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How to Improve FPS in Any Game: The 2026 Ultimate Settings Guide

Let’s get one thing straight — you don’t need a new GPU to get more FPS. Most gaming PCs are running well below their potential because of bad drivers, bloated Windows settings, and in-game options that are quietly destroying performance without anyone noticing.

This guide covers everything that actually moves the needle in 2026. No filler, no obvious tips you’ve already tried. Just the settings and tweaks that consistently produce real, measurable gains — tested across a wide range of hardware and titles.

If you’ve just built a new PC and want to make sure it’s set up correctly from the start, our How to Build a PC Step-by-Step guide is a good companion to this one.

What FPS Actually Means for Your Gaming Experience

Before diving into fixes, it’s worth understanding what you’re actually chasing — because FPS alone doesn’t tell the whole story.

60 FPS feels smooth for most people in casual and story-driven games. 144 FPS is where competitive gaming starts to feel genuinely different — reactions feel faster, movement feels cleaner. Above 240 FPS, the returns diminish unless you’re playing at the highest competitive level with a matching monitor.

More importantly than raw FPS is consistency. A game running at a locked 60 FPS feels far better than one swinging between 45 and 90. That inconsistency — called frame time variance — is what causes the stuttering and micro-lag that makes games feel unplayable even when the FPS counter looks fine. Keep that in mind as you work through this guide.

1. Update and Clean Install Your GPU Drivers

Outdated or corrupted drivers are one of the most common causes of poor FPS and stuttering — and one of the easiest to fix.

The key word here is “clean install.” Don’t just download the latest driver and hit Next. Both NVIDIA and AMD installers have a clean installation option that removes old driver files before putting the new ones in. Skipping this step means old conflicting files stay on your system and can drag performance down.

For NVIDIA users, download the latest driver from nvidia.com, run the installer, and select “Custom Installation” → check “Perform a clean installation.”

For AMD users, the Adrenalin software has a “Factory Reset” option in the settings — use it before updating.

Also worth doing: inside NVIDIA Control Panel or AMD Adrenalin, find the power management setting for your GPU and set it to “Prefer Maximum Performance.” The default “Optimal Power” setting throttles your GPU when it thinks you don’t need full power — which is wrong surprisingly often during gaming.

2. Fix Windows Power Settings

Windows is set up for battery life and general use by default — not for gaming. Two changes make a real difference here.

First, change your power plan. Go to Control Panel → Power Options and switch from “Balanced” to “High Performance.” If you want to go further, you can unlock the hidden “Ultimate Performance” plan by opening Command Prompt as administrator and running:

powercfg -duplicatescheme e9a42b02-d5df-448d-aa00-03f14749eb61

This plan appears in your Power Options after running that command and prevents any CPU or GPU throttling during gaming.

Second, enable Game Mode. Go to Windows Settings → Gaming → Game Mode and make sure it’s turned on. In 2026 it’s more reliable than it used to be — it prioritizes your game’s CPU and GPU access and suppresses background processes automatically.

3. In-Game Settings: What Actually Costs FPS

This is where most people waste time adjusting the wrong settings. Not all graphics options are equal — some cost almost nothing visually but save a huge amount of GPU power. Others look spectacular but cost very little performance.

Setting	FPS Impact	Recommendation	Notes
Ray Tracing	Very High (-30 to -60%)	Off unless you have RTX 40 series+	Beautiful but extremely demanding. Only enable with DLSS Quality mode to compensate.
Shadow Quality	High (-15 to -25%)	Medium	Biggest single setting for FPS gains. Ultra shadows rarely look better than High anyway.
Ambient Occlusion	Medium (-8 to -15%)	SSAO or Off	HBAO+ looks great but costs noticeably more than SSAO. Off is fine in fast-paced games.
Anti-Aliasing (TAA/MSAA)	Medium (-10 to -20%)	Use DLSS or FSR instead	If your game supports DLSS 3 or FSR 3, use those instead of traditional AA — better image quality AND better performance.
Volumetric Fog/Clouds	Medium (-8 to -18%)	Low or Off	One of the most overlooked settings. Disabling it often has zero visual impact in fast-paced games.
Texture Quality	Low (-2 to -8%)	High or Ultra	Textures mostly affect VRAM, not FPS. Keep them high unless you’re running low VRAM (under 8GB).
View/Render Distance	Medium (-10 to -20%)	Medium	Only push to Ultra if you have a high-end GPU. Medium still covers everything you need in most games.
V-Sync	Low but causes input lag	Off (use G-Sync/FreeSync instead)	V-Sync caps FPS and adds input lag. Use G-Sync or FreeSync if your monitor supports it.
Motion Blur	Very Low (-1 to -3%)	Off	Almost no FPS gain but most players prefer it off anyway. Personal preference.
Depth of Field	Low (-2 to -5%)	Off	Minor FPS gain and many players find it distracting during gameplay.

The single most impactful swap you can make in 2026 is switching from traditional anti-aliasing to DLSS (NVIDIA) or FSR (AMD). DLSS 3 in particular can double your FPS in supported games while actually improving image quality over native resolution. If your game supports it, enabling DLSS Quality mode should be your first move before touching anything else.

4. Clean Up Background Processes

Every program running in the background while you game is stealing CPU time, RAM, and potentially GPU resources. A clean system makes a measurable difference — especially on mid-range hardware where resources are tighter.

Start with your system tray — that row of icons in the bottom right corner of your taskbar. Right-click and close anything you don’t need while gaming. Common culprits are Discord (use the web version or a lightweight client), browser windows, cloud sync tools like OneDrive or Google Drive, and RGB lighting software.

Next, open Task Manager (Ctrl + Shift + Esc) and click the Startup tab. Disable everything that doesn’t need to launch when Windows starts. Be conservative — don’t disable things you don’t recognise. But most people have 15-20 startup programs and only actually need 3-4 of them.

One thing many people miss: Xbox Game Bar. Go to Windows Settings → Gaming → Xbox Game Bar and turn it off. It runs in the background during every gaming session and serves almost no purpose for most people.

5. Enable Resizable BAR (ReBAR)

This one flies under the radar but can give you a genuine 5-15% FPS boost in supported games — completely free, just a BIOS setting.

Resizable BAR (also called Smart Access Memory on AMD systems) allows your CPU to access the full GPU VRAM at once instead of in small chunks. It’s supported on most modern systems — Intel 10th gen and above, AMD Ryzen 5000 and above — but it’s disabled by default on many motherboards.

To enable it:

1. Restart your PC and enter BIOS (usually Delete or F2 on boot)
2. Look for “Resizable BAR,” “ReBAR,” or “Above 4G Decoding” — enable both if you see both
3. Save and exit

In games like Cyberpunk 2077, Starfield, and Forza Horizon 5, the FPS gains from ReBAR are consistently measurable. It takes five minutes and costs nothing.

6. Cap Your Frame Rate

This sounds counterintuitive — why would capping your FPS help? But an uncapped frame rate causes frame time inconsistency, which is exactly what creates the micro-stuttering feeling even when your FPS counter looks high.

The sweet spot is to cap your FPS just below your monitor’s maximum refresh rate. If you have a 144Hz monitor, cap at 141 FPS. If you have a 240Hz monitor, cap at 237. This keeps your GPU working consistently without it occasionally spiking to 400 FPS and then dropping back, which is what causes uneven frame delivery.

The best way to do this in 2026 is through NVIDIA’s frame rate limiter in the Control Panel, AMD’s Chill feature, or the in-game limiter if the game has one. Using G-Sync or FreeSync alongside a frame cap is the best combination for smooth gameplay.

7. Check Your Thermals

If your CPU or GPU is getting too hot, it will throttle — meaning it deliberately slows itself down to avoid damage. This shows up as sudden FPS drops after extended gameplay, a stuttering pattern that gets worse the longer you play, and frame times that spike randomly.

Download HWInfo64 (free) and monitor your CPU and GPU temperatures during a gaming session. Warning signs are CPU temperatures above 90°C or GPU temperatures above 85°C sustained over time.

If you’re hitting those numbers, the fixes range from cleaning dust out of your case, reapplying thermal paste on older systems, or improving case airflow by adding a fan or two. Our full guide on How to Lower CPU and GPU Temperatures covers this in detail.

Quick FPS Boost Checklist for 2026

If you want a fast reference, here’s everything in order of impact:

1. Clean install the latest GPU drivers and set power mode to Maximum Performance
2. Switch Windows power plan to High Performance or Ultimate Performance
3. Enable DLSS or FSR in-game if supported — this alone can transform performance
4. Lower Shadow Quality to Medium and turn off Volumetric Fog
5. Enable Resizable BAR in BIOS if you haven’t already
6. Close background apps and disable unnecessary startup programs
7. Cap your FPS just below your monitor’s refresh rate
8. Monitor temperatures and address throttling if present

Final Thoughts

Most gaming PCs are leaving a significant amount of performance on the table — not because of weak hardware, but because of settings that were never optimised. The changes in this guide don’t require any money or upgrades. They just require a bit of time working through each one systematically.

The biggest gains in 2026 come from DLSS/FSR adoption, clean driver installs, and sorting out background processes. Do those three things first and you’ll notice the difference immediately. Work through the rest and your system will feel like it got a hardware upgrade without spending a cent.

For more ways to get the most out of your setup, check out our How to Fix Stuttering & Micro-Lag in PC Games guide — it covers the consistency side of performance in much more detail.