a SOLUTION for the Freezing, Lagging and Stuttering (maybe for crashing too)

[warcroft_au]

Product: Apex Legends
Platform:PC
Please specify your platform model. PC
AMD or Nvidia Model Number GTX970
Enter RAM memory size in GB 16
What is your gamertag/PSN ID/EA Account name? warcroft_au
Please provide your squad mates' gamertag/PSN ID/EA Account name if possible.
Which Legend were you playing (if applicable)?
Which Legends were your squad mates using (if applicable)?
Where did the issue occur? In a match
Which part of the map or menu were you in? If you don't remember the exact name, please describe the area or what you were trying to do in the menu. Any and all
What were you doing when the issue occurred? E.g. respawning a squad mate at a beacon, using an ability, a squad mate left the game. Anything
Did your squad mates also experience the issue? I don't know
How many matches had you played in a row before the issue occurred? Every match
When did this happen? (dd.mm.yy hh:mm) Since launch
How often does the bug occur? Every time (100%)
How severe is your issue? Major impacts to gameplay
What happens when the bug occurs? Major stuttering, clunky movement.
What should be happening instead? Smooth and playable
Steps: How can we find the bug ourselves? See below

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I would start Apex and join a game.

Within minutes the game will start to stutter. Frame rates would drop and the game became clunky.

Sometimes it would clear up after a few minutes but then would happen again after another minute or so.

No amount of in game setting changes would fix it.

Here is what the problem was and how I fixed it.

I was running a program called 'Wallpaper Engine'. Its available on steam and lets you have animated wallpapers and such. Its pretty popular. Millions of people use it.

I've had it for quite some time and its never caused an issue with any game ever.

Now, in Apex when the lagging started I opened Task Manager and saw that Apex was only using about 15% of my GPU (give or take).

Wallpaper Engine was using over 85% of the GPU! Normally it uses only a few percent!

For some reason when I start Apex, Wallpaper Engine becomes a massive resource hog and its GPU usage gradually increases until everything goes to *. Like I said it doesn't do it with any other game or program.

Quit Wallpaper Engine and Apex goes back to normal.

Or set Wallpaper Engine to pause when playing Apex.

If you're not using Wallpaper Engine then check your Task Manager anyway. See if anything else is hogging all the GPU resources.

It wasnt Apex causing the problem. But the problem only happened when playing Apex.