Hogwarts Legacy's first patch hasn't fixed performance issues for everyone

Hogwarts Legacy's first major patch "addresses overall gameplay performance and stability," but it hasn't fixed everyone's issues.

The February 14 patch notes specifically mention a number of bugs that cause the game to crash and "shader type compilation optimization." It doesn't, however, say that issue HL-14 on the Warner Bros forums for fps drops has been fixed—one of the most (un)popular issues on the forum's bug reporting section.

Since launch, Hogwarts Legacy PC players have reported stuttering and crashing while playing the game, and it seems to be caused by how it loads shaders. Unreal Engine games using DirectX12 have a tendency to chug when shaders load in for the first time, and it doesn't matter how good of a gaming rig you have. Final Fantasy 7 Remake was a particularly egregious example of shader sin, and for some, Hogwarts Legacy is just as bad.

Players on the game's subreddit, Steam forums, and Warner Bros forums report that the patch hasn't alleviated performance universally, and it might have even made it worse. "Hasn't fixed one single thing," Hot-Needleworker7827 wrote. "Frames dropped by like 50% and stuttering increased around 500%, at least that's how it feels. Bad job."

"I played the game right before the 'patch' came out and then immediately afterwards," Steam user Haikari wrote. "The difference is clearly noticeable. I never had lag issues in Hogsmeade on the level that this new patch has caused and flying is an absolute misery now while it used to be lovely."

While these and other players are still reporting issues, the experience isn't uniform across hardware configurations. I ran around the game's open world after today's patch and saw no noticeable changes. Hogwarts castle and the areas surrounding it run fairly smooth with intermittent stuttering on my Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080. It runs basically the same as it did before once I manually updated the game's version of Nvidia's DLSS frame rendering tech.

Several homemade performance fixes have been circulating since launch, but none of them have proved to be a silver bullet for all players. You can download the Ascendio mod or follow this Reddit tutorial at your own risk. If you aren't comfortable with third-party tweaks, your best bet is to drop the graphics settings as low as you can stomach and wait for another patch.

Below, find the full notes from today's patch:

Bug fixes:

• General
  • Online
    • Fixed issues with achievement data being properly pushed to Wizarding World portal after linking.
  • Gameplay
    • Owl Mail
      • Fixed an issue with mail not properly triggering sequential mission. 
    • World Events
      • Fixed rare crash around certain locations where in-game World Events spawning. 
    • NPC
      • Fixed a rare crash when respawning NPCs in the world. 
      • Fixed crash with some NPC schedules. 
    • Characters
      • Fixed issues with flickering occurring with a transparent head while hair is still present. 
  • UI
    • Updated localization text for additional content items. 
    • Added Build version to first time EULA. 
    • Fixed rare occurrence of mission descriptions not being displayed correctly. 
  • Cinematics
    • Corrected VFX presentation of robe transformation. 
    • Fixed a stability issue when skipping cutscenes. 
    • Fixed a crash when playing cutscenes and cinematics. 
  • Save Game
    • Fixed error of rewriting last autosave slot. 
    • Fixed an issue when restarting from last save around not being able to talk to a vendor after initial conversation. Resolves the following reported issues: HL-412, HL-494, HL-246, HL-1063, HL-590, HL-542, HL-976, HL-965, HL-1158, HL-1184, HL-1089, HL-1240, HL-1031, HL-1490, HL-1433, HL-89, HL-1930, HL-1086, HL-1636, HL-1585, HL-1028, HL-1933, HL-2606, HL-2062, HL-1587, HL-488, HL-498, HL-162, HL-1706, HL-2626, HL-2865, HL-2888, HL-2804, HL-2910, HL-2944, HL-3000, HL-3043, HL-3024. 
  • Performance and Stability
    • Improved performance on Fidelity mode. 
    • Fixed rare crash around hovering over the map. 
    • Fixed issue with wind causing distortion and stretching of world assets. 
    • Fixed a rare occurrence with material swapping. 
    • Fixed a rare crash with map assets state. 
    • Fixed Rare crash occurring with in-game world events. 
    • Fixed a memory leak with global lighting system HL-313. 
• PC Steam/PC Epic Games
  • Cinematics
    • Fixed audio issues missing or not properly playing. 
  • Controllers
    • Switch Pro controller support updates HL-346. 
  • Upscalers
    • Enable frame generation while DLSS is disabled. 
    • Anti-Aliasing and Screen resolution settings disabled when using DLSS and not Super Resolution. 
  • Raytracing
    • Fixed issue with RTAO looking worse than SSAO. 
    • Adjusted default setting to Medium Quality. 
  • Performance and Stability
    • Shader type compilation optimization. 
    • Shader compilation performance updates and functionality enhancements. 
    • Fixed a crash affecting Text2Speech usability. 
    • Resolved issues with world assets abruptly being stretched which resolves the following reported issues: HL-305, HL-265. 
    • Resolved an issue with Nvidia GPUs having lower frame rate compared to AMD. 
  • DirectX Version 12
    • Please note DirectX Version 12 is required to run Hogwarts Legacy on PC. We do not suggest attempting workarounds to run the game with DirectX Version 11 as this can cause stability issues with launching the game and the player experience.