- Known Myths
- NTFS tunneling tweak
- Enabling the NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate registry value helps to improve e.g. backup job performance
- Firmware updates are bad for gaming performance
- Enabling Game Mode will cause stuttering and performance problems
- Disable Drive Indexing (Windows Search) should be turned off
- Configure “Fragment and Optimize your device”
- Set your SATA controller to AHCI mode for Solid State Drives SSD
- Page file (page file/ paging file) Managing, should be disabled because it constantly writes on your SSD
- Disabling Windows own restore point feature helps to improve overall gaming performance
- Disable Hibernate
- Disable SuperFetch
- NIC System.ini IRQ Tweak
- System Responsiveness
- Disabling C states in BIOS improves SSD performance.
- Disabling Windows animations to improve GPU or CPU performance
- Disable High Precision Event Timer (HPET)
- Using an older Windows 10 versions helps to improve the OS performance because 3,5 MHZ vs 10 Mhz QPC timer?
- Encrypting the OS partition (whole OS) affects gaming performance
- Disable Eagle’s Algorithm
- Turn on Readiest
- CPU core affinity performance/fps fixes
- Changing or removing ICC color profiles resulting in lower input lag
- Power conditioners help to fix or correct mice lag
- DisableWriteCombining will reduce input delay
The following tweaks are myths when it comes to "gaming tweaks" OR "Windows 10 specific tweaks". I list the myths here to get an overview because a lot of misinformation is flying around the internet.
Server relevant stuff/tweaks are not specifically separated/mentioned because a gaming PC typically (unless it's a e.g. Gaming Server) has another workload compared to a traditional gaming PC. The Windows 10 server editions serving a different puprose, and they are under "different pressure". To blindly apply "server tweaks" or to use a server edition on a "normal Windows 10 edition" will not necessarily improve anything, even the opposite can happen, you decrease the overall performance (e.g. with "network adapter tweaks" which is often a trade-off between latency vs. IO).
All mentioned stuff has been tested against several PC systems (AMD/Intel) under different combination (Hardware/Windows Editions).
If you think something is inaccurate or wrong, feel free to open an issue ticket AFTER you searched the existent ones. Constructive criticism is welcome, but keep in mind that you need proof, your biased opinion (e.g. "I always did it and it worked") is in general not welcome. You need to provide benchmarks, back links or/and links to the documentation (if possible), in order to start a objective discussion, it's not helpful to provide a pull request (except typo/grammar fixes) without discussion it first with the community.
NTFS tunneling tweak
Reducing the default value (1024) for MaximumTunnelEntries entry which reduces the NTFS tunnel cache helps to improve the delegation performance for directories that contain numerous files.
Enabling the NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate registry value helps to improve e.g. backup job performance
This is a myth and the entry has changed across multiple Windows versions. NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate is only enabled during boot sequence for system drives on a SSD with 128 GB or less. Windows 10 itself disables the NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate entry on bigger system drives. If the default state is activated (system managed) the NTFS/ReFS drive (if you use others like FAT this doesn't matter at all), the last access is activated during boot whenever a system volume is in use and mounted. There is a limitation which says it's only in use if you use 128 GB or less. If you use larger system partitions then the updates are disabled. You do not need to change anything on this entry. Starting with Windows 10 1809/1903 setting the value manually via fsutil will be ignored no matter what you set there.
Firmware updates are bad for gaming performance
This is not anymore the case, there are certain checks when you use UEFI to ensure that you don't install a faulty update. Windows 8 (2012) used an update mechanism that delivers update packages to a known system location, the UEFI firmware then installs the update package on its own, after a restart which causes some problems (BSOD/performance regressions in some cases etc). Since Windows 10 a lot has changed, the UEFI updates are more reliable and it's overall spoken worth checking the manufacturer's support site for firmware updates, which not only improve your security it also can fix several regressions regarding performance. The best practice is to review the update, check the change log and decide if you need it or not, before you update make a backup and then install the update.
Enabling Game Mode will cause stuttering and performance problems
No, not anymore! MS changed a lot since Windows Build 1803+. This was finally fixed and the application should now get the resource it needs e.g. for encoding (OBS Studio). If there are game related issue then it's not caused by an enabled Game Mode. The mode indeed checks if the game is supported or not. On Laptop systems game mode will not work no matter if you set it to on or off, this is by design and not a bug.
That's a myth, because reading I/O doesn't decrease your SSD lifespan writing on it does! However if you don't like Windows own Search you could use Void's Everything.
This is useless, because Windows since Windows 8+ can handle it on his own, it detects if you're on SSD or HDD and defrag it or not, disabling the service schedule does nothing because it runs anyway (for several other operations).
This is not necessary, Windows 10 detects it automatically based on your BIOS/UEFI settings. However, specific hardware (older ones) might have problems with it and then Windows might actually do not put the device in "AHCI mode". This can be enforced via registry tweak without reinstalling the whole OS. It's hacky but it does work, it also works if you like to switch from RAID only to AHCI.
Page file (page file/ paging file) Managing, should be disabled because it constantly writes on your SSD
Yes, it writes important things on your SSD but some applications and games might crash if you entirely disable it. Leave it on "Automatically manage paging file size for all drives". It's possible to envision edge cases where tweaking the page file makes sense, but those examples are vanishingly rare.
It's more up to you, this can be important in case shit happened but it does not affect the performance because Windows only creates automatic restore points whenever you install/uninstall programs which supporting this function, manually or on a schedule which checks if your CPU is busy right now (over 45%).
It's also up to everyone to use it or not, in you want to turn it off: powering -h off.
This is not necessary because since Windows 8+ it's detected by Windows. It's running but it does nothing when you're on a SSD. You can check its state via fsutil behavior query DisableDeleteNotify which should be 0. This means TRIM is enabled.
This is not needed anymore, see here why.
It doesn't need to be tweaked. You can set whatever you want in registry, the OS will handle and override it anyway.
Disabling C states in BIOS improves SSD performance.
As for the SSD, the amount of rights is reduced without hibernation. When a computer hibernates, the contents of the RAM is dumped to the hibernate file on the C drive, which is the SSD in this case. Since SSDs have a finite amount of rights and there can be a lot of stuff in the RAM, you can see how this is a problem. The contents of RAM are being paged to the C drive constantly anyway. The amount of extra SSD I/O due to hibernation is trivial compared to loading a game with let's say 20 GB of textures and levels.
This is not helpful at all, since all animations are GPU accelerated. A gaming machine should have a graphics card capable of running them without any problem Windows 10 requires a "powerful" enough GPU system.
This is not needed after Windows April Update (Build 1803), you can check the current status via bcdedit /enum. Changing the values (especially on newer Intel CPU's 9900k can result in a worse performance).
Using an older Windows 10 versions helps to improve the OS performance because 3,5 MHZ vs 10 Mhz QPC timer?
The official documentation (outdated) can be found over here.
What to know:
- 3,5 MHz and 10 Mhz are the SAME timer, Microsoft enforced 10 MHz since Windows 10 RS5+
- This means a developer can "easier" see if it's TSC or not, previously a developer had to analyze the whole boot frequency, this is now resolved (TSC (= 10 MHz) HPET (> 10 MHz)) — You will NOT notice any difference in-game — Microsoft DOES NOT need to patch this nor is this a "bug". It was introduced to help developers to find TSC/QPC modes, not more and not less. — The so called "bug" was analyzed by a professional overclocker, with facts and background info, the result was that there will be no noticeable difference if it shows 3,5 Mhz, 6 MHz or 9 Mhz. It should also be noticed that the read-out method is also not accurate and there are margin of errors (which is normal), the delta difference is so low that no one actual can notice it.
The argument that you should use an older Windows 10 version because of this so called "bug" makes no sense, given the fact that there is no difference and that the read-out method is not 100% accurate.
This is incorrect, all modern hardware supports AES-256 via hardware level which means it will not affect your gaming performance, however the loading times could be a bit slower because the backend VeraCrypt/Decrypt have to decode the data before your game reads it.
This is not needed, Windows 10 already chooses the best algorithm based what your network driver supports. Which means even if you change something in the registry which is not supported by the OS/Driver you won't get any benefit out of it.
Page file on SSD (especially on other partition than game) definitely outperforms Readiest, the service will be unavailable on systems with SSD. If it's (there) than you use an outdated OS (or it's a bug).
See here for an explanation.
If you remove icc color profile, you can notice you get a lot of less input lag.
There is no test nor evidence to backup such claim. Some games itself can change/influence the color profile once they hit a specific state e.g. fullscreen (depending on what you set in the game profile or as in-game option).
Power conditioners do not help with inconsistent mouse movement/input lag due to electrical issues. It will not fix any "mice lag" or other spread myths. Power conditioners can help e.g. in order to lower or to get rid of general isolation problems, noise reduction, and protects from sagging/surging. The best type of EMI/RFI filtering (if you suffer from it) is a good low impedance grounding (return path for transient current). You can/could improve grounding by connecting multiple copper grounding rods together to lower impedance.
This is a myth spread across many forum posts, the false assumption that disabling WriteCombining (uswc) helps, this was spread from XP times when not all hardware utilize that directly.
You can try Wagnardmobile DisableVideoUSWC to check this for yourself. The program modifies the following parameter in your registry:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\nvlddmkm]
"DisableWriteCombining"=dword:00000001