Windows settings that affect FPS, and the ones that don't

Most "FPS boost" lists are long because they mix a few settings that matter with many that do nothing. Here are the ones that really cost or cap frames, where each one lives, and the popular tweaks you can skip.

Settings that matter

Your screen's refresh rate

The most common one, and no booster can change it for you. A 144 Hz or 240 Hz monitor often runs at 60 Hz because Windows was never told otherwise. The game can produce 300 frames a second and you'll still see 60. Check Settings → System → Display → Advanced display → Choose a refresh rate, for each screen.

Power: plugged in, and on a fast plan

A laptop on battery holds its processor and graphics card back, sometimes to half speed. Plug it in. Then check the power mode under Settings → System → Power & battery: "Best performance" lets the processor keep its cores awake and at full speed between frames, which shows up as steadier frame times more than as a higher average.

Background recording

Game Bar can record the last moments of play continuously so you can save a clip afterwards. That recording runs the whole time and costs frames. If you don't use it, switch it off under Settings → Gaming → Captures.

Game Mode

On by default, and best left on (Settings → Gaming → Game Mode). It keeps Windows Update from installing drivers and restarting things mid-match.

Optimizations for windowed games

On Windows 11, games running in a window or borderless can use a newer, faster way of putting frames on screen. It lowers input delay. Settings → System → Display → Graphics → Default graphics settings.

The right graphics card

Laptops and some desktops have two: a small one built into the processor and a fast one. If a game starts on the small one, nothing else on this list will save it. Under Settings → System → Display → Graphics you can set a game to "High performance".

What else is running

A browser with forty tabs, a launcher updating another game, cloud storage syncing. They take processor time and memory the game wants, and they matter most on PCs with 16 GB of memory or less. Close them, or let something lower their priority while you play.

Settings that are a judgement call

• Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling. Needed for frame generation in some games; otherwise the difference is small either way.
• Memory integrity (Windows Security → Device security → Core isolation). Microsoft says it can cost frames in some games. It's also a real protection for your PC. Whether to trade one for the other is your decision, not a tweak to apply blindly.

Tweaks that do nothing

• Timer resolution tools. On current Windows 10 and 11, one program asking for a faster system timer no longer speeds up the timers of another. The game sets its own.
• "Network throttling" and "system responsiveness" registry values. They only affect programs that register with Windows' multimedia scheduler, and the network limit they lift is far above anything a game sends.
• Disabling Nagle's algorithm for shooters. It's a TCP feature, and most shooters use UDP, where it doesn't exist.
• RAM cleaners that run all the time. Windows gives cached memory back the moment a program asks. Clearing it helps only in the specific case where free memory has actually run out.

Where NoSpike fits

NoSpike's main job is your game's route, but the app also has an FPS booster, off until you switch it on. While a supported game runs it takes care of the settings a program is allowed to set: the power plan, Game Mode, background recording, the windowed-game optimizations, and slowing down the background programs you choose. It puts everything back when the game closes. It leaves out the tweaks in the last list, because they would only make it look busy.

Its PC check reads your PC and points out the things only you can change, such as a screen running under its refresh rate or a laptop on battery, with a button that opens the right Windows page. Expect steadier frame times and a few more frames on a busy PC or a laptop. It can't add what the hardware doesn't have.