by 
Discord is one of the best communication software for gamers worldwide, but sometimes, it can produce lag while playing games, which can be frustrating.
All applications require an amount of system memory and usage to perform their tasks efficiently, just like Discord. There can be many reasons for your games to lag while Discord is running in the background, and this can be easily resolved by following the simple step-by-step methods we have mentioned.
This article will find possible solutions to eliminate and reduce lag while Discord runs in the background. We will also discover possible upgrade options to make your computer system much more efficient and improve performance by providing more. So, let’s get into today’s topic without wasting more time.
Why Does Discord Make My Game Lag?
It is because your computer system is running low on RAM or CPU usage, or the Discord overlay is making the game lag by displaying the voice chat members over the games. Applications like Discord can use more memory and CPU due to application file or operating system corruption, causing significant lag.
Antivirus programs such as Windows Defender occasionally cause games and Discord latency. Updating your security software can help avert these kinds of problems. Depending on your system, Discord’s hardware acceleration option can improve or degrade performance. It is an option to experiment with and see what best suits your setup.
Discord and games may run slowly if your graphics and audio drivers are outdated or incompatible. Updating these drivers regularly helps guarantee compatibility and maximize performance. Furthermore, over time, the cache files that Discord stores on your computer may amass and significantly impact speed.
- Discord In-Game Overlay
Lag may occur from Discord’s in-game overlay taking up system resources or interfering with certain games. Discord features are superimposed upon your game, which may cause performance problems. - Excessive Background Applications
While gaming, running many apps in the background can use CPU and RAM resources, leaving less available for your game to use and causing slowness. Closing any background programs that aren’t essential might be beneficial, as Discord can utilize system resources. - Low RAM
Your machine could have trouble running Discord and your game simultaneously if it doesn’t have enough RAM (Random Access Memory). Multitasking runs more smoothly with more RAM. - Low or Inadequate Processing Power
Performance problems might arise if an antiquated or weak CPU cannot manage the strain of running Discord concurrently with a resource-intensive game. - Discord Notifications
Because Discord alerts use up system resources and interrupt gameplay, they may interfere with your enjoyment of games. By turning off these alerts, you may reduce latency and distractions. - General Bugs and Glitches
Discord may have performance problems due to corrupted or out-of-date file accumulation. Discord may be reinstalled to guarantee a clean, optimal installation. - Windows Defender
Lag can occasionally be caused by Windows Defender and other antivirus products interfering with Discord and games. Updating your security software can help avoid these kinds of disputes. - Hardware Acceleration
Depending on how your system is set up, Discord has a hardware acceleration option that can either make performance better or worse. Try turning it on and off to discover what best suits your configuration. - Outdated Drivers
Discord and your games may function poorly if your graphics and audio drivers are outdated or incompatible. Routine driver updates guarantee optimized performance and compatibility. - Discord Cache Files
Discord’s Cache files on your computer might build up over time and harm performance. Resolving Discord latency issues can be achieved by clearing these cache files. - Discord Voice Settings
Misconfigured speech settings in Discord can occasionally cause audio latency or other problems. Voice performance issues can be resolved by returning these settings to their original defaults.
How To Fix Discord Causing Game Lag
You can fix game lag by disabling the Discord overlay. Disabling the Discord overlay can significantly impact gameplay by reducing lag and increasing the frame rate for smooth gameplay. Moreover, reinstalling the faulty Discord or updating Windows Defender will help resolve this issue.
Keeping your PC build and operating system up-to-date is very much recommended, as the applications are upgrading daily to compete with the growing PC gaming community. Lag can depend on the game compatibility you are playing while running Discord in the background because some games can be really heavy.
Upgrading your computer’s CPU and RAM can provide more performance for Discord and games. Also, Installing the operating system on a better storage device like SSD can resolve such issues by increasing the read and write performance. Closing excessive background applications also helps increase performance.
Changing the hardware acceleration from Discord settings, clearing the cache, and resetting the Discord voice settings can also help you improve the performance. You can resolve these issues by following the solutions below. Please read carefully and follow the steps accurately to avoid any complications.
- Turn Off Discord In-Game Overlay
- Close Excessive Applications From Background
- Increase Your RAM
- Upgrade Your CPU
- Disable Discord Notifications
- Reinstall Discord
- Update Windows Defender
- Turn on/off Hardware Acceleration
- Update Your Drivers
- Clear Discord Cache Files
- Reset Discord Voice Settings
Turn Off Discord In-Game Overlay
Discord in-game overlay allows the users to spectate the voice channel members and their microphone inactivity. But this display can decrease the performance of your game by rendering a layer onto the gameplay, resulting in decreased FPS and lag. You can easily resolve this issue by disabling it in settings.
- Run Discord, and open the “Settings” by pressing the “Gear ICON” presented on the bottom left corner of the panel.
- Scroll down from the left tab, open “Game Overlay” settings, and turn off the “Enable in-game overlay.” by turning off the option.
It will permanently disable the in-game overlay, which will eventually increase the performance of your game by improving frames and reducing CPU and RAM usage. If there are no changes and Discord still produces lag while gaming, closing the excessive applications running in the background is recommended.
Close The Excessive Applications From Background
Applications running in the background increase CPU and RAM usage, and occasionally, these can result in low memory, producing lag while gaming and using Discord. It is recommended to close these excessive applications like Chrome, Spotify, Skype, etc., using built-in Windows Task Manager to eliminate lag.
- Open the Windows “Task Manager” by pressing the “Ctrl + Shift + Esc” shortcut keys. You can also open it from the Windows “Search Bar.”
- The “Processes” tab will open, and select the excessive applications that are using more “RAM and CPU” and click the “End task” button located in the lower left corner to close the application.
It will eventually increase the performance of your computer system by reducing CPU and RAM usage. Remember not to close the important Windows services running below in the background or any antivirus or Windows Defender that protects your system from harmful viruses, which also applies to drivers.
Increase Your RAM
Applications such as Discord and games use your Random Access Memory (RAM), a temporary memory, to run applications and games to perform their tasks. Due to low RAM, these applications and games produce lag, decreasing the frames. Increasing the RAM is the only option to improve performance and eliminate lag.
Before increasing your RAM, it is important to check the compatibility of your motherboard to determine the best possible choice. You can check your computer’s motherboard model using the Windows built-in “System Information” utility, and a little research over the internet for compatibility also helps.
- Open the Windows “System Information” from the search bar or by pressing the “Win + R” shortcut keys to open “Run,” type “msinfo32” in the dialogue box and click “Ok.”
- Locate the “System Manufacturer” and “System Model” from the right panel, and you will have your motherboard’s complete details.
- Now, you can easily Google the model of your motherboard to check it’s compatibility options, such as supported DDR and MHz.
Upgrade Your CPU
Almost all tasks are done by your computer system’s central processing unit (CPU), and a low-end CPU can’t provide much performance for the game and Discord application to run together smoothly. An old or low-end CPU with low GHz, cores, and threads will encounter difficulties in multitasking.
Upgrading your CPU according to the compatibility of your motherboard is the only option to increase compelling performance in multitasking. At least a 4-core 3.0 GHz processor is recommended for gaming and Discord in 2023, but performance also depends hugely on the games you want to play while using Discord.
You can check the motherboard’s compatibility using the model you can get from Windows “System Information,” as shown above. It is always recommended to upgrade your motherboard if it doesn’t support the 3.0 GHz 4-core processors. You can use the help of the internet to find possible upgrade options.
Disable Discord Notifications
Discord notifications can be frustrating, producing lag. They can increase the CPU and RAM usage while displaying it over the game. Notifications can be turned off by switching your profile’s “Online” status to “Do not disturb” or configuring your Discord notifications settings to turn them off permanently.
- Run Discord, open the settings, scroll down to “App Settings,” and click the “Notifications” tab.
- From there, disable the “Enable Desktop Notifications” option by turning it off from the slider. It will permanently restrict Discord from showing notifications in the Windows notification panel.
- You can also switch off notification sounds from the same settings by scrolling until the “Sounds” options appear.
Reinstall Discord
Corrupted files of Discord can cause it to increase CPU and RAM usage abnormally, which can produce significant lag in gaming while using Discord in the background. Uninstalling the old version properly with corrupted files and installing an updated new version from their official website is recommended.
- To uninstall the Discord from your Windows, open the “Control Panel”. Click the “Programs” option, and go to “Program and Features” to open the utility.
- From there, select “Discord” and click the “Uninstall” option mentioned above. Follow the uninstallation setup, and the Discord will be removed completely.
- Now go to the official website of Discord to download the updated version for your Windows. Install the application, log in to your details, and proceed.
If reinstalling the Discord application doesn’t fix the problem, it may be due to an underlying virus or malware affecting the files to get corrupted. Updating your Windows Defender is recommended to eliminate viruses and fight malware inflictions that can make the installed Discord corrupted again.
Update Windows Defender
Updating the Windows Defender is recommended to tackle the new viruses and avoid possible malware inflictions into your applications. Updating your Defender is the easiest way to avoid malware corrupting your applications, such as Discord. In contrast, some cracked games contain viruses that can produce lag.
- To update the Windows Defender, open “Settings” from the Windows “Start” bar or by pressing the “Win + I” shortcut keys.
- Head to the “Update & Security” options at the end. It will open the “Windows Update,” click the “Check for updates” button, and wait for Windows to download the available updates.
- After downloading, click the “Install updates” option to install all the downloaded updates. Sometimes, the PC will require a restart to complete the updates.
Turn Off Hardware Acceleration
Hardware acceleration allows Discord to utilize your GPU’s performance to provide users with a smoother Discord experience. Still, doing that increases the GPU usage while reducing your game’s overall performance and frame rate. This can produce significant lag but can be turned off from the user settings.
- Run Discord, open the “Users Settings,” and scroll down to locate the “App Settings,” open the “Advanced” settings tab.
- Locate the “Hardware Acceleration” option mentioned on the second line, and turn it off by disabling the slider.
Discord will no longer use the GPU to increase its performance, increasing your game’s frame rate and making the gameplay smoother. Upgrading your GPU to provide more performance for Discord and games is also recommended to avoid usage issues. At least an 8GB VRAM GPU is recommended in 2023.
Update Your Drivers
Unupdated, old, or corrupted Windows drivers can cause lag issues to your game while using Discord. To resolve these matters, keeping the drivers up-to-date is recommended. Graphics drivers play the most important role in gaming and multitasking. You can easily update your PC’s drivers from Device Manager.
- To update your Windows drivers, open the “Device Manager” from the search bar or by opening the “Properties” of your PC.
- From Device Manager, locate the “Search Icon” for the “Scan for hardware changes” and click it for Windows to automatically detect missing and un-updated drivers.
- After a while, it will automatically start installing the required drivers. After installation, restart your PC.
To update your graphics drivers, it is always recommended to use the official software of your manufacturer. For example, Nvidia Gigabyte GPU’s drivers can be installed from the GeForce Experience software, whereas AMD Radeon GPU uses AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition to install the required graphic drivers.
Clear Discord Cache Files
Cache files are the usage history saved by an application in the form of scripts, images, and other data types. These temporary files are unimportant and can affect your storage device and the application. Deleting the cache files of applications such as Discord can reduce its usage.
- To delete the cache files of your Discord, open the “C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming” directory folder by pressing the “Win + R” shortcut keys, type “%appdata%” in the dialogue box, and press “Enter.”
- Locate the folder “Discord” from the Roaming directory and open it. now go to the “Cache” folder and “Cache_Data.” Select all files and press the “Shift + Del” shortcut keys to delete all cache files permanently.
It can help the computer system to operate optimally by increasing the multitasking performance while reducing the lag. Discord lag and slow loadings can be fixed by deleting these cache files and useless data. Sometimes, settings can also cause dysfunctionalities and can be reset in user settings.
Reset Discord Voice Settings
In some rare cases, wrong discord voice settings can lead to dysfunctionalities by causing lag in voice, making the gameplay experience worse. You can easily resolve this issue by resetting the Discord’s voice settings. Removing the false settings will provide you with the best possible sound.
- To reset the voice settings of your Discord, open the “User Settings” from the icon below. Scroll to “App Settings” and select the “Voice & Video” tab.
- From the bottom, click the “Reset Voice Settings” button option. It will ask for your permission. Click “Okay” to proceed, and Discord will automatically restart with the default voice settings.
Conclusion
Despite being one of the best communication software for gamers, Discord can produce lag while using more CPU and RAM. This can be due to corrupted files, malware inflictions, or low system memory. All problems can be resolved by following the methods to decrease Discord usage while increasing performance.
Keeping the PC and laptops up-to-date with the latest technology and Windows is always recommended to avoid such issues because low-end setups will have difficulty running the new Windows and not provide enough performance for multitasking. It leads to games being lagged during Discord calls or streaming.
Disabling the in-game overlay of Discord helps reduce the lag while potentially increasing the frames because it displays a new layer on the game’s screen, indicating the voice chat users and their inactivity. It can increase the CPU and RAM usage significantly, increasing the lag.
Upgrading your computer’s CPU and RAM also helps significantly, and clearing the cached files of your Discord reduces the application stress. Hardware acceleration used by Discord is to use the GPU to make the user’s experience smooth and can cause the frames to drop. Disabling it from settings is advised.
Hey, I’m Hammad. I have been writing for several years now and have amassed a wealth of experience within my field. My focus is on technology and gaming, two areas that I am highly knowledgeable about.
