5 Windows Registry Hacks to Improve Your Gaming Performance
The performance of your computer is extremely important when it comes to enjoying video game’s the way they were meant to be played. Things like slow frame rates and high ping can ruin the gaming experience. And when it comes to competitive online play, your computer’s performance could be the difference between winning and losing.
If you find the performance of your computer lagging when playing video games, there are a couple of things you can do to improve it. We’re going to discuss five Registry hacks that can give your PC a performance boost in the gaming department.
But First, Before You Edit the Windows Registry…
While looking for registry hacks to improve your PC’s performance, you may get suggestions to use a Registry cleaner. We advise you tonot bother with registry cleaners, as they provide no noticeable performance improvement and may even mess up the registry.
Furthermore, we advise that youcreate a system restore point. This will create a snapshot of the state your computer is in at that time. In the event something goes wrong while editing the registry, you can use the system restore point you created to return your PC to a previous working state.
5 Registry Hacks to Improve Gaming Performance on Your Windows PC
To carry out these hacks, you’re going to need tolaunch the Windows Registry Editor. The easiest way to do that is to pressWin + Rto open Windows Run. In the text box, typeregeditand then clickOK. Then, clickYeson the UAC prompt to open the Registry Editor.
Now you may go ahead and use the Registry Editor to make gaming smoother on your Windows PC with the tweaks below.
1. Disable Fast Startup
Fast Startup may make your Windows PC load faster, but it also prevents it from fully shutting down. During a shutdown, the feature logs out every user, closes all the programs, and puts the rest of the system in a hibernation state before finally turning off the computer.
Coming out of this hibernation state when booting up can cause some processes to misbehave, which can make your PC slower than normal. This is not good for gaming, as this can negatively impact a game’sframes per second (FPS).
To disable Fast Startup, open the Registry Editor and navigate toHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SYSTEM > CurrentControlSet > Control > Session Manager > Power. Double-click theHyperBootEnabledentry, changeValue datato1, and clickOK.
Be advised that disabling Fast Startup will increase the boot time for your Windows machine. However, it could be worth it if you get the best gaming performance out of it.
2. Disable Power Throttling
Power Throttling causes the CPU to slow down so it doesn’t consume too much battery power. Unfortunately, this can come with a small but noticeable performance loss.
Particularly, when it comes to gaming, a throttled CPU can limit the potential of the GPU, creating what is known as a bottleneck. That’s because the GPU is running at a speed higher than what the CPU can handle, which can negatively impact a game’s frame rate.
To disable Power Throttling, open the Registry Editor and navigate toHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SYSTEM > CurrentControlSet > Control > Power > PowerThrottling. Double-click thePowerThrottlingOffentry, changeValue Datato1, and clickOK.
In some cases, you can go to thePowerkey in the Registry Editor and not find thePowerThrottlingkey inside it. If that’s the case, you can disable Power Throttling through the Local Group Policy Editor as well.
To do that, pressWin + R, typegpedit.mscin the text box, and hit theEnterkey. In the Group Policy Editor, navigate toComputer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Power Management > Power Throttling Settings. Then, double-click theTurn off Power Throttlingpolicy.
Click on theEnabledradial button and then clickOKto close the dialog box to apply the policy.
This will disable Power Throttling, meaning Windows will no longer throttle the CPU, among other things, when trying to conserve battery power.
3. Disable Nagle’s Algorithm
Windows uses Nagle’s Algorithm to reduce the number of packets sent over a network by combining them into a larger one. This can cause problems when the packets are small, meaning it will take longer to build them up enough to be sent as one large chunk.
While this technology initially sounds useful, it can increase thepingof some online games. As such, if you’re experiencing high ping in a game, disabling Nagle’s Algorithm can help.
To do that, open the Registry Editor and navigate toHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SYSTEM > CurrentControlSet > Services > Tcpip > Parameters > Interfaces. The goal here is to find the interface (those keys named with different characters in between curly brackets) for the connection you’re using. So, go through each one and look at the value for theDhcpIPAddressentry.
The value for this entry should match your internet connection’s IPv4 address.
To get the connection’s IPv4 address, pressWin + Sto open Windows Search. Then, typecontrol panelin the search box and click onControl Panelin the search results.
In the Control Panel, head toNetwork and Internet > Network and Sharing Centerand click on the link next toConnectionsfor the internet connection you’re gaming with.
Click theDetailsbutton.
Check the IP address next toIPv4 address.
Once you find a match, right-click the interface and selectNew > DWORD (32-bit) Value.
Name this new entryTcpNoDelay. Then, create another one the same way and name itTcpAckFrequency. Double-click on them one by one and changeValue Datato1for both entries.
4. Disable Network Throttling
To keep the internet connection stable on your PC, Windows will sometimes throttle your network, which can reduce its speed. For online gaming, this can result in a higher ping. You can rectify that by disabling Network Throttling.
To do that, open the Registry Editor and navigate toHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SOFTWARE > Microsoft > Windows NT > CurrentVersion > Multimedia > SystemProfile. Double-click theNetworkThrottlingIndexentry, changeValue Datatoffffffff, and clickOK.
5. Prioritize Gaming Tasks
Windows has a service known as Multimedia Class Scheduler service (MMCSS). Its job is to ensure that multimedia applications, such as games, get priority access to more CPU power when they’re performing time-sensitive tasks. And with a couple of Registry tweaks, you can tell MMCSS to give games a much higher priority.
To do this, launch the Registry Editor and navigate toHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SOFTWARE > Microsoft > Windows NT > CurrentVersion > Multimedia > SystemProfile > Tasks > Games. Here, we are going to change theValue dataof the following entries (double-click to open them):
Enjoy Improved Gaming Performance on Your Windows PC
Tweaking the Registry to get the results you want is not that hard, but you need to know what you’re doing. Try out some of these Registry hacks, and see which ones give your PC the improved gaming performance you’ve been looking for. If they don’t work or cause problems just return the entries to their original values.
Working with the Windows registry? Take note of these tips, and you’ll be much less likely to do lasting damage to your PC.
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