Steam Community :: Guide :: Permanently Fixing Low FPS Issues on TmodLoader/Terraria, Works and Tested in Multiplayer! (Works With Calamity and/or Infernum)

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Permanently Fixing Low FPS Issues on TmodLoader/Terraria, Works and Tested in Multiplayer! (Works With Calamity and/or Infernum)

By oliver

By the end of this guide, you should be able to run almost any Terraria mod, at 50-60 FPS!

You see, recently I was trying to play Infernum with my friends, and everything was going well in until I started inviting them. Once they started to join, my fresh 60 FPS, dropped down to 45, which was a little annoying, but I lived through it. But as the rest of my friends join (the 5 of us in total), I couldn't achieve anything over 5 FPS.

This was not going to work, as fighting bosses would nearly be impossible, so I took my issue to the discord, and everyone just told me that there was nothing I could do.

So I took it upon myself to find some sorta conclusion, and I found the usual, change you graphic settings, blah, blah blah. This does not work for me, it didn't matter if I played on high or low, I couldn't get over 5 FPS.

I scoured for hours and got absolutely nothing. I was losing hope and was thinking about calling off the world, leaving my friends disappointed in me.

But as I looked through the files of the game, I found a file, with an intriguing name, and after manipulating the file to my liking, the FPS problem stopped. It was like it never happened.

Here's how I did it.

Award

Created by

oliver
Offline

Category: Co-op, Modding or Configuration, Multiplayer

Posted

Updated

30 Jun, 2023 @ 9:35pm

10 Jan @ 12:16am

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Guide Index

Overview

Fixing the problem

FAQ

Conclusion

Comments

Fixing the problem

Your first task is to close off tModLoader. Just to make sure we don't muck anything up.

After doing so, open up the steam library, look for tModLoader and right click it. There should be window with a few options. Click on "properties"

Now after you've clicked properties, another window should pop up, click on "Installed Files" and then click "Browse"

After you've done that, your file explorer should open (Yes this is for windows, cry about it.), and there are a lot of files, but the one you need to find is "tModLoader.runtimeconfig.json" open the file.

Now that you've opened "tModLoader.runtimeconfig.json" there should be a little bit of text but what you're focusing on is "DEFAULT_STACK_SIZE"

As you can see, mine is set to 6400000, but for you it will most likely be 400000 or 800000. What you want to do is change your 400000 to a higher number (make sure to keep the quotation marks), what I've done is tested it at 400000, 800000, 1600000, 3200000 and 6400000 (Each time getting better and better).

I would recommend doubling the number and keeping to even numbers, because I have no idea what will happen if you put an odd number in. You can probably go higher than 6400000, but I haven't tried it, so do that at your own risk.

Anyways make sure to save that file and close off all the things we used. Now try running tModLoader and see the difference that you've made.

FAQ

Q: What are some other things I can do to make the game run better?

A: If you go into your in-game video settings and set Frame Skip to On, this makes the game much faster and more controllable. With Frame Skip On, the game will skip rendering some frames to improve performance on the game. I've personally never had any issues with this feature on.

If that still doesn't work try these:

host your world via cmd in the tmod folder
get better internet
use retro or trippy lighting
quality low
disable the background
disable afterimages and lower particles on the Calamity configs
get the Optimizeraria resource pack
get a mod that changes the lighting engine (not guaranteed to work, might worsen it)
use fewer mods (esp beefy ones, Cal is beefy already)

Q: I've done all the steps, and nothing has worked.

If all else has failed and you've tried everything in the FAQ, leave a comment below and I'll try my best to help you out.

Conclusion

So hopefully this has worked for you.

I have no idea why this works, so if you have knowledge in this area, feel free to explain it in the comments below.

If low FPS isn't your problem, check out my other guide about Lag/Slowdown/Desync (works with multiplayer as well) (Click here to view!)

Please if this helped you at all, some steam point donations would be good, as I'm trying to get customisations for the steam deck. 5 stars and favourites would be nice as well.

Thank you for your time and I hope you can play with your friends at high FPS!

106 Comments

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koppr 29 Jul @ 7:55pm

i think i just have a bad pc :(

trubletang 20 Jul @ 12:49pm

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illusion of control 1 Jul @ 11:48pm

Hi, I tried to change the number in your guide by doubling it, but it didn't work. I also tried 6400000, but it didn't work.

camrn2007 27 Jun @ 9:56am

Not sure what this does but if I had to guess its something to do with memory

Linke 27 Jun @ 7:00am

Dude, you're my savior! Lately, I've also been trying to play Infernum mode (because Death mode is easy because of my "lag" advantage, which allows me to dodge all attacks without panicking), but I couldn't even load the mod; every time I had to load the Infernum mod, the game would crash. I also downloaded the performance mod (the most famous one) from the mod library, but my game still only reaches 30 FPS (60 without Calamity or big mods). I haven't tested it yet (because I have class soon, but eventually it's the weekend, yay!), but I believe it will work wonderfully.

Jason 6 Jun @ 9:00am

Just wondering, what does this actually do? Is it like allocating more ram to the game

AlderTW 6 Jun @ 4:55am

Thanks! Definitely noticed improvement

土 4 Jun @ 12:23am

"this is for windows, cry about it"

well... works perfectly fine on Linux and MacOS because they have file explorers and the same file.

Good guide though.

El3ctr0 30 May @ 4:57am

just use notepad++, goated soft

Luxtra 29 May @ 10:24am

if could kiss you rn, i would

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