7 ways to increase FPS on your computer and improve its gaming performance

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• You can increase FPS — frames per second — by optimizing game settings on your computer.
• Frame rate is a measure of how smoothly games and graphically intense visuals display on your PC. 
• If FPS is lower than your monitor's refresh rate, you may be able to improve performance.

Frames per second, or FPS, is a common metric used to judge your gaming PC's performance. FPS denotes how many images are rendered and displayed every second during gameplay. For instance a game playing at 60 FPS will render 60 individual frames consecutively every second.  Higher frame rates generally lead to smoother animations and gameplay. 

While console games on Xbox, PlayStation, and Switch are typically locked to a specific frame rate, PC gamers can adjust a wide range of settings to get more FPS. The best gaming PCs and best gaming laptops all come with graphics cards designed to optimize games for higher FPS, but performance can vary a lot depending on what kind of hardware your computer is running.

If you are experiencing video lag or stutters, you might need to tweak your PC to improve the frame rate. Thankfully, there are a few simple steps you can take that could help boost your FPS performance.

How to increase FPS on your computer

Here are seven tips and troubleshooting tricks for boosting your computer's video performance. 

Find your monitor's refresh rate

There are two stats you should know before you start tweaking your PC: Your current frame rate, expressed in frames per second (FPS), and the monitor's refresh rate, measured in hertz (Hz). 

The refresh rate is easy to find, so we'll start there. Most monitors and TVs have a refresh rate of 60Hz 120Hz, while new gaming monitors and laptops support much higher refresh rates, such as 144Hz, 240Hz, or even 360 Hz.

Having a frame rate that matches your refresh rate will create smoother animation; for example, if your computer is running at 60 FPS on a 60Hz monitor, the display will have a fresh frame of animation every time it updates the on-screen image. If your frame rate is below 60 FPS, you'll see some frames of animation repeated, and it can potentially create screen tearing and other graphical glitches if your monitor is loading frames at an uneven rate.

Even midrange gaming computers are fully capable of reaching frame rates beyond 60 FPS in many games, but it's really only a benefit if you have a display with a high refresh rate too. A 60Hz display can only display 60 frames per second, and while more frames coming from the computer will still mean smoother animation, there's little difference to the naked eye.

Here's how you can find your display's refresh rate.

1. Click the Start button and then click Settings.
2. In the Settings window, click System.
3. Then click on Display and then click Advanced display settings.
4. Note the monitor's refresh rate.

Find out your current fps

Finding the frame rate your graphics system can muster isn't much more difficult, but there are several different ways to do it depending upon which games you play:

• Many games can display the frame rate as an overlay during gameplay. To turn this on, check the video settings in your game's setup or settings menu.
• If you use an Nvidia GeForce graphics card with the GeForce Experience software, you can turn on the in-game overlay while playing a game. You can configure the overlay to show the frame rate in a corner of the screen. To enable it, start the GeForce Experience app and click "Settings" in the In-Game Overlay section, then click "HUD Layout" and add the fps counter to the corner of your choice.

• If you play Steam games, you can turn on a frame rate counter in the Steam in-game overlay as well. To do that, start the Steam app and click the Steam menu. In the drop-down menu, click Settings and then choose In-Game from the navigation pane on the left. In the In-game FPS counter section, choose where you want the fps counter to appear and then click OK.
• You can use the free utility called Fraps to measure your frame rate in any game.
• Some monitors have a built-in FPS counter that can be displayed on screen independent of your PC. You can look in your monitor's menu and settings to see if this feature is available.

After you know your PC's frame rate (and how it compares to your monitor's refresh rate), you can try any of these tricks to increase your computer's performance.

Enable Game Mode in Windows

Game Mode configures a number of Windows settings with a single click to optimize your PC for gaming and maximize the display's frame rate.

1. Click the Search button and then click Settings.
2. In the Settings window's search box type game and then choose Game Mode settings in the search results. 
3. If it's not already turned on, enable Game Mode by swiping the button to the right.

Make sure you have the latest video driver installed

Making sure your computer's system updates and device drivers are up to date is essential to getting the best performance from your PC. There are two things you can do:

• Check for Windows updates. Click the Start button and choose Settings, then type Updates and choose Check for updates in the search results. Use the Windows Update window to make sure you have the latest updates installed.
• Update the video card drivers. This happens automatically when you check for Windows updates, but there might be newer updates waiting for your graphics card as well. If you use Nvidia GeForce Experience, start the app and click Drivers at the top of the window. Click Check for updates to see if there are any new ones to install.

Optimize your game settings

Every game is different, but if your frame rate is too low, you can enter your game's settings screen and dial down the image quality. 

There might be a single switch you can throw to change the image quality from "high" to "medium," for example, or you might need to set individual settings for viewing distance, shadows, texture effects, and so on.

Some games will let you set a target frame rate, and the game will then use dynamic resolution scaling to find a quality that matches your desired FPS. This is an AI-powered feature that requires a dedicated graphics card, but newer gaming PCs should be capable.

Reduce your screen resolution

Often a separate setting in the game from video quality, try reducing the screen resolution. 

Go to your PC's Settings, select System then Advanced display settings, and choose a lower-resolution option from the Resolution menu. Many games will also let you select a specific resolution in the graphics menu that will only apply while the game is running.

This can have a dramatic effect on the frame rate, but can lead to graphics that look less detailed and sharp. Lower resolution also limits the amount of space available on screen when you're not gaming.

Upgrade your graphics card

If you can't significantly improve your frame rate with these tips, you might have no other choice: upgrade your graphics card. 

This might not be an option if you are gaming on a laptop (but there are exceptions —  some Alienware laptops, for example, allow you to add an external "Graphics Amplifier" to upgrade your display quality).

But if you have a desktop PC, you may be able to swap out your graphics card for one that dramatically enhances your frame rate and increases your performance. Alternatively, you could try overclocking your PC if you have parts that allow it, but the benefits will vary depending on the game and other factors.