How To Optimize Windows For Gaming?

Wondering if you can tweak your PC to make it suitable for gaming even if it is equipped with just the minimum hardware requirements? You’re in luck! There are several ways you can optimize Windows for gaming and make 2018 the year you master your game.

One of the best ways to do this is to utilize an automated PC optimizer, such as PC Repair Outbyte, which is designed to analyze your rig and automatically improve your PC’s performance through clearing up the RAM, scanning for junk and deleting redundant files, among others. However, if you have a lot of time on your hands and enough confidence in your troubleshooting prowess, you can also choose to manually perform the tweaks I will share below to get the right Windows 10/11 for gaming settings.

Disable Programs Scheduled To Run On Startup

Windows 10/11 is designed to boot up quickly, especially after a fresh install. But if you notice it slowing down after a couple of months, you can blame some programs that have been set to automatically run on start-up. Many programs do not ask for a user’s permission to run on startup, so you are likely unaware of how many programs are contributing to your PC slow-down.
Regardless whether you gave permission to some of these programs or not, here’s how you can clean up your PC’s startup queue:

• Press Windows key + R -> Type msconfig -> Enter
• Go to Startup tab -> Open Task Manager -> Select the programs you want to disable -> Click on the

Disable option found at the bottom right corner

Uninstall Unnecessary Programs

If you have owned your PC for quite some time now, chances are you have installed programs you used briefly before and then forgot about. There are also that pre-installed bloatware and programs that might have come along with other software. All of these could run in the background, compromising PC speed.
You can easily get rid of unwanted and unused programs by following these steps:

• Press Windows key + R > Type Control Panel > Enter
• Click on Uninstall a Program under Programs
• Select a program or software you want to uninstall
• Select Uninstall found at the bar above

A friendly reminder: Be careful not to delete any important programs and software, including those that are needed to run another program.

Defrag Your HDD

Essentially, defragmentation is the process of picking up “fragmented” pieces of data in your HDD and organizing them properly. Fragmentation happens when files are broken up into pieces so they fit into the disk. The intention is good, but a file spread out across different locations in the disk will take longer to read, write, and load. This will cause general slow-down and even random freeze-ups and crashes, which you certainly don’t want to happen especially during a game.
To defrag your HDD, follow these steps:

1. Press Windows key > Type defrag on the search bar
2. On the Defragment and Optimize Drives window, you will see the list of your HDD partitions.
3. Select any or all of the partitions, then click Analyze.
4. Once the analysis is done, you will be shown the fragmentation percentage.
5. Select any or all of the partitions then click Optimize.

Note that the defragmentation process may take a while to finish, but you can still do other things on your PC while it is ongoing. You may even pause or stop the process and just continue at a later time.

Adjust visual effects for best performance
Games are visual- and graphics-heavy, so you need to ensure that graphical user interfaces (GUIs) are not compromising your gaming experience.
By default, Windows 10/11 appearance and performance settings are set to perfection. However, GUIs running in the background and foreground may clash with each other, so it’s best to adjust visual effects for performance rather than appearance. Here’s how to do this:

1. Press Windows key > Type Adjust the appearance and performance of Windows
2. Tick ‘Adjust for best performance’
3. Click Apply
4. Click OK

Before closing the window, go to the Advanced tab and make sure that Programs under ‘Adjust for best performance of:’ is also ticked.

Keep Drivers Up-To-Date

Once again, the ultimate gaming experience largely depends on graphics performance. Your PC’s graphics processing unit (GPU) needs the latest drivers to maintain speedy and quality performance. No matter how old or new your graphics cards are, they will always benefit from up-to-date drivers.
It will help to know what type of GPU you have. To do this:

• Right-click on Desktop > Click on Display Settings.
• On the Display window, click on Display Adapter Properties.

To download driver updates through the same window, follow these steps:

• Click on Properties.
• Go to Driver tab.
• Click on Update Driver.

As you already know the exact type of your PC’s GPU, you can also choose to go to the manufacturer’s website and look for new drivers to download, if any.

Disable Automatic Updates, But DO Update

Imagine being in the middle of a zombie chase when your computer suddenly decides to update and reboot — a real bummer, right? To prevent this from happening, you need to tell Windows that it’s not okay to automatically restart without warning. To do this, you need to set Active Hours and Restart Options.
Here are the steps for setting active hours:

1. Press Windows key + I -> Update and Security -> Change Active Hours.
2. Set the Start time and End time, the period you typically use your computer.

To set restart options, do the following:

1. Stay on the Windows Update window, then go to Restart Options.
2. Set the best schedule for Windows to restart to finish installing updates.
3. Make sure that ‘Show more notifications’ is turned ON.

Get An Automated Windows PC Optimizer

If you want to stop worrying about how to speed up Win 10 for gaming but don’t want to be bothered by all the manual instructions shared above, it’s probably time you consider getting an automated PC optimizer such as Outbyte PC Repair. These optimizers are built to help improve computer performance by removing different kinds of errors and suspicious software, as well as recommending tweaks to save disk space and energy.