Le Mans Ultimate is a demanding simulation. This guide helps you get the best performance on your hardware without compromising the experience.
First Steps - Eliminate the Obvious
- Close background applications. Music players, browsers, Discord, OBS, Windows Update, RGB software - all of these consume CPU and RAM. Close everything non-essential before a session.
- Check your monitor cable. Make sure your monitor is plugged into your GPU, not your motherboard's onboard graphics port. Using onboard graphics is a very common cause of poor performance that's easy to miss.
- Install on an SSD. Running LMU from a hard drive causes stutters during asset streaming and longer load times. An SSD is strongly recommended.
In-Game Settings
Go to Settings > Display and work through these:
- Visible Vehicles - Keep this below 20. Values of 10-15 give a significant CPU performance gain, especially in large grid races. This is one of the highest-impact settings.
- Shadow Quality - Try lowering this if you're hunting for frames. Impact varies by hardware.
- Reflection Quality - Medium is a good compromise for most hardware.
- Ultra settings - Not recommended for normal racing. Ultra is best reserved for screenshots and video capture.
Sound settings can also affect performance. Try values of 128, 64, or 32 if you're experiencing stutters - lower values reduce CPU load from audio processing.
Advanced: settings.json Tweak
For an additional performance gain, set Garage Car Detail to 0.01 in your settings.json file (located in Steam\steamapps\common\Le Mans Ultimate\UserData). This reduces detail on cars in the garage view without affecting on-track visuals.
Windows Pagefile
Setting a manual pagefile can reduce stutters, particularly in large sessions or VR. Set your pagefile to 64GB on an SSD (you'll need at least 64GB free on the drive). Do not place the pagefile on a hard drive - it will make things worse. Search !pagefile in the #community-support channel on the official Discord for step-by-step instructions.
Recommended Settings by Hardware Tier
Entry-level: Set all graphics options to their lowest values. Focus on Visible Vehicles 10, sound at 64 or 32, and close all background apps.
Mid-range (e.g. RTX 3060 / RX 6700 XT): Set most options to Medium. Visible Vehicles 15, sound at 128.
High-end (e.g. RTX 4070 / RX 7800 XT): Set most options to High. Ultra is not recommended for normal racing - save it for screenshots or video.
GPU-Limited vs CPU-Limited
Understanding which component is your bottleneck determines what to tune:
- GPU-limited (GPU usage at 99%, CPU lower) - Lower graphical settings: reflections, AA, texture quality, draw distance.
- CPU-limited (CPU usage high, GPU not maxed) - Reduce the number of opponent cars in your session, lower Visible Vehicles, and reduce sound quality. Closing background apps helps here most.
Use Task Manager or MSI Afterburner to check which component is saturated during a race.
VR Performance
VR requires approximately double the rendering load of flat screen. Key adjustments:
- Set Supersampling in your VR runtime (SteamVR or OpenXR) rather than in-game. Start at 100% and increase only if you have headroom.
- Disable Motion Blur - causes discomfort in VR and costs performance.
- Keep Visible Vehicles at 10 or below in VR.
- Enable Fixed Foveated Rendering if your headset supports it.
- Ensure Reprojection / ASW is enabled in your VR runtime as a safety net.
Diagnosing Stutters
Frame drops in specific situations are usually caused by:
- Too many opponent/AI cars - reduce the number of cars in session, or lower Visible Vehicles
- Asset streaming from slow storage - install on SSD
- Shader compilation on first visit to a track - one-time cost, resolves on subsequent sessions
- Thermal throttling - check CPU/GPU temperatures under load using HWiNFO or MSI Afterburner
- Pagefile on HDD or no pagefile set - see Windows Pagefile section above
Still Having Performance Issues?
Check the 1.3 Update Support Hub for any known performance issues in the current version. If you believe you're seeing a regression after an update, submit a ticket with your system specs and a description of where the drops occur.