart the PC

Verifying the In-Game Files :

Corrupted files could also be the reason for Lag, random drops in FPS, and stutter. Epic Games allows us to check for any corrupted files or missing links. If in case there is any it will be re-downloaded. This is how you do it:

• Launch Epic Games Launcher
• Click on Library
• Select Hitman 3 from the list and click on the Three Dots ( … ) .
• Click on Verify. 

There you go, just follow these simple steps and I am sure you will get a performance boost. If in case the game still lags, then probably it could an issue from the developer’s end. If that be the case then waiting for a patch is the best thing to do.