Best PC Settings for Maximum FPS: The Complete Guide

Most missing frames hide in a handful of settings inside the game itself, not in Windows tweaks and not in new hardware. In most games, a few settings eat the majority of your performance, while the rest barely change how the game looks.

This guide is built from Microsoft’s, NVIDIA’s, and AMD’s own support pages. Where a number appears, it comes from a published test result, and we say so next to it. The full source list sits near the end of this guide.

In this guide, we will show you how to measure your starting point, change the settings that matter in the right order, and check each change the honest way, on your own PC.

What You Need Before You Start

Nothing to buy. You need access to three places, and about 40 minutes for one game.

• Your game’s settings menu: The Graphics or Video page inside the game you want to speed up.
• Your driver app: The NVIDIA App on GeForce cards, or AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition on Radeon cards. Free, and already installed with your driver.
• An FPS counter: The Steam overlay, the Xbox Game Bar, or the counter in your driver app. It only needs to show a live frame rate.
• One repeatable scene: A busy spot in your game you can return to, or the game’s built-in benchmark.

One rule for the whole guide: change one setting at a time, then test. Change five at once and you will never know which one helped.

Why Settings Change FPS: The One Idea Behind This Guide

FPS means frames per second: how many still pictures your card finishes every second. More pictures per second means smoother motion. Every picture is work, and a setting decides how much work goes into each one.

Think of each frame as a painting. A bigger canvas and finer detail take longer. Lower a setting, and the card paints fewer pixels or simpler effects, so each frame finishes faster.

That is why in-game settings move FPS so much: they change the work inside every frame. Windows settings mostly stop other programs from interrupting the artist. Useful, but small. Fix the painting first.

One more term: VRAM is the memory on your graphics card itself. Some settings, textures above all, live in VRAM. They cost memory more than speed, and Part 1 treats them differently for that reason.

Step 0: Measure Your Baseline First

Time needed: about 10 minutes.

Do not change anything yet. First, write down where you start. Without a starting number, every later claim is a guess.

1. Start your game and go to your busy scene: a crowded city, a big fight, or the game’s own benchmark.
2. Turn on your FPS counter. In Steam, open Settings, then In Game, and switch on the frame rate display.
3. Play the scene for two to three minutes. Watch the counter at the busy moments too.
4. Write down two numbers: your average FPS, and your 1 percent lows if your tool shows them.

The 1 percent lows are the slow moments: the worst frames, averaged. A game can average 90 FPS and still dip to 35, and those dips are what you feel. Averages alone lie. A locked, even 60 feels better than a bouncing 90. Close background apps before you measure, or they will poison the baseline.

Part 1: In-Game Settings, Ranked by Impact

Time needed: about 20 minutes for one game, including test runs.

Work down this list in order: each setting costs more than the one below it. Test after each change, in the same scene, against your Step 0 numbers.

First: Let Your Monitor Show the Frames (Refresh Rate)

This is the most common mistake in PC gaming. Your monitor has a refresh rate: how many new pictures it can show per second. A 144 Hz monitor shows 144. Windows often runs such a monitor at 60 Hz, and every frame above 60 is rendered and then never shown.

1. Right click an empty part of the desktop. Click Display settings.
2. Scroll down, click Advanced display, and find Choose a refresh rate. Pick the highest number your monitor supports, for example 144 Hz.
3. Open your game. If it has its own refresh rate option, set it to the same maximum.

Do not worry if yours says 60 Hz. Windows resets it after driver updates. It is a two minute fix, not a fault.

Resolution and Render Scale: The Biggest Lever

Resolution is the size of the painting: how many pixels are in each frame. It is the single biggest cost in any game. Start here.

1. Open the game’s Settings, then Display or Graphics.
2. Set Resolution to your monitor’s native resolution, the one Windows marks as recommended. Do not lower this first: lowering it blurs everything, text included.
3. Look for a Render Scale slider. If your game has upscaling (next section), leave this at 100 percent and use that. Only without upscaling, drop the scale a step at a time and test.

Upscaling presets are render scales in disguise. Each renders at a percentage of your target resolution, measured per axis:

Upscaling (DLSS, FSR, XeSS): Turn It On at Quality

Upscaling renders the game at that lower scale, then rebuilds a sharp full size image. It is the single biggest free FPS boost in this guide. NVIDIA calls it DLSS, AMD calls it FSR, and Intel calls it XeSS.

1. Open the game’s Graphics or Display settings.
2. Find the row named Upscaling, DLSS, FSR, or XeSS.
3. Switch it On and choose the Quality preset.
4. Return to your test scene and compare with your baseline.

Start with Quality. In GPU bound games it typically buys a large FPS uplift for a barely visible softening. Still short of frames? Step down to Balanced. Avoid Performance at 1080p unless you have no choice: the image becomes noticeably softer. Upscaling also lowers VRAM pressure.

By card: DLSS Super Resolution works on every NVIDIA RTX card. FSR runs on almost any GPU, including older GeForce cards. XeSS runs best on Intel Arc cards, which have dedicated XMX AI cores; on other brands it uses its DP4a fallback and runs slightly slower.

Frame Generation: Only on a Healthy Base Rate

Frame generation builds extra in-between frames to smooth motion. It does not create real performance, and it adds a little input latency.

1. Check your base frame rate first, with frame generation off. It should already sit around 60 FPS. Below that, leave it off and keep working down this list.
2. At or above it? Open the game’s Graphics settings, find Frame Generation, and switch it on.
3. If the game offers NVIDIA Reflex or AMD Anti-Lag, turn it on too: both cut the latency frame generation adds.

By brand: DLSS Frame Generation needs an RTX 40-series card or newer, and the RTX 50-series adds Multi Frame Generation. Supported games add FSR Frame Generation. AMD’s driver level AFMF adds frame generation to thousands of DirectX games on RX 6000 and 7000 series cards. XeSS Frame Generation is Arc only.

Ray Tracing: The Most Expensive Switch on the Page

Ray tracing simulates real light bouncing around the scene. It looks beautiful. It is also the most expensive feature in most games.

1. Open the game’s Graphics settings.
2. Find the Ray Tracing rows. Reflections and global illumination are the usual entries.
3. Set them to Off. If you love the look, try Low as the compromise.
4. Test in the same scene before you touch anything else.

Shadows: Drop to Medium

The card redraws the scene from the light’s point of view to build shadows. High and Ultra settings cost far more than they deliver.

1. Open the game’s Graphics settings.
2. Find Shadow Quality.
3. Set it to Medium.
4. Test. In motion, Medium shadows look close to High.

Reflections: Medium Keeps the Shine

Reflections on water, glass, and glossy floors need extra rendering passes. At Ultra, screen space reflections are expensive.

1. Open the game’s Graphics settings.
2. Find Reflections or Reflection Quality.
3. Set it to Medium.
4. Test near water or a glossy surface if your scene has one.

Volumetric Fog and Clouds: The Open World Tax

Volumetrics render light moving through 3D space: fog, clouds, light shafts. They can be brutal in open world games.

1. Open the game’s Graphics settings.
2. Find Volumetric Fog, Volumetric Clouds, or similar rows.
3. Set them to Low or Medium.
4. Test outdoors, where these settings do their damage.

Related check for open world games: view distance and foliage density hit both CPU and GPU. FPS drops outdoors but not indoors? Lower these two first.

Textures: Leave Them High (They Cost Memory, Not Speed)

Beginners lower this one first, and it is usually the wrong one. Texture quality decides how detailed surfaces are. Those details sit in VRAM. With enough VRAM, textures cost very few frames, and they make the biggest visual difference on this page.

1. Open the game’s Graphics settings and find Texture Quality.
2. Leave it on High if your VRAM allows it. On an 8 GB card, High is right at 1080p and 1440p. Be careful at 4K, where textures get much bigger.
3. Running out of VRAM shows up as stutter and blurry surfaces popping in late, not as a steady low frame rate. If you see that, drop textures one notch only.

Our guide to which graphics settings affect FPS the most breaks down every common setting and what it costs.

Anti-Aliasing: Let Upscaling Do the Job

Anti-aliasing smooths jagged edges. Older methods render extra samples of the picture, which costs real performance. Modern temporal methods reuse past frames and cost far less.

• Upscaling on? DLSS, FSR, and XeSS include their own anti-aliasing in the rebuild. A separate AA row, if the game shows one, can stay at its default.
• No upscaling? Choose the temporal option (often labelled TAA) over MSAA. MSAA is the expensive classic method, and many modern games do not offer it.
• Edges still shimmer? A known weakness of temporal methods. Raising the upscaling preset one step (Balanced to Quality) cleans edges better than any AA slider.

The Smaller Settings: Off for a Clearer Picture

Three settings sit at the bottom of most graphics menus: motion blur, depth of field, and chromatic aberration. They blur or distort the image on purpose, as camera effects. Turning them off buys clarity, not meaningful FPS.

1. Open the game’s Graphics or Display settings.
2. Set Motion Blur to Off.
3. Set Depth of Field to Off, unless you like the camera look in cutscenes.
4. Set Chromatic Aberration to Off.

Do not expect the counter to jump. The win is a sharper picture, easier to read at speed.

V-Sync and the Frame Cap: Set Them Once, Correctly

V-Sync waits for the monitor before showing each frame. It stops tearing, but adds input lag and caps your frame rate. If your monitor has G-Sync (NVIDIA) or FreeSync (AMD), you do not need it.

1. Open the game’s Graphics settings. Find V-Sync and set it to Off.
2. Turn adaptive sync on in your driver app instead (Part 2).
3. No adaptive sync monitor? Set a frame cap a few frames below your refresh rate: 141 on a 144 Hz screen. A steady cap feels smoother than a rate bouncing against the limit.
4. Use exclusive fullscreen where the game offers it. If fullscreen causes alt tab problems, borderless is fine.

Part 2: Driver Settings (NVIDIA App and AMD Adrenalin)

Time needed: about 10 minutes, once per PC.

Your driver app holds three jobs: keeping the driver current, telling the card to favour performance, and turning on adaptive sync. Do them once, for every game.

Step 1: Update the driver, the official way

1. NVIDIA: open the NVIDIA App, click Drivers, and install the update it offers. AMD: open AMD Software, click the Settings gear, and check for updates.
2. Pick a clean installation if you have been having crashes.
3. Never use a random driver booster tool. Official app only.

Drivers matter most around big game launches, when both brands ship game ready releases tuned for new titles. Also update your motherboard chipset driver now and then: everyone forgets it, and it quietly affects CPU scheduling and stability.

Step 2 (NVIDIA): Performance settings in the NVIDIA App

1. Open the NVIDIA App. Click Graphics.
2. Click Program Settings and pick your game. Global Settings changes every game at once.
3. Find Power management mode. Set it to Prefer maximum performance.
4. Find Low Latency Mode. Set it to On. If the game offers NVIDIA Reflex, use Reflex in the game instead and leave this setting alone for that game.
5. Find Texture filtering, Quality. Set it to High performance for every last frame, or leave it on Quality for the cleaner image. The difference is small.
6. Find Max Frame Rate only if you want your cap here instead of in the game. Never two caps.
7. Click Apply.
8. For G-Sync itself: in NVIDIA Control Panel, open Display, then Set up G-SYNC, tick Enable G-SYNC, G-SYNC Compatible, and click Apply.

Step 3 (AMD): Performance settings in Adrenalin

1. Open AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition. Click the Gaming tab and pick your game, or use global Graphics settings for every game.
2. Turn on Radeon Anti-Lag. It is AMD’s answer to Reflex and cuts input latency in supported games.
3. Find Texture Filtering Quality. Set it to Performance.
4. Click the Display tab and switch AMD FreeSync to On.
5. If you use Radeon Chill as your frame cap, set it here. Again, one cap only.

Part 3: Windows Settings That Matter

Time needed: about 10 minutes, plus restarts if you test both scheduling modes.

Dozens of gaming tweaks float around. Only a few do anything: these Microsoft ones. Gains here are small and indirect, so set them once and stop chasing more.

Setting 1: Game Mode on

1. Open Settings, then Gaming, then Game Mode.
2. Switch Game Mode to On.

Game Mode stops background updates and notifications from stealing resources mid game. Expect steadiness, not a jump in FPS.

Setting 2: Test GPU scheduling both ways

Normally your CPU hands drawing jobs to the card, like a manager handing tasks to a worker. Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling lets the card keep its own job list instead. On most modern cards it is equal or slightly better. On some older and 8 GB cards, the old way can feel smoother. Test it.

1. Open Settings, then System, then Display, then Graphics.
2. Click Change default graphics settings.
3. Note how Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling is set. Switch it the other way and restart the PC: the change does nothing until you restart.
4. Play your test scene for ten minutes. Test it set back too, and keep the calmer result.

Setting 3: Power mode to Best performance

1. Open Settings, then System, then Power & battery.
2. Set Power mode to Best performance.
3. Desktop alternative: Control Panel, then Power Options, then High performance.

This matters most on laptops. The default laptop plan often throttles the GPU on battery logic, even while the laptop is plugged in.

Setting 4: Test fullscreen optimizations

1. Find the game’s .exe file. In Steam: right click the game, then Manage, then Browse local files.
2. Right click the .exe. Click Properties, then the Compatibility tab.
3. Tick Disable fullscreen optimizations. Click Apply, then OK, and test your scene.

The undo is built in: no change, untick the same box.

Setting 5: Memory Integrity, read before you touch

Microsoft’s own gaming performance page names Memory Integrity and Virtual Machine Platform as features that can cost performance on some PCs. Turning security off is a decision, not a tweak. Only look here after every setting above. Read what Microsoft says first, and turn the protection back on if it does not help.

A Worked Example: What the Test Numbers Actually Say

Two published test results teach you how to read every other claim on the internet.

The benchmark lesson. In the cited 3DMark demo test, the score difference between a curated settings profile and maxed out settings on the same test rig was only about 1.5 percent. Read that honestly: a benchmark score is not an in-game frame rate. A synthetic score compresses differences that feel large while you play. The number your own PC produces in your own game is the only one that counts.

The latency lesson. In the cited NVIDIA Reflex test, turning Reflex on cut system latency from 38 ms to 25 ms. That is a feelable difference in responsiveness, and it came from a latency setting, not an FPS setting. Smoothness is two things: enough frames, and low delay between your hand and the screen.

One warning follows: if a tweak promises to double your FPS, it is selling something. Real settings trade picture quality for frames, in amounts you can measure with the Step 0 method.

Common Mistakes That Cost You Frames

• Maxing every setting, then blaming the PC. Ultra presets are built to look good in screenshots, not to run well. Cut the expensive settings first and keep the ones you can actually see.
• Stacking V-Sync on top of adaptive sync and a frame cap. Three systems doing one job fight each other and add lag. Pick one: adaptive sync on and V-Sync off, or a frame cap just below the refresh rate.
• Changing five settings at once. You will not know which change helped and which made it worse. One setting, one test, against your written baseline.
• Expecting Windows tweaks to double your FPS. Game Mode and power plans stop interruptions. They do not change the work inside each frame. The frames live in Part 1.
• Using Ultra Performance upscaling at 1080p. It renders at 33 percent per axis, so at 1080p the rebuild turns soft and smeary. Stay at Quality or Balanced.

Frequently Asked Questions

The Bottom Line

Maximum FPS is rarely about one magic setting. Measure your baseline. Turn upscaling on at Quality. Cut ray tracing, shadows, volumetrics, and reflections. Keep textures high if your VRAM allows it. Set the driver and Windows items once. Then measure again in the same scene, and trust your own numbers over anyone’s claims, including ours.

We hope this article helped you find your missing frames. You may also want to see our guide on how to fix game stuttering, for games that feel uneven even at a good frame rate. For a deeper tour of every setting, see which graphics settings affect FPS the most. And if your frame rate drops the longer you play, learn how to check your GPU temperature while you play.

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