Call of Duty Black Ops 6 has had a rocky launch, suffering from numerous technical issues against what is an otherwise very competent entry in the Call of Duty franchise. The newest of these issues seems to affect Steam users in particular.
As reported by multiple users on online forums (such as Reddit), Call of Duty Black Ops 6 is currently bugged on Steam.
Those playing the game through Steam may notice a marked decrease in their frame rates while playing through Warzone and/or a multiplayer lobby in general. The FPS loss is rather dramatic, with many reporting 50-60 frames lost.
Interestingly, this issue is entirely absent on alternative platforms – including the other PC versions of the game available via Xbox Game Pass and the Battle.net client.
While there is yet to be any conclusive evidence regarding the root cause of the FPS drops in Steam, many users speculate it to be related to the game’s anti-cheat solution.
Black Ops 6 utilizes a custom anti-cheat known as RICOCHET, which has had numerous issues in the past. A recent update may have pushed some buggy code that only affects the Steam version of the game.
Regardless, this is all speculation and not a definite answer to the root cause of the problem.
How to fix the performance degradation
- Restart your Steam client and boot up Black Ops 6 again.
- Try updating your GPU drivers. Attempt a clean re-install using DDU (Display Driver Uninstaller).
- If you are on a laptop and/or handheld device, try setting your PC to a ‘High Performance’ profile.
- Make sure you are plugged into a power source and not playing on battery power.
Keep in mind that these solutions may yield mixed results. Either way, there is not much else to do other than wait until Raven Software releases a patch addressing the issue directly.
