Start with the settings inside the game
Before you touch Windows or drivers, the fastest FPS gains are sitting in the graphics menu of the game you are playing. Work through them in this order and you get the biggest wins first.
Upscaling: DLSS, FSR and XeSS
Upscaling is the single biggest free performance jump in modern games. It renders the game at a lower resolution and reconstructs it to your target resolution using either dedicated hardware (DLSS on RTX cards) or a general algorithm (FSR, XeSS).
Turn it on, set it to Quality mode, and expect a 20-40% frame rate increase with a minimal visual cost. If you are GPU-bound at 1440p or 4K, this is the first setting to change. DLSS Quality at 4K often looks better than native TAA because it cleans up shimmer on thin geometry like fences and hair.
Texture quality and VRAM
Texture pool size decides how much VRAM the game reserves. If you have an 8GB card, do not pick “Ultra” textures just because the menu allows it. When VRAM overflows, the game starts streaming textures from your SSD and you get stutters that no FPS counter explains.
Rule of thumb: 8GB VRAM means High, 12GB means Ultra is safe at 1440p, 4K Ultra wants 16GB. Watch the VRAM bar in games that show one, and leave 500MB-1GB headroom.
Shadows, volumetric effects and crowd density
After upscaling, shadows are the next biggest cost. Dropping shadows from Ultra to High or Medium is usually a 5-10% FPS gain that is hard to spot in motion. Volumetric fog, volumetric clouds and screen-space reflections follow the same pattern: expensive, and the Medium preset keeps most of the look.
Crowd density is a CPU setting that mainly exists in open world and sports games. If your FPS drops in cities but not in the wilderness, this is the dial to turn.
Driver-level settings
Two driver settings matter for almost everyone. The rest are per-game fixes you apply when something specific breaks.
Resizable BAR
Resizable BAR lets your CPU access the full GPU memory instead of 256MB chunks. On modern platforms it is a free 3-8% in supported games. Enable it in your motherboard BIOS (sometimes called Re-Size BAR or Smart Access Memory on AMD boards) and confirm it is active in the NVIDIA or AMD control panel info page.
Low latency modes
If you play competitive shooters, enable Reflex (NVIDIA) or Anti-Lag (AMD) in the game itself where supported. It reduces input lag by aligning the CPU with the GPU render queue. Skip the global control panel version; per-game implementation is smarter and avoids issues in games that manage their own frame pacing.
Windows-level settings
Game Mode
Leave Windows Game Mode on. It is on by default and it stops Windows Update from rebooting you mid-match. It also prioritizes your game in the scheduler. There is no measurable downside.
Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling
HAGS is required for DLSS Frame Generation on RTX 40 and newer cards, so if you use frame gen, it has to be on. On older setups it is neutral to slightly positive. If you see random driver timeouts, toggling it off is a legitimate fix, but do not expect FPS from it.
Power plan
Set Windows to the High performance plan, or Balanced on a laptop where you care about battery. On desktops, also confirm your BIOS is not limiting the CPU to eco mode. A CPU stuck at 65W when it is rated for 105W looks exactly like “this game runs badly”.
The stutter nobody warns you about
Shader compilation stutter is the reason a game can report 90 FPS and still feel bad. When you enter a new area or see a new effect for the first time, the game compiles shaders on the spot and the frame time spikes.
You cannot fully fix it on PC, but you can reduce it. Play the first 20 minutes of a new game without caring about performance while shaders build, keep your GPU drivers current because game-ready drivers often ship pre-compiled pipelines, and prefer games that compile shaders on the loading screen rather than during gameplay.
DirectStorage games sidestep the problem: they load assets straight from the NVMe drive to the GPU. If a game supports it, an NVMe SSD is a bigger upgrade than any settings tweak in this article.
What to skip
RAM “optimizers”, game booster suites and registry cleaners do nothing measurable for frame rates. Debloat scripts that remove Windows components sometimes break the Windows Store, Xbox Game Pass or anti-cheat. The gains people attribute to them are usually the driver reinstall or reboot they did at the same time.
The boring truth: upscaling, textures that fit your VRAM, current drivers and a correct power plan cover 95% of what a tuning guide can do for you. Everything else is per-game troubleshooting.
Frequently asked questions
DLSS or FSR: which quality mode should I pick?
Pick DLSS Quality if you have an RTX card, since the hardware tensor cores produce a more stable image. On AMD or older cards, FSR Quality is the default choice. In both cases, Quality mode at 1440p or 4K is the sweet spot; at 1080p, use Performance mode only if you are GPU-starved, because the upscaler has fewer pixels to work from.
How do I know if I am out of VRAM?
The symptoms are stutters that get worse the longer you play, textures that pop in late, and FPS that drops when you turn the camera fast. Overlay tools like the one built into your GPU driver show VRAM usage live. If you are at the ceiling, lower the texture pool one notch before touching anything else.
Is ray tracing worth the FPS cost?
In games with heavy reflection use, like cyberpunk or spider-man titles, yes at High with upscaling reconstructing the cost. In most other games, baked lighting looks close enough and ray tracing is the first setting to drop when you need frames. Turn it on selectively, not globally.
Should hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling be on or off?
On, if you use DLSS Frame Generation, because it is required. Otherwise it is neutral for FPS in most games. Toggle it off only if you are chasing a specific driver timeout issue.
Gameds is a longtime GameNerd contributor covering PC gaming, from graphics settings to Steam sales math.
