OPTIMISE YOUR GRAPHICS CARD
Perform a clean install of graphics drivers
It’s essential to have the latest drivers installed for your graphics card, and to ensure they’re sourced from the manufacturer rather than generic drivers. Instead of using Windows Update, you can download Nvidia drivers from www.snipca. com/42961, AMD drivers from www. snipca.com/42962 and Intel drivers from www.snipca. com/43283, but for optimum performance it’s wise to perform a clean install rather than just upgrade from the previous drivers.
A free tool called Display Driver Uninstaller will thoroughly remove old Nvidia, AMD and Intel graphics drivers from your system, including registry keys, driver store packages and redundant files. Download it from www.snipca.com/43281, extract the contents of the ZIP file and open the DDU folder. Drag the Display Driver Uninstaller EXE file to your desktop and reboot your PC into Safe mode – you can use the tool in normal mode but it may not work as effectively. Double-click the EXE file to launch the program and select GPU in the ‘Select device type’ dropdown menu. Display Driver Uninstaller will automatically detect which graphics drivers you have installed. Click the Options button and ensure ‘Create a system restore point’ is selected, then click ‘Clean and restart’ (see screenshot).
Display Driver Uninstaller will now remove all traces of your current graphics drivers, which means your screen resolution may
change. Once your PC restarts, you can cleanly install your graphics card’s new drivers from the manufacturer.
If a clean install sounds too drastic, you can try rebooting your graphics drivers instead by pressing Windows key-Ctrl-Shift-B. Your screen will flicker and go black for a few seconds, and you’ll hear a beep, after which your drivers will be restarted.
Tweak your graphics card’s performance settings
Your graphics card’s default settings will balance picture quality, performance and power consumption, but if you’re using a
desktop PC or mains-connected laptop you can sacrifice the latter to improve how quickly and reliably it displays games and videos.
You can access your GPU settings via the Start menu or by rightclicking your desktop and choosing Nvidia Control Panel, AMD Radeon Settings or Intel Graphics Settings. If you have an Nvidia graphics card, select Manage 3D Settings and click the Global Settings tab. Click the ‘Power management mode’ dropdown menu and select ‘Prefer maximum performance’. Next, set ‘Texture filtering – Quality’ to ‘High performance’. Click ‘Apply’ to save the new settings.
With an AMD graphics card, click the Gaming tab and choose Graphics, then Standard. Switch on the options Radeon Anti-Lag and Radeon Boost (if available – see screenshot above), then click Advanced and set the Texture Filtering Quality option to Performance.
Intel only lets you adjust performance settings for specific games – select a game in its Graphics Command Centre then click Performance.
Switch on hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling
Windows 10 and 11 offer a feature called hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling, which instructs your graphics card to use the optimum amount of power depending on what you’re doing. It moves visual and graphics-intensive data from your CPU to the GPU and is
particularly useful when playing games and streaming videos. However, the option is disabled by default and only available if your graphics card is an Nvidia GTX (1000 or later) or AMD (5600 series or later) model.
If your GPU qualifies, press the Windows key-I to open Settings and click System, then Display. In Windows 10, choose ‘Graphics settings’ under ‘Multiple displays’; in Windows 11, select Graphics then ‘Change default graphics settings’. Switch on ‘Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling’ (see screenshot above), restart your PC and you should notice an improvement in your graphics performance.
Overclock your graphics card
Overclocking your graphics card can improve its performance by as much as 15 per cent and provide smoother, sharper graphics. It’s safer than overclocking your CPU because GPUs have failsafe mechanisms that kick in before they overheat. It’s also much easier to do by either tweaking settings in your graphics card’s software or using an excellent free tool called MSI Afterburner, which works with all makes of GPU.
Download the program from www.snipca.com/43284, then extract, install and launch it. MSI Afterburner will instantly display information about your graphics card’s speed, voltage, temperature and more. To overclock your GPU, simply click the OC Scanner button on the left – this looks like a magnifying glass and a C (see screenshot below), but if you can’t see it then your graphics card may not be compatible with the program. Click ‘Scan’ and the program will automatically detect, test and apply what it considers the best possible settings for your graphics card.
Alternatively, you can use the sliders to manually increase GPU settings such as clock speed. You can unlock greyed-out options by clicking the Settings button and selecting, for example, ‘Unlock voltage control’. When you’ve finished tweaking, click
Apply then Save, or choose Reset to restore your default settings.
MSI Afterburner also lets you customise how it looks – choose Settings, then User Interface and select a different skin from the dropdown menu.