Lag within 5 minutes despite previously running Grounded on Epic quality.

[Dielle]

Hello,

Grounded has become my hyperfixation lately and I was very pleased to be able to play it in Epic quality and experience its gorgeous scenery. Up until two days ago I was running it on the best quality, chromatic aberration on and having the time of my life. Now even after lowering the quality to High and unchecking chromatic aberration and similar settings I am still lagging after around five minutes. All I can find on here is the previous mention of ant hills spawning mounds of food and players having to manually delete them/use a mod workaround until the bug was patched later on. I don't understand what could be causing this sudden lag and quality drop after playing some 40 hours with no issue. All my drivers are up to date. Some advice would be helpful. I've done a few lag fixes I've read about online here and there but nothing has helped.