Most low FPS is a configuration or thermal problem, not a missing booster. Before installing anything, check the five things that cause most drops: the game is running on the wrong GPU, the monitor is set below its rated refresh rate, a laptop is on battery or in a power-saving mode, the GPU is thermal-throttling, or a background app or overlay is eating frames. The 12 checks below take about an hour in total and none of them requires a paid tool. If all 12 pass and FPS is still low, you are probably at the hardware's limit for that game and those settings. A booster can change Windows settings; it cannot add GPU performance.
| What this is | An ordered troubleshooting checklist for low FPS and FPS drops in PC games |
|---|---|
| Time needed | About 30–60 minutes for all 12 checks |
| Downloads | None required; optional monitoring tools are named where useful |
| Covers | Wrong GPU, refresh rate, laptop power, thermals, drivers, background apps, Windows settings, in-game settings, CPU and GPU bottlenecks, RAM and storage, game patches, hardware limits |
| Does not cover | Console performance, network lag, or game-server problems — those are not FPS |
| Last checked | October 19, 2026, against the vendor documentation linked at the bottom |
Low FPS and stutter feel similar but have different causes. Low FPS means the average number of frames per second is below what you want. Stutter means the average may look fine, but individual frames take too long, so motion hitches. A game can report 60 FPS and still feel bad if its 1% low — the slowest 1% of frames — is 25 FPS.
Before changing settings, decide which one you have. If the frame counter is consistently low, work through the list below. If it is usually fine but hitches, focus on checks 9–11 (bottlenecks, memory and storage, shader compilation) and on background spikes. Our browser FPS test shows average FPS, frame time and 1% low in a browser tab; it is a useful way to see how frame-time consistency works, but it does not measure game performance.
| What you see | Start with |
|---|---|
| FPS dropped suddenly after a driver, Windows or game update | Checks 5 and 11 |
| FPS has always been low in every game | Checks 1, 2, 9 and 12 |
| A laptop slows down after 10–15 minutes | Checks 3 and 4 |
| The average looks fine but movement hitches | The section above, then checks 9–11 |
| Low FPS in one game only | Checks 6, 8 and 11 |
| A 144Hz monitor feels like 60Hz | Checks 1 and 2 |
| GPU usage stays below 90% while FPS is low | Check 9 |
On a desktop, the monitor cable must be plugged into the graphics card, not the motherboard. If it is in the motherboard's HDMI or DisplayPort, the discrete GPU may not be driving the display at all, and games can fall back to integrated graphics.
On a laptop with hybrid graphics, Windows and the GPU driver decide which chip runs each game. In Windows 11, open Settings > System > Display > Graphics, select the game, and set it to High performance. In the NVIDIA Control Panel, check Manage 3D settings > Program settings; in AMD Software, check Gaming > Games. Also check the laptop maker's software for a discrete-GPU-only or Ultimate mode.
Quick test: open Task Manager > Performance and watch which GPU is active while the game runs. If the integrated GPU is doing the work, fix this before changing anything else.
A 144Hz or 165Hz monitor often ships at 60Hz. In Windows 11, go to Settings > System > Display > Advanced display and check the refresh rate. In Windows 10, use Settings > System > Display > Advanced display settings > Display adapter properties > Monitor. Set the highest rate your cable and port support.
The cable matters: 4K at 144Hz needs DisplayPort 1.4 or HDMI 2.1, and some cables are limited to 60Hz at high resolutions. If the option you want is missing, try a different cable or port. Variable refresh rate (G-Sync, FreeSync, VRR) reduces tearing and stutter, but it does not raise average FPS.
Laptops aggressively limit the CPU and GPU on battery. Plug in the power adapter, then set Windows to Best performance (Settings > System > Power & battery > Power mode) and choose the manufacturer's performance profile — for example Armoury Crate on Asus, Lenovo Vantage on Lenovo, or Dell Power Manager.
On a desktop, check Settings > System > Power & battery > Power mode and choose a plan that does not park cores aggressively. The Ultimate Performance plan can be added with PowerShell, but the difference on a modern PC is usually small; do not expect it to fix a real bottleneck.
If FPS starts high and falls after 10–20 minutes, or the fans get loud and clock speeds drop, the machine is probably reducing power to stay within temperature limits. Laptops are the usual case; desktops with poor airflow can do it too.
Check temperatures with the manufacturer's tool or a monitor such as HWiNFO. Then clean dust from vents and fans, put a laptop on a hard surface or stand, and make sure the intake and exhaust are not blocked. Repasting and undervolting can help, but they are advanced steps with warranty and stability risks — do them only if you know what you are doing.
Do not judge throttling from one temperature reading. Watch the clock speed and FPS together for several minutes; a steady decline in both is the signal.
Install the driver from NVIDIA, AMD or Intel directly, not from Windows Update, which often ships an older version. During installation, choose the clean-install option if your driver package offers one.
If the problem started right after a driver update, roll back to the previous version and test again. On Windows 11, Device Manager > Display adapters > Properties > Driver > Roll Back Driver may work; otherwise download the older version from the vendor. Avoid third-party driver updater tools — they add another variable and sometimes install the wrong package.
Open Task Manager > Startup apps and disable what you do not need at login. Then look for overlays and capture tools: Discord, Xbox Game Bar, the NVIDIA overlay, Steam overlay, OBS, Medal, RGB and fan software, and browser tabs. Each one can cost frames, and several can stack.
Test one at a time. Turn off an overlay, play the same scene for a few minutes, and compare. Keep the FPS counter you are using — measuring with no counter at all just replaces one guess with another. If you need an overlay to measure, use the lightest one available and turn off the rest.
Turn on Game Mode (Settings > Gaming > Game Mode). It tells Windows to prioritize the game and hold back some background activity. Turn on Hardware-Accelerated GPU Scheduling (Settings > System > Display > Graphics > Change default graphics settings) if your GPU and driver support it; a restart is required. On Windows 11, also check Optimizations for windowed games.
These settings can help, but they are not a substitute for fixing a real bottleneck. If your GPU is already at 99% usage, Windows settings will not create headroom.
Start with the settings that change how many pixels the GPU must shade: resolution and render scale, ray tracing, shadows, reflections, ambient occlusion, volumetric fog and anti-aliasing. Texture quality mostly affects VRAM; if you see stutter rather than low average FPS, lower textures first.
Upscaling — DLSS, FSR or XeSS — is usually the biggest single lever on a GPU-limited system. Turn it on in Quality mode first, then move to Balanced or Performance if you need more frames. Frame generation can raise the displayed number, but it adds latency and does not fix a CPU limit; try it last.
Change one setting at a time and measure the same scene. A menu screen is not a benchmark; use the game's built-in benchmark if it has one, or play a repeatable section for two to three minutes.
Open Task Manager > Performance during play, or use the Xbox Game Bar performance overlay (Win+G) or the NVIDIA or AMD overlay. If GPU usage sits at about 95–100%, the GPU is the limit: lower GPU-heavy settings or accept the hardware. If GPU usage is well below that while FPS is low, something else is limiting the frame rate — often one or two CPU threads, a frame cap, V-Sync, or a background task.
Task Manager's overall CPU percentage can be misleading because games often load one or two cores. Switch the CPU graph to logical processors and look for one core at or near 100%. Also check that a frame cap or V-Sync is not holding you at 60 FPS when you expected more.
On laptops, a single stick of RAM can cost performance in games that are sensitive to memory bandwidth. If the laptop has upgradable slots, a matched pair is usually better than one larger stick. On desktops, enable XMP or EXPO in the BIOS so the memory runs at its rated speed.
Keep some free space on the drive, and put games on an SSD if you can. A slow hard drive does not usually lower average FPS, but it can cause texture pop-in and stutter. If the game uses more VRAM than your card has, lower texture quality; the symptom is usually stutter, not a smooth low frame rate.
A game patch can change performance in either direction. Check the game's patch notes and community reports for your GPU, and test the same scene after the patch. If the drop started with an update, wait for a fix or roll back if the platform allows it.
Shader compilation stutter is common in some DirectX 12 games during the first minutes of play; it usually improves after the shaders are cached. Verify the game files (Steam: right-click the game > Properties > Installed Files > Verify integrity of game files; Epic and other launchers have similar options), and clear the GPU shader cache only if you suspect corruption.
Every GPU has a limit for a given game, resolution and settings. If all the checks above pass, compare your result with the game's published requirements and with benchmarks for your GPU — not with a friend's different machine. Lowering settings or upgrading hardware are the honest options.
An FPS booster changes Windows settings: power plans, background services, visual effects, sometimes network settings. Those are the same levers covered in checks 3, 6 and 7. A booster cannot add GPU performance, fix thermal throttling or repair a game bug. If you still want to try one after the 12 checks, read our FPS booster guide and the Radiant Optimizer review for the safety checklist before you give any installer Administrator access.
Pick one repeatable scene, run it three times with the same settings, and record average FPS and 1% low. Change one thing, run again, and keep the change only if the result is repeatable. This is slower than clicking optimize, but it is the only way to know what helped.
Use an in-game benchmark or an overlay for game FPS. Our browser FPS test is a quick check of your display and browser settings, not a game benchmark; it can tell you whether the browser is hitting its refresh cap and whether frame times are consistent.
Sudden drops usually come from a change: a GPU driver or Windows update, a game patch, a new background app or overlay, a laptop switching to battery, or thermal throttling. Check what changed around the time the drop started, then work through checks 3 to 6 and 11 on this page.
Not always. If you are CPU-limited, lowering shadows or textures may barely help; if you are GPU-limited, resolution, ray tracing and upscaling have the biggest effect. Change one setting at a time and measure the same scene, because some settings cost far more than others.
Only in a narrow sense. A booster can toggle Windows settings — power plans, Game Mode, background services — that you can usually change yourself. It cannot add GPU performance, fix thermal throttling or repair a game bug. Run the 12 checks first; if they all pass, a booster is unlikely to give you a large gain.
Work through the checks in order: use the right GPU, set the monitor to its rated refresh rate, plug in a laptop, fix thermal throttling, update the driver, close background apps, then lower GPU-heavy settings or turn on upscaling. If all of that is done and FPS is still low, the hardware is the limit for that game and those settings.
Low GPU usage with low FPS usually means a CPU limit, a frame cap, V-Sync, or a game that is waiting on something else such as streaming, shader compilation or a background task. Check per-core CPU usage and whether a frame cap is set before blaming the GPU.
Laptops throttle on battery, in power-saving modes, and when they get hot. Plug in, choose the manufacturer's performance mode, check that the game is using the discrete GPU, and watch temperatures after 10 to 15 minutes of play.
In Windows 11, open Settings > System > Display > Advanced display and check the refresh rate setting. In Windows 10, use Settings > System > Display > Advanced display settings > Display adapter properties > Monitor. Also check that the cable and port support the resolution and refresh rate you selected.