How to Fix The First Berserker: Khazan Performance and Crashing Issues

The First Berserker: Khazan is one of the hardest games you'll ever play, and it will probably push you to your limits. But if the difficulty doesn't drive you to madness the game's performance issues might. So in this guide, we'll show you how to quickly and easily solve the vast majority of them, which seem to primarily be coming from bad NVIDIA drivers. But that's actually a good thing because it's a quick fix!

How to Fix The First Berserker: Khazan Performance and Crashing Issues

The latest NVIDIA updates seem to be causing instability in the game. Reverting to an older, more stable driver can help significantly.

Go to NVIDIA's official driver download page.
Select the following options:

Product Type: GeForce

Product Series: [Your GPU Series]

Product: [Your Specific GPU Model]

Operating System: Windows 11

Download Type: Game Ready Driver (GRD)

Language: [Your Preferred Language]

Download and install the driver following the on-screen instructions.

Optimize In-Game Graphics Settings

Stop cranking your graphics settings through the roof.

Reduce Graphics Presets: Lower texture quality, shadow details, and reflections.
Disable V-Sync: Turning off vertical sync can lead to higher FPS.
Adjust Resolution: If you're struggling with performance, lowering the resolution can help.

Disable Background Overlays

Overlays from apps like Discord and NVIDIA GeForce Experience can cause FPS drops. Here’s how to disable them:

Discord

Open Discord and go to User Settings > Overlay.
Toggle off Enable in-game overlay.

NVIDIA

Open NVIDIA GeForce Experience.
Click the settings (gear) icon and disable In-Game Overlay under the General tab.

Perform a Clean Install of GPU Drivers

If you haven’t done a clean driver installation in a while, this can resolve hidden issues.

Download Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU).
Also, download the December 2024 drivers as mentioned earlier.
Disconnect your internet.
Run DDU and choose to remove all GPU drivers.
Restart your PC.
Install the December 2024 drivers.
Restart your PC again before reconnecting to the internet.

Close Background Applications

If you're a gamer you should already know this but close everything you can. You don't want any junk running in the background that will eat up your system resources....

Open Task Manager (Ctrl + Shift + Esc).
End tasks that aren’t necessary while gaming (e.g., browsers, unnecessary startup apps).

Run the Game as an Administrator

This can prevent certain permission-related issues.

Locate The First Berserker: Khazan installation folder.
Find the game’s executable file (.exe).
Right-click and select Run as administrator.
Confirm any prompts that appear.

Check for Windows and System Updates

There's not much of a chance of this doing anything but it's on the list because it is possible in theory.

Go to Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update.
Click Check for updates and install any pending updates.

What Causes Performance Drops and Crashes in The First Berserker: Khazan?

A primary culprit behind performance problems in the game is the latest NVIDIA drivers. Many players have reported significant improvements by rolling back to an earlier driver version. Other factors include high in-game settings, background applications, and system resource allocation.

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