EA FC 26 has been plagued by lag and disconnection issues since its release. Because of these performance issues, many players often miss out on victory and the generous FIFA 26 coins reward that are within reach. Just imagine, it’s incredibly annoying to suddenly freeze for a second or two while you’re closely watching where players are running or the trajectory of the ball.
Not everyone has a multi-thousand-dollar PC to play games on, and increasingly lazy programmers aren’t optimizing games like they were a decade ago. For a smooth gaming experience, you’ll need to tweak it yourself. Let IGGM explain some PC settings to make the game run more smoothly.
In-Game Settings
First, set the game to full screen to reduce input lag and screen tearing. The graphics preset can be set to “Low,” “Medium,” “High,” or “Ultra,” as manual adjustments automatically switch to “Custom.”
Rendering Quality: “Medium” is recommended, as the “Low” setting produces very poor visuals. If you still experience lag, lower it to “Low.”
Detail Settings: The following options should all be set to “Low” for optimal performance:
- Strand-Based Hair: Off
- Grass Quality: Low
- Crowd Quality: Low
- Cloth Quality: Low
- Ambient Occlusion Quality: Low (heavy on CPU and GPU resources)
- Motion Blur: Although it has little impact on performance, it is recommended to turn it off if you want to get the best frame rate.
- Aspect Ratio: Set to your monitor’s native aspect ratio, typically 16:9.
- Screen Resolution: Must be set to your monitor’s native resolution to avoid latency introduced by extra scaling operations performed by GPU.
- Refresh Rate: Set to the highest value supported by your monitor.
- Frame Rate Limit: Set to Unlimited (this option requires VSYNC to be disabled).
- Cutscene Performance: For maximum performance, set to half frame rate.
- Render Scale: Keep at 100. Only lower this setting if the game is experiencing extreme stuttering.
- Dynamic Resolution Scaling: Disabled.
- Player and court shadows: Disabling them will affect the visual quality, but if you simply want a smooth game, you can disable them.
Adjust them based on your device, and remember not to sacrifice smooth gameplay for visuals. If your game is constantly lagging, even if you buy FC 26 coins from IGGM.com and trade for icon players, it’s difficult to win.
Windows System Optimization
First, enable Game Mode in Windows Settings -> Gaming -> Game Mode. Game Mode prioritizes gaming and pauses background notifications and activity.
Select Ultimate Performance or Balanced for your power plan; Ultimate Performance mode provides the best performance.
Reducing Windows Animation Effects
Search for and access “Advanced System Settings.” In Performance area, select “Customize.” Then, check only the following three options and uncheck all others:
- Show thumbnails instead of icons
- Show window contents when dragging
- Smooth screen font edges
Startup Apps
In Task Manager -> Startup, disable all unnecessary startup apps to free up CPU resources.
Core Isolation
Core isolation is a security feature, but it may affect game performance on some PCs. You can find this option in Windows Settings -> Privacy & Security -> Windows Security Center -> Device Security -> Core Isolation Details, then turn off “Memory Integrity.”
GPU Graphics Preferences
Manually add FC 26 game executable file to Windows Settings -> System -> Display -> Graphics Settings, then select “High Performance” to ensure the game runs using the dedicated graphics card (critical for laptops with dual graphics cards).
Disabling Fullscreen Optimization
Find the main FC 26 game application, right-click it, and select Properties. On “Compatibility” tab, check “Disable fullscreen optimization.” (This setting is primarily effective on low-end PCs and laptops.) You can also click “Change high DPI settings” on the same screen and check “Override high DPI scaling behavior.”
AMD Graphics Settings
First, make sure you are using the latest graphics driver released by AMD for FC 26. If not, update your driver first. In AMD Software Settings -> Preferences, disable all in-game overlays, browsers, system tray menus, etc. Then, in the Gaming -> Graphics profile, set the following settings:
- Super Resolution: Disabled
- Anti-Lag: Disabled
- Radeon Boost: Disabled
- Radeon Chill: Disabled
- Image Sharpening: Enabled, set the sharpness to 60-80 (low impact on resources).
- Enhanced Sync: Disabled
- Framerate Target Control: Disabled
- Texture Filtering Quality: Performance
- Tessellation Mode: Override the application setting and set the level to Off.
- Reset Shader Cache: Perform a shader cache reset to clear out old shader files.
Anti-Cheat System Fixes
If you experience a game that runs perfectly smoothly after the first install, but then experiences severe issues starting with the second playthrough, such as:
- Game freezes for a second or two.
- FC 26 players become unresponsive.
- Framerate drops.
- Online matches are experiencing significant lag.
The following solutions haven’t worked:
- Updated drivers.
- Adjusted game settings and lowered graphics quality.
- Cleared cache files.
- Reinstalled the game.
- Reinstalled Windows (worked temporarily, but recurred).
The root cause of this issue is FUT 26’s anti-cheat program, a notorious program that causes nearly all lag and delay issues.
Solution
The fix is to reinstall and lock the anti-cheat program files. Note that this must be done offline.
Steps:
- Close EA applications.
- Completely exit EA app, including right-clicking it from the system tray and selecting “Exit.”
- Disconnect your computer from the internet (turn off Wi-Fi or unplug the network cable).
- Right-click EA Sports FC 26 shortcut on your desktop and select “Open File Location,” or manually navigate to the game’s installation folder.
- In the game’s root directory, scroll up and find the Installer folder.
- Locate and enter EA Anticheat folder and find EA Anticheat installer file.
- Right-click EA Anticheat installer and select “Run as Administrator.”
- In EA Javelin Anti-Cheat Settings window that pops up:
- First, click “Uninstall All” until you see the “Uninstall Successful” prompt. Then, select “FC 26” from the top drop-down menu.
- Next, click “Install” and wait for the “Installation Successful” prompt to appear. Once completed, close the settings window.
- Right-click EA Anticheat installer file again and select “Properties.”
- On the “General” tab, check “Read-only” and apply the changes.
- Reconnect to the network and launch EA app and EA Sports FC 26 again. The lag issue should be resolved.
After updating to patch 1.1.0, the game has been experiencing frequent disconnections (on PC). Officials indicate that setting Crowd Quality setting in the image to “Medium” can resolve this issue. This issue will be fixed in v1.1.2.
The above are some optimization solutions for FIFA 26. IGGM hopes this will help you enjoy a smooth gaming experience.