If you're like me, you can never have enough FPS. Most gamers don't have flagship PC components inside their rigs, so hopes of improving gaming performance are always alive. Upgrading your PC is the surest way to guarantee a higher level of gaming performance, but before you grab your wallet, you might want to try out a few home remedies to give your PC the push it needs.

These methods range from software updates and PC maintenance to enabling hidden settings and overclocking your hardware. They also include a third-party utility to double your framerates using frame generation (with a few caveats). Let's dive into these tips one by one, in increasing order of complexity and performance improvement.

7 Remove dust from your PC

First things first

When you're blaming your old PC for poor performance in games, the blame might lie with you instead. If you haven't bothered to open your PC case since the day you built the PC and stuffed all the cables behind the side panel, there might be a sandstorm occurring inside it, with a couple of sandworms gallivanting around. Over time, the insides of your PC can get caked with dust, clinging to your fans, and affecting the airflow inside it.

This gradually contributes to higher temperatures as your CPU and GPU don't have access to enough cool air coming in. Without any other alternative in sight, your hardware limits performance by reducing the clock speeds, resulting in the less-than-ideal FPS you observe in your favorite titles. So, the first order of business is to open your case, clean the dust deposits inside it, and allow your rig to deliver the performance it's capable of.

Cleaning your PC won't magically skyrocket your framerates, but it's a starting point. Depending on the age of your PC, removing excess dust from it might result in a significant boost in performance. If it doesn't, you can move on to the other tips below.

6 Update GPU drivers for the latest games

Don't miss out on those game-ready drivers

Keeping your GPU drivers updated is good practice, but I also believe in "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". I don't upgrade to every single new driver for my Nvidia GPU, and considering the recent fiasco with RTX 50 drivers, it's a sound policy. However, if you're playing a game that just launched, and you're getting surprisingly poor performance, it's worth checking out any day-one drivers from your GPU manufacturer.

These drivers are meant to provide critical updates for the latest games during the launch window, and missing out on them might be the reason behind the low FPS numbers you're seeing. Besides updating the GPU driver, I also suggest setting each of your games to update automatically if you haven't done it already. Patches released for your games, especially in the first few days of launch, are incredibly important if you want to enjoy optimum performance.

These days, it's common to see games launch in an unfinished state, which forces developers to release multiple patches to bring them to a playable state. Updating to the latest drivers using the Nvidia app, AMD's Adrenalin, or Intel Arc Control is a quick and easy fix for some free performance.

5 Enable Hardware-Accelerated GPU Scheduling

The HAGS and HAGS not

Most modern Windows PCs have Hardware-Accelerated GPU Scheduling (HAGS) turned off by default, but enabling it is generally advisable for most gamers. Put simply, HAGS offloads all the GPU scheduling responsibilities to the GPU from the CPU, preventing the latter from becoming a bottleneck in the process. This improves the efficiency of the graphics subsystem on Windows, and can technically improve performance in most games.

Some titles still don't work well with HAGS enabled, so you might have to compare the results by toggling it on or off (and restarting your PC each time). For Intel Arc GPU owners, enabling HAGS is necessary to get the best performance, while Nvidia and AMD users can experiment with the feature and decide if the in-game results are worth keeping it turned on. Also, frame generation on Nvidia GPUs will not work without HAGS, so Nvidia users might as well enable it.

4 Overclock your CPU and GPU

Turn things up to 11

The tips I shared above may or may not guarantee an FPS boost in games, but overclocking your GPU certainly will. It might just amount to a 5–10% boost, but it's still something. Overclocking modern hardware doesn't reap the rewards it used to years ago, since manufacturers are now in the habit of pushing their chips to the maximum when they leave the factory. However, everyone's mileage may vary; you might get lucky with the silicon lottery.

If nothing else, overclocking your GPU might help you get over the 60 FPS mark, and that can be game-changing in many titles. Overclocking your CPU, on the other hand, yields a significant boost only in certain situations. If you're playing CPU-bound titles like strategy, esports, and RTS games, overclocking the CPU might alleviate a CPU bottleneck. Also, if your CPU can't keep up with your GPU, overclocking it might help the GPU maximize its performance, plus improve your 1% low FPS.

If you're streaming your gaming sessions or emulating games, an overclocked CPU can somewhat benefit the performance. Overall, overclocking your GPU is still a better shot at improving gaming performance, but even then, the improvements won't be earth-shattering on newer GPUs.

3 Turn on Resizable BAR

Free performance with a few clicks

There's a chance you might not know about Resizable BAR, since it isn't enabled by default on every system. Resizable BAR or ReBAR is a PCIe technology that allows the CPU to access the GPU's entire VRAM in one go instead of transferring multiple small chunks of data to it sequentially. This can result in a significant FPS boost as well as reduce micro-stutters due to a better frame-time.

The benefits of enabling Resizable BAR can range from 5% to 15% depending on the title you're playing — that is theoretically higher than what you usually get from overclocking your GPU, and with much less effort. To enable ReBAR, you should have an RTX 30 series, RX 6000 series, or Intel Arc Alchemist series GPU or newer. Your CPU should also belong to the Intel Core 10th Gen, Ryzen 3000, or a newer generation. Lastly, your PC's firmware should be in UEFI mode, not BIOS. To enable UEFI, you might have to convert your MBR drive to GPT.

Enabling ReBAR is downright mandatory on Intel Arc GPUs, since you won't get optimum performance without it. And many modern games support ReBAR, so ignoring it means you're losing out on some free performance. If you're able to get, say, a 15% boost in gaming performance with ReBAR, you might as well skip a GPU generation.

2 Use optimized in-game settings

Some compromises are worth it

You might not like to hear it, but one of the biggest boosts you can give to your FPS is by lowering certain in-game settings. You can target the settings that don't contribute much to the visuals, but are relatively taxing on the GPU. Volumetric fog & clouds, volumetric lighting, shadows, ambient occlusion, and ray tracing make the game look good, but lowering them doesn't make it look bad either. The performance increase, however, is well worth it.

You can also refer to YouTube channels like Hardware Unboxed and Digital Foundry for a list of optimized settings for every popular title. These settings will allow you to strike the best balance between visual quality and performance. Needless to say, you should avoid ray tracing and path tracing on older and budget GPUs, use medium textures on GPUs with low VRAM, and use aggressive DLSS or FSR settings if you're still struggling with poor FPS.

Often, the visual differences between "Ultra" and "Very High" settings are imperceptible, and most gamers should simply consider a mix of medium and high settings to keep their frames above their desired number, which is usually 60 FPS.

1 Try Lossless Scaling

"We have Frame Gen at home"

If all your efforts to boost your FPS aren't bearing fruit, you have one more ace up your sleeve. While gamers with RTX 40, RTX 50, RX 6000, or RX 7000 GPUs can enjoy Nvidia's and AMD's versions of frame generation technologies for some "artificial frames", others can use a utility called Lossless Scaling to experiment with AI upscaling and frame generation.

Lossless Scaling is a $7 third-party program (so, technically a paid upgrade) that houses several upscaling and frame generation techniques. This manufacturer-agnostic version of frame generation can boost your framerates by 2x, 3x, and even more. The visual artifacts associated with frame generation will get worse as you enable more aggressive modes, and since Lossless Scaling doesn't have access to the motion vectors in the game, it's usually worse than, say, Nvidia's frame generation implementation.

That said, users with aging PCs still have a lot to gain with Lossless Scaling's 2x mode. In slow-paced, single-player games, it can deliver a night-and-day difference that's seriously impressive. You might not be able to use it in conjunction with variable refresh rate technologies like G-SYNC and FreeSync, but doubling your FPS can be a godsend in many single-player games, despite the input lag penalties.

How far can you push your PC without hardware upgrades?

If you aren't willing to spend money on hardware upgrades, there are, surprisingly, many ways to improve your PC's gaming performance on the software side. Upgrading to game-ready drivers, turning on Resizable BAR, and using Lossless Scaling promise a significant boost to your in-game FPS. Lowering in-game settings and overclocking your hardware can also help make your games smoother and more enjoyable. It's all about making the most of your existing hardware instead of upgrading to expensive components.