Hardware upgrades get most of the attention when people talk about improving gaming performance — but there's often a meaningful amount of performance sitting untapped on systems that just haven't been properly configured. Before you start pricing new components, it's worth going through the software side to see how much of a difference it makes.
These tips apply to Windows 10 and Windows 11, which account for the vast majority of gaming PC setups. Some are quick one-time changes; others require a bit more attention. None of them involve third-party "optimization" tools, which we'd generally recommend avoiding.
1. Keep Your GPU Drivers Up to Date — But Be Selective About When
Keeping your GPU driver current is generally good practice. Driver updates include performance improvements for recently released games, bug fixes, and optimizations that can have a measurable impact on frame rates and stability.
That said, driver updates occasionally introduce regressions. If you've just updated and notice a problem that wasn't there before, it's worth checking forums to see if others are reporting similar issues. Rolling back a driver through Device Manager is straightforward if needed.
For Nvidia users, the GeForce Experience app handles driver updates automatically if configured to do so. For AMD users, the Adrenalin software does the same. You can also download drivers directly from the manufacturer's website without the companion software if you prefer a minimal installation.
2. Set Windows to High Performance Power Plan
Windows power plans control how the system manages CPU performance. The "Balanced" plan (the default) is designed to reduce power consumption by throttling CPU frequency when demand is low. While this is sensible for laptops, on a desktop gaming PC it can cause frame time inconsistencies as the CPU scales frequency up and down mid-game.
Switching to the "High Performance" plan (or "Ultimate Performance" on Windows 11) tells the CPU to stay at higher frequencies. The practical impact varies by game and system, but it's a free change that eliminates one potential source of stuttering.
You can find this under Control Panel → Power Options, or by searching "power plan" in the Start menu.
3. Disable Xbox Game Bar and Background Recording
Windows includes a built-in screen recording and overlay system called Xbox Game Bar. While useful for some users, the background recording feature (Game DVR) continuously records your gameplay in the background in case you want to save a clip — consuming CPU, RAM, and disk write bandwidth even when you're not actively using it.
If you're not using it, disabling it is straightforward: Settings → Gaming → Xbox Game Bar → toggle off. Also check Settings → Gaming → Captures and disable background recording if enabled.
4. Configure In-Game Graphics Settings Intelligently
Not all graphics settings have the same performance cost. Some settings have a large impact on GPU workload; others are nearly free. Understanding which is which lets you make targeted adjustments rather than dropping the entire quality preset.
The most GPU-intensive settings are typically:
- Ray tracing / global illumination: These are by far the most GPU-intensive features in modern games. Disabling or reducing ray tracing quality often yields a significant frame rate improvement with a modest visual trade-off.
- Ambient occlusion: High or ultra settings add realistic contact shadows. SSAO is less expensive than HBAO or RTAO. The visual difference is subtle; the performance impact is not.
- Anti-aliasing: MSAA and SSAA are expensive. TAA is cheap. If your game uses a modern upscaling technology (DLSS, FSR, XeSS), using that instead of traditional anti-aliasing improves both quality and performance.
- Shadow quality: Ultra shadow quality at long draw distances is GPU-intensive. High shadows at medium distance is a common trade-off that preserves most of the visual fidelity.
Settings that are relatively inexpensive to keep high include texture quality (mostly a VRAM question), anisotropic filtering, and most post-processing effects.
5. Enable Upscaling If Available
If your game supports DLSS (Nvidia RTX), FSR (AMD), or XeSS (Intel), enabling upscaling at "Quality" or "Balanced" mode is one of the highest-value changes you can make. These technologies render at a lower internal resolution and reconstruct the output — often with visual results that are difficult to distinguish from native rendering at higher frame rates.
DLSS specifically (which uses AI-based reconstruction) tends to produce the highest quality output at the "Quality" preset. FSR 3 is increasingly competitive and has the advantage of working on any GPU. Both are worth using when available in a title you're playing.
6. Clean Your System and Check Thermals
Thermal throttling is a performance killer that's easy to overlook. When a CPU or GPU reaches its maximum temperature threshold, it automatically reduces its clock speed to bring temperatures down. The result is inconsistent performance — not a steady lower frame rate, but frame rate drops and stutters that appear to come from nowhere.
Check your temperatures with a free tool like HWiNFO64 or GPU-Z while gaming. CPU temperatures above 90–95°C and GPU temperatures above 85–90°C (depending on the card) warrant attention. Acceptable ranges vary by component and manufacturer, so look up the specific limits for your hardware.
Common causes of thermal issues:
- Dust accumulation on heatsinks and fans — clean with compressed air every 6–12 months
- Dried-out thermal paste on the CPU — reapplying after several years can significantly reduce temperatures
- Poor case airflow due to cable management or blocked vents
7. Close Unnecessary Background Applications
This sounds obvious, but it's easy to accumulate programs that start with Windows and run in the background. Web browsers with many tabs open, cloud sync applications, Discord (especially video calls), and streaming software can all consume RAM and CPU cycles that would otherwise be available to the game.
Check what's running via Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc) and look at the Startup tab to disable programs that don't need to launch automatically. Be conservative — don't disable things you don't recognize, particularly security software.
8. Use a Wired Connection for Online Games
For competitive multiplayer gaming, a wired Ethernet connection provides more consistent latency than Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi introduces variable latency (jitter) due to wireless congestion, signal interference, and the overhead of the wireless protocol itself. This doesn't affect raw download speed much, but in fast-paced games, consistent latency matters more than low average latency.
If running an Ethernet cable isn't practical, powerline adapters or MoCA adapters (which use coaxial cable) are significantly more stable alternatives to Wi-Fi for gaming.
9. Monitor Your Frame Times, Not Just FPS
Frame rate as a single number can be misleading. A game reporting 100fps average that drops to 30fps every few seconds feels worse than one running a consistent 70fps. The metric that captures this is frame time — the time between individual frames, measured in milliseconds.
Tools like RTSS (RivaTuner Statistics Server) with an on-screen display overlay, or MSI Afterburner, let you monitor frame times in real time. If you're experiencing stuttering that your reported FPS doesn't explain, frame time data usually reveals the cause.
When Software Optimization Isn't Enough
Software optimization has limits. If you're running a GPU that's fundamentally underpowered for your target resolution and settings, no amount of driver tweaks will close that gap. Similarly, if you're running 8GB of RAM and your game is consistently using most of it, adding RAM is the only real solution.
If you've gone through the software side and still have meaningful performance issues, it's worth having a look at what a hardware upgrade would actually cost versus how much improvement it would realistically provide. We're happy to help you think through that — reach out if you'd like a second opinion.