Valheim Performance Overhaul

A comprehensive performance optimization mod focused on reducing CPU and GPU load - especially on large bases, busy servers, and zones with many light sources.

Installation

Install via r2modman or Thunderstore Mod Manager (recommended) - everything is placed automatically.

Manual install:

1. Install BepInExPack Valheim first.
2. Copy ValheimPerformanceOverhaul.dll into BepInEx/plugins/.
3. Launch the game - a config file is generated automatically at BepInEx/config/com.Skarif.ValheimPerformanceOverhaul.cfg.

What it does

⚙️ In-Game Settings Menu (New in 3.0.0)

• A built-in configuration menu accessible directly from the Valheim Main Menu.
• You no longer need external configuration managers to tweak VPO settings!

🧱 Decor Batching (New in 3.0.0)

• Automatically combines meshes of decorative building pieces (Misc category) in a grid chunk to drastically reduce draw calls.
• Huge FPS boost on extremely detailed, decoration-heavy bases.

🌐 Network Optimizations (Crossplay Safe!) (Returned in 3.0.0)

• Steam Socket Uncap: Increases P2P data limits (solves desyncs on huge bases). Safely checks for Steam API and disables itself gracefully on Game Pass / Crossplay to prevent crashes.
• Adaptive Throttling: Intelligently drops ZDO sends to clients with high ping (>400ms) to prevent choking their connection.
• Smart ZDO Sorting: Prioritizes players, portals, and ships over AI during network sync.
• Smart Zone Ownership: Automatically transfers AI control to the player with the lowest ping in the zone.

🌫️ Smoke Physics Optimization & Memory Leak Fix

• Replaces complex vanilla smoke aerodynamics with a simple, lightweight approximation.
• Fixes a critical vanilla memory leak where smoke objects were never destroyed after fading, piling up invisibly and killing FPS.
• AddForce and mass calculations are heavily throttled for maximum CPU savings.

🔦 Light Culling & LOD

• Limits active light sources to a configurable maximum (default: 15).
• Disables shadow casting beyond a set distance.
• Light LOD system: transitions lights through Full → No Shadows → Emissive → Billboard → Disabled as distance increases.

🕯️ Light Flicker Optimization

• Fixes fire and torch light intensity at its base value, eliminating per-frame Shadow Map recalculation.
• Making the light static means shadows are computed once and reused until something moves. Huge GPU gain.

💤 Distance & Piece Culler

• Puts distant creatures and building pieces to "sleep" - pauses their Update logic.
• Piece Sleep Manager: Puts static building pieces (WearNTear) to sleep after 2 frames of inactivity.
• Asynchronous WearNTear initialization - spreads load over multiple frames on scene load.
• WearNTear.GetSupport() results are cached with a configurable TTL.

🤖 AI Throttling

• Monsters beyond 60 m update AI only every 5 seconds instead of every frame.
• LOS (line-of-sight) checks are cached per-target with a 0.5 s timeout.
• Idle tamed animals inside player bases enter a low-power mode.

🛠️ Engine Quality Settings

• Forces low-level Unity QualitySettings tweaks at startup:
  • Soft Particles disabled - eliminates per-pixel Depth Buffer reads for particle edges.
  • Soft Vegetation disabled.
  • Particle Raycast Budget reduced (default: 1024, vanilla: 4096).

🌿 Vegetation & Graphics

• Grass render distance and density control.
• Configurable shadow distance, resolution, and cascade count.
• Bloom and screen-space reflections toggle.

🎵 Audio & ♻️ Object Pooling

• Reuses AudioSource and ItemDrop / Projectile GameObjects to reduce instantiation overhead.
• Operates with zero garbage allocations on the hot path using pre-compiled Expression delegates.

🧠 GC Control & ⚡ JIT Warm-up

• Prevents Unity's garbage collection from firing during combat or movement.
• Pre-compiles critical game methods on spawn to eliminate the first-use stutter.

🛡️ Frame Budget Guard

• Monitors frame times in a rolling 120-frame window and tracks the 1% Low.
• When heavy spikes are detected, dynamically lowers Time.maximumDeltaTime to prevent Unity's physics engine from entering the Death Spiral (lag → over-simulation → freeze).

⏩ Skip Intro

• Skips the Iron Gate and Coffee Stain logo screens on every game launch. Saves 5–10 seconds.

Configuration

All settings are available in the Main Menu VPO Button or in BepInEx/config/com.Skarif.ValheimPerformanceOverhaul.cfg.

Key settings

Performance expectations

Results depend heavily on scene complexity. Typical gains:

Compatibility

• ✅ Works standalone - no other mods required.
• ✅ Compatible with most content mods (Epic Loot, Jotunn-based mods, etc.).
• ✅ Crossplay Compatible! Network optimizations automatically detect if you are running on Steam or Game Pass and adjust safely.
• ⚠️ If Object Pooling conflicts with a custom projectile mod, disable it in config.
• ⚠️ Light Flicker Optimization removes the visual flicker from fires. Disable if you prefer vanilla aesthetics.
• ⚠️ Smoke Physics Optimization changes smoke behaviour (won't accumulate under roofs). Disable if this breaks your chimney designs.