Apex Legends: what +fps_max actually does
Capping your frame rate is the most-reported stability fix in Apex. Here is the command, the number to pick, and what else to change.
Respawn's own community troubleshooting guide leads with one recommendation: cap your frame rate. It is not glamorous, and it is the change that most often stops Apex Legends from crashing — because uncapped rendering pushes the GPU into the load, heat and power-spike territory where driver resets happen.
The command and the number
In Steam, right-click Apex Legends, open Properties and use the Launch Options box. In the EA app, use the game's properties or advanced launch settings. The most broadly useful value is +fps_max 120. If crashes continue, work down through 100, 90 and 80 until they stop, then raise again once stable.
If you have a specific refresh rate, match the cap to it instead: 141 FPS on a 144Hz panel, 162 on 165Hz, 237 on 240Hz. Other useful options are -novid to skip the intro video, -nojoy to disable joystick enumeration, and -high to raise process priority. Add one at a time — stacked commands copied from older guides can create the problems they claim to solve.
Pick the cap for your monitor →Max visible FPS for any monitor and what your average FPS means for smoothness.The rest of the stability list
- Set Easy Anti-Cheat priority to Low in Task Manager's Details tab. It sounds backwards and it is one of the most reported fixes — you will need to redo it each launch.
- Repair Easy Anti-Cheat via EasyAntiCheat_Setup.exe as administrator if you crash on startup or when loading into the lobby.
- Disable every overlay: Discord, Steam, GeForce Experience, MSI Afterburner, RivaTuner, OBS, Razer Synapse and Chroma are all named in EA's guide.
- Remove all overclocking, including factory OC modes.
- Lower Texture Streaming Budget below your card's VRAM — 2GB to 4GB on mid-range cards.
- Let Windows manage the page file, and keep the EA app, the game and the page file on the same drive.
One exception: if you see an "illegal instruction" error, that is an anti-cheat or CPU instruction set issue to report to Easy Anti-Cheat — no frame cap will fix it.
Where to start if it crashes before the lobby
Crashes on startup or when loading into the lobby usually point at Easy Anti-Cheat rather than at graphics. Run EasyAntiCheat_Setup.exe from the game's EasyAntiCheat folder as administrator and choose Repair Service, then restart before relaunching. If the setup tool will not open at all, your antivirus is blocking it — add the Apex and Easy Anti-Cheat folders to the allowlist first.