An easy way to get better performance out of any program is to set its process as high priority in the task manager. However Easy Anticheat forbids you to do so.

Here's how to start Lost Ark with high priority anyway:

First of all open your registry editor. Click on your start menu and type regedit.exe, then click on the program icon that pops out in the upper left.


You'll have to confirm administrative access.

BE CAREFUL WITH THIS THING,you can break things.

If you're getting cold feet you can make a backup of your pc[support.microsoft.com] and then of your registry[support.microsoft.com]. (the latter basically boils down to do file -> export)

• Now, open the folders till you arrive at Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options
  
• Right click on Image File Execution Options and select new -> key. Name it LOSTARK.exe
  
• Right click on the folder you just created, and create another, name it PerfOptions and click on it
  
• Double check in the upper field that you are in Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options/LOSTARK.exe/PerfOptions
  
• Right click on the empty space on the rigth and select new -> DWORD (32-bit) Value
  
• Name the value CpuPriorityClass
  
• click on the value you just created and assign value 3 (leave it as Hexadecimal)
  
• That's it! Lost Ark now automatically starts with high priority

For reference, it should look like this (the other keys can have different names, waht's important is the one you created)



In the same way it's possible to lower Easy Anti Cheat's priority.
I cannot really reccomend it, since those kind of trojanscontrol programs often take exception, but if you have a very low end machine it might help a bit.
The path would be
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options/EasyAntiCheat.exe/PerfOptions
(Basically create an EasyAntiCheat.exe folder on the same level on the LOSTARK.exe one)
And the value you want to put the CpuPriorityClass is 1

If your game lags or stutters try the following.

• disable area chat. ( rigth click on the chat tab, and untick area). This fixes most stutterign for most people.
  (Alternatively, create a new tab with area chat disabled and switch to it when experiencing stuttering.)
  
• set you mouse polling at under 300 (how to do that depends on the mouse, some have an hardware button, some a control software)
  
• as a last resort you can try to use DX9, on older machines it might makes things smoother, but it's honestly hit and miss.
  
• If you have multiple screens, try to change between full screen and borderless.

The lag when opening the menus seems congenital.

This can help only if you have an nVidia GPU with multiple monitors.



Open the nvidia control panel, go to Display / change resolution, locate the monitor you're playing Lost Ark on and take note of the Refresh Rate setting. Do not change anything, we just need the value.



Now go to 3D Settings / Manage 3D Settings / Program Settings. Find Lost Ark in the menu.
If you cannot find it, click on add and go to the game's location on your disk.

The most important setting to change is Max Frame Rate. Put it at the same value as the Refresh Rate you found in the previous window.







Additional setting that might help regardless of multi monitors are:
Power management mode - set to Prefer maximum performance
OpenGL rendering GPU - put it to Auto-select if it's not so already.

IF your GPU has a decent amount of memory, and IF the disk you have installed Lost Ark on is fast (e.g.: SSD) you can get a decent improvement loading new areas by disabling texture streaming.


Right click on Lost Ark on your steam inventory and select properites...






On the general page write -notexturestreaming as a launch option.

The game does not load in memory all the stuff you should see before you enter a new area. This helps on lower end graphics cards or slower hard disks, since you do not have to wait a lot for the area to load. The downside is, low-priority objects (e.g.: the chaos dungeon statue) are loaded way after all the players.
By disabling this, you tell the game to load in everything at once. So it helps only if you GPU has a decent amount of memory and your disk is fast.

Besides the -notexturestreaming options, I'll compile a list of start flags when I'm sure they work.
Just add them after -notexturestreaming, put spaces between them
All the testing I've done is somewhat anecdotal (i.e.: I asked several guildmates to run the game with and without and tell me the results) so your mileage may vary.

-useallavailablecores
This seems to work only on somewhat recent CPUs, but gives a good boost. Downside is it might steal CPU time from other applications like Discord (and make you sound choppy) if your CPU is on the lower end.

• First thing is to verify game integrity, right click on Lost Ark in your library and go to properties -> Local Files -> Verify integtity
  
  
• Then try to fix Easy Anti Cheat: Go to the game files (right click, then browse local files) and find EasyAntiCheat_Setup.exe. It should be somewhere like (Steam installation path)Lost Ark Live\Binaries\Win64\EasyAntiCheat.
  Run it by double clicking on it, accept the Windows prompt, make sure there's "Current (Game 580)" on the drop down menu, then click on the big blue button two times.

I'll skil the various texture/shadow/randomcrap quality stuff, as with all games bring them up or down till you're satisfied.

For the less obvious options, go to Gameplay -> Controls and Display



You can save a bit of resources by disabling pets, but not much.
What's important is the Battle effect Display.



The less effects you see the less resources the game uses. But be aware that in a raid you might want to see the support AoEs your bard is popping down.
On that note, the Include Buff Effects of Party Memebers places a light green dot over any beneficial effects you might miss in the lightshow.

A couple of quick tips on controls too.

• Auto Move -> Towards the Cursor saves you a great many clicks. Click to move is unaffected.
  
• Unchecking Auto-Load Trade HUD does not change your bar to life skills when you're chopping down a tree,a mob jumps out and you have to switch back to kill it.
  
• Stronghold Basic HUD -> Combat HUD lets you enter "normally" in your stronghold without clicking through the menus. Nice if you want to run around it a bit. The usual crafting/ship stuff is on the bottom left.

Finally, if you set things up at the start with right click to move, check Attack with Right-click.