Friends, comrades, fellow fighters for truth and justice, you should turn off the 2K launcher in "Marvel's Midnight Suns". Because many players have reported improved performance with the launcher turned off.

As first noted by Rock Paper Shotgun (open in new tab), turning off the 2K launcher, which appears useless whenever Midnight Suns is launched, may significantly improve the frame rate in some situations. Open in new tab) players seem to share the same opinion, with some users seeing an increase of 10 (open in new tab) fps or more when the launcher is turned off. If you want to try it yourself, Steam has a handy guide (opens in new tab).

I also tried it on PCG, and while the results were not as dramatic, the changes were positive. The average frame rate increased from 50 fps to 55 fps at the "Epic" setting (with ray tracing turned on) at 1440p on a 3080 Ti, and the 0.1% lower frame rate jumped from 4 fps to 17 fps. Stuttering also decreased in general when the launcher was turned off. Not such a dramatic change, but an improvement nonetheless. Besides, all of these results could be due to slight differences in setup.

No one has been able to figure out what the 2K launcher is doing to affect performance. Players have reported similar problems with other 2K game software, including Mafia (open in new tab), Civ 6 (open in new tab), XCOM (open in new tab), and others. It is impressive that such a tiny and pointless application can cause such havoc.

And even if disabling the launcher doesn't make any difference to Midnight Suns, why not try turning it off anyway? 2K Launcher, like all launchers, is a minor annoyance on a good day, and on a bad day, the game completely stops working (opens in a new tab). Even if the frame rate isn't an issue, I would recommend turning it off.