Tweaking windows for optimal gaming performance
Get rid of preinstalled junk.
If you’ve just taken delivery of your new gaming laptop, the chances are there is a lot of useless pre-Installed software, that is, well, crap. It’s also likely that your system has a bunch of miscellaneous programs running in the background. Preinstalled bloatware, or programs that got installed along with some other software take up valuable system resources and uninstalling these, or at least disabling them at startup will free up RAM and CPU cycles, leaving more resources for your game.
Firstly, head to the Control Panel, then apps and features. If there are apps there you know you will never use, then simply uninstall them. You might be surprised about just how much space you’ll free up, particularly if you’re using a space limited SSD. Note that you should not to delete any important programs, such as software related to windows itself. If you’re unsure, a bit of google-fu will tell you if an app is important or not.
After cleaning out the crap, the next step is to check if the leftover apps are scheduled to run on startup. If you find yourself frequently using a lot of them, then that’s fine, but if gaming is your main focus, do you need to have Skype or Spotify or BitTorrent starting up? Probably not, though you’ll know which apps you frequently use or not.
To access the startup list, Open Task Manager by pressing Ctrl+Shift+Esc and select the Startup tab. Simply select the desired (or undesired) program and click the Disable option in the lower right cor-ner. Of course, it is perfectly fine to have a program start itself if you’d launch it immediately anyway.
ENABLE WINDOWS 10 GAME MODE
Newer Windows builds come with a ‘Game Mode’. When you launch a game, pressing Win+G brings up the Windows Game Bar. Game mode assigns the game to specific cores. If you have a lower end CPU, say a dual core, dedicating a core to the game can provide benefits, particularly with minimum frame rates. With the Windows October update installed, it also disables automatic Windows up-dates while in game (yes!). Users with higher core counts won’t see too many benefits, if any, but it’s worth playing around with to see if improves your gaming experience with your specific hardware configuration.
“If you have a lower end CPU, say a dual core, dedicating a core to the game can provide benefits, particularly with minimum frame rates. ”