Console players have it easy: their hardware is all fine-tuned for superb gaming, and games are always designed with the console’s performance restrictions in mind.
Mismatched hardware, obsolete graphics cards, and outdated software drivers all contribute to occasionally poor game performance in PC gaming. If your video lags or stutters, you may need to adjust your PC’s frame rate (measured in frames per second) (frames per second).
Here are some tips and strategies for improving the video performance of your computer.
Find your monitor’s refresh rate
Before you begin adjusting your PC, you need to be aware of two statistics: The refresh rate of your display, measured in hertz, and your current frame rate, expressed in frames per second (fps) (Hz). We’ll start with the refresh rate since it’s simple to locate. Because this is a measurement of the number of times your monitor redraws the screen each second, any fps higher than this is useless. Because most displays have a refresh rate of 60Hz, a frame rate of 60fps is perfect.
Some recent gaming monitors allow significantly higher refresh rates, such as 144Hz, 200Hz, or even higher, if you have one of these displays, you can try to match the frame rate, but you’ll need a pretty new, high-end video card.
- Go to the Start menu and choose “Settings.”
- Click “System” in the Settings box.
- Next, choose “Display,” then “Advanced display options.”
- Write down the refresh rate of the display.
Determine your current frame rate
Finding the highest frame rate your graphics system can achieve isn’t much more difficult, but there are a few alternative approaches based on the games you play:
- During gameplay, several games may show the frame rate as an overlay. Check the video options in your game’s setup or settings menu to enable this.
- You may utilize the in-game overlay while playing a game if you have an Nvidia GeForce graphics card and the GeForce Experience program. The frame rate may be shown in a corner of the screen using the overlay. Start the GeForce Experience program, go to the In-Game Overlay area, hit “Settings,” then “HUD Layout,” and drag the fps counter to the corner of your choosing.
- You may also enable a frame rate counter in the Steam in-game overlay if you play Steam games. To do so, open the Steam app and choose “Steam” from the menu. Select “Settings” from the drop-down menu, then “In-Game” from the left-hand navigation pane. Choose where you want the fps counter to show in the “In-game FPS” counter area, then click “OK.”
- You can test your frame rate in any game with the free Fraps program.
Enable Game Mode in Windows 10
You may attempt any of these ways to improve your computer’s performance after you know your PC’s frame rate (and how it compares to your monitor’s refresh rate).
- In Windows 10, turn on Game Mode. Game Mode optimizes your PC for gaming and maximizes the display’s frame rate by configuring a variety of Windows settings with a single click.
- Select “Settings” after clicking the Search button.
- Type “game” into the search box in the Settings window, then choose “Game Mode Settings” from the search results.
- Swipe the button to the right to switch on Game Mode if it isn’t already on. For the changes to take effect, you may need to restart your computer.
Make sure you’re using the most recent video driver
It is important to keep your computer’s system updates and device drivers up to date in order to get the greatest performance from it. There are two options available to you:
- Windows updates should be checked. Choose “settings” from the Start menu, then enter “Updates” and choose “Check for updates” from the search results. Make sure you have the most recent updates installed by using the Windows Update window.
- Update the drivers for your video card. This occurs automatically when you check for Windows updates, but your graphics card may have newer updates as well. Start Nvidia GeForce Experience and go to the “Drivers” tab at the top of the window. To check whether there are any new updates to install, click “Check for updates.”
Improve your game’s settings.
Every game is different, but if your frame rate is too low, you may lower the visual quality on the game’s settings page. You may be able to modify the picture quality from “high” to “medium” with a single switch, or you may need to adjust different parameters such as viewing distance, shadows, texture effects, and so on.
Reduce the size of your screen
Reduce the screen resolution, which is sometimes a different option in the game from video quality. Select System then Advanced display settings from your PC’s Settings menu, then pick a lower-resolution option from the Resolution selection. This may have a significant impact on the frame rate.
Upgrade your video card
If these suggestions do not dramatically increase your frame rate, you may have no alternative except to change your graphics card. If you’re gaming on a laptop, this may not be an option (though certain Alienware laptops, for example, enable you to install an external “Graphics Amplifier” to improve display quality).
If you have a desktop PC, though, you may be able to upgrade your graphics card to one that significantly improves your frame rate and performance.
