How to increase FPS

FPS is how many frames the computer finishes in one second. Raising it means giving each frame less work, or turning on a speed the machine was already sold with. A guide that promises a fixed percentage is guessing. The gain depends on the game, the resolution, and whether the processor, the graphics chip, or the heat is the part that falls behind. A heavier screen is the opposite of that job. 4K is four times the pixels of 1080p, so buy it only when the frames are already easy.

What the number is buying

A frame has to be drawn inside a slice of time. At 60 FPS that slice is 16.7 milliseconds. At 144 FPS it is 6.9 milliseconds. The higher number is not a score. It is a shorter deadline.

The monitor is the other half. A 60 Hz screen shows about 60 pictures a second. Frames past that can shave a little input delay, and they do not add pictures. A steady 90 that never dips feels better in a fight than a counter that flashes 140 and then falls apart.

Use the calculator below when you pick a target. If the target is far above the refresh rate, you are spending power on frames the panel will not show.

Change one thing, then play the same moment

Stand in one place, or replay one fight, and read the average plus the bad spikes. Many games call those spikes the 1% low. A higher average that still hitches is not the result you wanted.

Change one setting. Play the same moment. Keep the change only if that moment got smoother. Five changes at once make a number move, and you will not know which one did it.

Turn on the speed the PC already has

These are Windows 11 paths. Do them before you start cutting the way the game looks.

Set the monitor to the refresh rate you paid for. Open Settings, System, Display, Advanced display, and pick the highest rate that resolution supports. A 144 Hz monitor left at 60 is a setting, not a weak PC.

Install the current graphics driver from NVIDIA, AMD, or Intel. Windows Update often trails the driver the game was tested with. On a laptop, the maker’s support page is the safer first stop, because that package sometimes includes the extra bits the chassis needs.

Turn Game Mode on under Settings, Gaming, Game Mode. Then set Power mode to Best performance while the machine is plugged in. Balanced mode parks cores. That shows up as uneven frame time more often than as a clean, lower average.

If the computer has two graphics chips, tell Windows which one the game should use. Open Settings, System, Display, Graphics, choose the game, and set it to High performance. A game quietly running on the weak chip looks like a PC that cannot play it.

On a desktop, memory is the other forgotten switch. If the memory kit was sold at a speed and the BIOS is still on the slow default, enable the XMP profile on an Intel board or EXPO on an AMD board. Use the profile the kit shipped with, not a hand-typed speed. If the PC will not boot, clear the CMOS and leave the profile off. Skip this on a laptop with soldered memory and no profile to enable.

On a laptop

A laptop is the same order with a power cord and a heat limit added.

Plug it in. On battery, the firmware cuts clocks to last the afternoon, and no graphics menu will put those clocks back. Set Best performance in Windows, and use the maker’s performance mode in their own app while the charger is connected.

Give the intake air. A laptop flat on a blanket, or pushed against a wall, gets loud and then slow. If the frame rate is fine in a menu and worse ten minutes into a match, you are looking at temperature. Cap the frame rate near the refresh rate so the machine stops drawing pictures the screen cannot show. The desk is part of this: the chassis needs space under it, not only a higher screen.

Do not start with an undervolt or a “cleaner” app. Those are how a laptop becomes unstable before the free settings have been tried.

Cut the settings that spend the frame

In the game, work from the expensive end.

Use one upscaler. DLSS belongs to NVIDIA RTX cards. FSR runs on most cards. XeSS is Intel’s, and some games offer it more widely. Two of them at once fight each other. Quality is the preset to try before Balanced or Performance, because the picture usually holds and the frame still gets easier.

Ray tracing is the first checkbox to clear when the counter is short of the refresh rate. Shadows, screen-space reflections, and volumetric light are next. They redraw parts of the scene. Texture quality is the one people cut too early. It mostly waits until video memory is full, which feels like a hitch when you spin the camera, not like a low average.

Frame time calculator

Every frame has a time budget. A higher FPS number means a shorter budget. The monitor cannot show more frames than its refresh rate.

3033.3 ms

6016.7 ms

1446.9 ms

2404.2 ms

Monitor refresh rateTarget FPS

Frame budget

6.9 ms

Frames the monitor can show

144

At 144 FPS each frame has 6.9 ms. That matches a 144 Hz monitor.

Where to start

Desktop Laptop

What you seeThe frame rate is too lowThe frame rate jumps aroundIt gets worse after a few minutesThis is Minecraft

The list under the numbers changes with the machine. It is an order, not a score. There is no honest way to print “this slider is worth 20 frames” for every PC.

In Minecraft

Press F3. The FPS counter is in that debug screen. Read it while you stand in the world you actually play, then turn the camera. A menu is not the test.

Lower render distance first. That is how far the game draws. Then lower simulation distance. That is how far it keeps mobs and blocks working. Those two sliders move the number more than the rest of the vanilla video page.

The large cut, if you can add mods, is a pair. Sodium and Lithium are the Fabric mods to add before a pile of content mods. Sodium replaces a lot of the rendering. Lithium makes the simulation cheaper and does not change how the world looks. Match them to the Minecraft version you play. Shaders, including Iris on top of Sodium, spend frames. Take them off while you are trying to raise the counter, and put them back when the number is one you can keep.

Phosphor was the lighting mod for old versions, before 1.19. You do not add it to a current version to get the same result.

Leave the trick list alone

Registry edits, timer tools, and apps that advertise an FPS boost are not the first hour of this job. They are hard to undo, and the frames people actually get come from the driver, the power plan, the upscaler, and the heavy graphics options.

A new graphics card is a real answer when the same scene is still past the frame budget after that order. It is a bad first answer when the monitor is still at 60 Hz, the game is on the weak laptop chip, or Minecraft is drawing a 32-chunk view on hardware that cannot hold it. When the card is the thing you spend on, put the budget on that card, not on the case around it.

Common questions

How do I increase FPS on a PC?

Update the graphics driver, set Windows to Best performance while plugged in, and turn on one upscaler at Quality if the game has DLSS, FSR, or XeSS. Then turn ray tracing off and lower shadows, reflections, and volumetric light. Change one thing at a time and replay the same moment.

How do I increase FPS on a laptop?

Plug in the charger, set the power mode to Best performance, and assign the game to the high performance GPU in Windows graphics settings. Keep the vents clear. A laptop that slows down after a few minutes is hitting a heat limit, so cap the frame rate near the screen's refresh rate.

How do I increase FPS in Minecraft?

Press F3, lower render distance, then lower simulation distance. On Fabric, Sodium improves rendering and Lithium improves simulation. Leave shaders off while you are trying to raise the frame rate.

What is a good FPS?

A steady number at your monitor's refresh rate is the useful target. 60 FPS on a 60 Hz screen is a full picture. Frames above the refresh rate can trim a little delay, and the screen will not show them as extra images.

Does lowering graphics settings increase FPS?

It does when those settings are the work the GPU cannot finish in time. Shadows, reflections, volumetric light, ray tracing, and render scale usually cost more frames than texture quality. If the number does not move, the limit is somewhere else.

Should I cap FPS to my monitor?

Cap near the refresh rate when the frame time is swinging or the laptop is getting hot. A cap a few frames under the refresh rate also suits G-Sync and FreeSync. Leave it uncapped only when you want the lowest delay and the machine stays cool.