The demands of computer games on hardware are escalating so rapidly that our “performance demons” often require an upgrade every two years just to keep our machines respectable. Another couple of years, and we find ourselves grappling with issues launching new games. What’s the solution?
Certainly, the optimal way out would be investing in additional RAM, upgrading other components, or acquiring a new laptop. However, this requires a significant financial commitment that not everyone can afford. Fortunately, there are far more budget-friendly optimization methods.
Windows Optimization
It turns out the operating system itself often plays a role in the efficiency of our laptop’s performance. This results in a lack of performance crucial for running computer games.
Yet, there are ways to tap into additional power reserves that can enhance game smoothness by a few frames per second. While not as monumental as purchasing new hardware, it’s better than nothing.
Unnecessary Windows Services
A straightforward method to improve laptop performance, not only for gaming but as part of OS maintenance, involves disabling any unnecessary background programs. If there are many, they can overload both the RAM and the processor cache.
How to disable them? Right-click on the taskbar and select “Task Manager.” An active “Processes” tab will appear on the screen. This list is where you can find all unnecessary programs. Right-click on each of them and choose “End Task.” However, exercise caution when disabling unnecessary processes to avoid closing vital Windows services, leading to a system crash and necessitating a computer reboot.
Yet, this isn’t all; we must ensure these programs won’t launch on Windows startup. Staying in the Task Manager, navigate to the “Startup” tab. For each unnecessary program in the list, right-click and choose “Disable.”
High Performance – Reduced Graphic Effects
Another method to free up system resources for gaming is to disable graphic effects. Windows will look less appealing, but it will operate noticeably faster as a result.
Go to the Control Panel, then to “System and Security.” Select “System” and, on the left side of the window, choose “Advanced system settings.” The System Settings window will appear. Click “Settings” in the “Performance” section.
In the next window, choose “Adjust for best performance.” Within seconds, graphic effects will be disabled, partially relieving the system.
However, there’s more to be done; we can also reduce the virtual memory size. In the “Performance Options” window, go to the “Advanced” tab and click “Change” under the Virtual Memory section. The next step is unchecking the “Automatically manage paging file size for all drives” option.
This grants access to virtual memory settings. Select the appropriate drive and activate the “Set” option. In both windows, enter a value equal to 150% of the laptop’s RAM. Finally, click “OK.”
Boosting Windows Performance – Optimizing Your Laptop
The hard drive is a frequent culprit behind issues related to sluggish system and gaming performance. While formatting it for a clean system version is an option, it entails the hassle of transferring all essential files.
A simpler approach involves disk defragmentation, reducing data access times. Once again, navigate to the control panel and select “System and Security.” Then click on “Administrative Tools,” opening a window where you’ll run the “Defragment and Optimize Drives” program.
The next step is choosing the drive or drives and clicking “Optimize.” The defragmentation process will commence.
Gaming Performance Highs – Drivers and External Programs
Often, our components fail to unleash their full potential due to outdated drivers, particularly concerning the graphics card. Contrary to initial impressions, performance drops can be quite significant, so it’s worth checking for new drivers periodically.
We can also enhance our laptop’s efficiency with specialized programs, both system-based and external. The former includes the “Game Mode” introduced in Windows. To access it, press Win+G, and a window will prompt if you want to launch the game panel. Choose “Yes.”
A dedicated window will appear, allowing you to take screenshots, initiate broadcasts, and enable the game mode (second icon from the right). This ensures games are supported by different services rather than system processes, boosting frame rates.
As for external programs, they may involve registry cleaning (CCleaner), RAM optimization (TweakRAM), or overall system optimization (https://www.msi.com/Landing/afterburner/graphics-cards).
While the methods described won’t miraculously transform the latest games running at a few frames per second into high-detail graphical wonders, they allow you to lighten the load on your laptop and utilize its idle performance. This, in turn, can result in a slight improvement in your laptop’s efficiency.
What Windows optimization can and cannot fix
Prior to tweaking anything within the settings, it would be useful to learn what Windows optimization can bring to your gaming laptop. Changes in the operating system settings will allow you to increase the amount of memory available, decrease background activity, increase the responsiveness of your laptop and run some of the games more smoothly. For the majority of users, it means that they won’t have any slowdowns, and the loading of the background processes will take place much faster.
On the other hand, there are also limitations when it comes to Windows optimization. It will neither transform your old laptop into a top-performing gaming device, nor will it be able to cope with any hardware issues, overheating, or problems with a hard drive. If the performance of the laptop is poor when running the latest games on the minimum settings, it won’t change significantly even after applying Windows optimization.
Windows 11 settings worth checking for gaming
If your laptop runs Windows 11, there are a few extra settings worth checking. One of the most useful is Optimizations for windowed games, which can improve performance and reduce latency in supported DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 games running in windowed or borderless windowed mode. This setting is especially relevant for players who prefer multitasking, streaming, or switching between apps while gaming.
You should also review graphics preferences for individual games. On laptops with both integrated and dedicated graphics, assigning a game to the high-performance GPU can make a noticeable difference. In addition, it is worth checking whether Game Mode is enabled, since it is designed to reduce background activity while you play.
How to tell if Windows is the problem or your hardware is too weak
How can you determine whether it’s a problem with Windows or your PC does not have sufficient performance to run games?
All issues with the operation of games are not always related to the problems of the Windows OS. In case of heavy loading time for games, significant stutter when a game explores a new area, and freezing while reading files, the problem is probably caused by poor performance of storage devices. When your system gets very slow when playing a game and using a browser and voice chat, you are likely to experience low RAM performance.
That is why it is better to start an optimization process with analyzing performance first. If you have a decent gameplay but it requires improvement, Windows configuration may help. However, if your laptop cannot meet the requirements of a new game due to lack of required performance, there is nothing that can change it.
FAQ
Does Windows optimization have any impact on the gaming performance of a laptop?
In case of a laptop with limited memory, excessive startups and improper tuning of power/graphics modes, the effect of optimization can be significant enough. Usually, it is only moderate, however.
Should one turn off visual effects in Windows for improving game performance?
It is possible that turning off visual effects will slightly free up system resources, however, the impact of this operation is usually not significant in modern laptops.
Is there any point in defragmenting gaming laptop?
It is still important to defragment traditional HDD laptop, however, it is not the optimization that applies to laptops with an SSD drive. In case of SSD-based laptops, other optimizations will be much more effective.
Will Game mode give extra FPS?
The impact of this feature is hard to define in numbers, however, it would be right to consider this feature as a way to stop unnecessary background activities. It might be effective in some cases and insignificant in others.
When should one stop optimizing Windows and think about upgrading a laptop?
In case the laptop cannot provide good gaming experience even after basic optimization and has such problems as insufficient RAM, old drives or weak hardware, upgrade will be more effective.
