  As fermions are added to a lattice gauge theory, one is driven to stronger
bare coupling in order to maintain the same renormalized coupling. Stronger
bare couplings are usually associated with larger gauge fluctuations, leading
to larger cutoff effects and more expensive simulations. In theories with many
light fermions, sometimes the desired physical region cannot be reached before
encountering a phase boundary. We show that these undesired effects can be
reduced by adding Pauli--Villars fields. We reach significantly larger
renormalized couplings while at the same time damping short-distance
fluctuations of the gauge field. This may allow for controlled continuum
extrapolations from large lattice spacings.
