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Windows includes several features designed to improve the gaming experience, but many of them add overhead or interfere with how games manage the display, input, and GPU access. The tweaks below remove that overhead via targeted registry edits — apply the ones relevant to your setup.

Disable Fullscreen Optimizations

Fullscreen Optimizations is a Windows feature that runs “exclusive fullscreen” games in a borderless windowed mode behind the scenes. This allows Alt+Tab and overlays to work more smoothly, but it also hands display control back to the DWM compositor, which can introduce input latency and frame pacing irregularities compared to true exclusive fullscreen. Setting GameDVR_DXGIHonorFSEWindowsCompatible to 1 instructs DXGI to honour the application’s original fullscreen exclusive request rather than redirecting it.
reg add "HKCU\System\GameConfigStore" /v "GameDVR_DXGIHonorFSEWindowsCompatible" /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f

Disable Optimizations for Windowed Games

Windows can also apply swap-chain upgrades to games running in windowed or borderless-windowed mode, substituting the application’s chosen present model for one Windows considers more efficient. This setting disables that substitution, ensuring the game’s own rendering path is used without interference.
reg add "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\DirectX\UserGpuPreferences" /v "DirectXUserGlobalSettings" /t REG_SZ /d "SwapEffectUpgradeEnable=0;" /f

Disable Mouse Acceleration

The Enhance Pointer Precision option in Windows artificially amplifies cursor movement when the mouse is moved slowly, making the pointer travel further per inch of physical movement at low speeds than at high speeds. This inconsistency makes it harder to build the muscle memory needed for precise, repeatable aiming in games. Setting all three threshold and speed values to 0 produces a linear 1:1 relationship between physical movement and on-screen cursor distance.
Mouse acceleration is ultimately a personal preference. Some users find it helpful for productivity tasks like navigating a large desktop with a small mousepad. If you play both fast-paced shooters and general desktop work, consider toggling this per activity rather than disabling it permanently.
reg add "HKCU\Control Panel\Mouse" /v "MouseSpeed" /t REG_SZ /d "0" /f
reg add "HKCU\Control Panel\Mouse" /v "MouseThreshold1" /t REG_SZ /d "0" /f
reg add "HKCU\Control Panel\Mouse" /v "MouseThreshold2" /t REG_SZ /d "0" /f

Disable Game Mode

Game Mode attempts to prioritize the active game’s CPU and GPU resources by throttling background processes and system tasks. In practice, on well-tuned systems it provides little benefit and can occasionally cause frame rate instability or audio stuttering as Windows aggressively reallocates resources mid-session.
A small number of titles — particularly those that explicitly request Game Mode via the Windows Gaming Device and App Readiness API — may see a slight performance uplift with Game Mode enabled. If you notice worse performance in a specific game after applying this tweak, try re-enabling it for that title.
reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\GameDVR" /v "AutoGameModeEnabled" /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
reg add "HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\GameBar" /v "AutoGameModeEnabled" /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f

Disable Game Bar

The Xbox Game Bar is an overlay shell that provides quick access to widgets for capturing clips, monitoring performance, and chatting with Xbox friends. It runs persistently in the background and can intercept certain keyboard shortcuts (notably Win+G). Disabling it removes the background process and prevents the overlay from launching.
reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Polices\Microsoft\Windows\GameDVR" /v "AllowGameDVR" /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\GameDVR" /v "AppCaptureEnabled" /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
reg add "HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\GameBar" /v "UseNexusForGameBarEnabled" /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
reg add "HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\GameBar" /v "ShowStartupPanel" /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f

Disable Captures (Game DVR)

Xbox Game DVR continuously buffers the last few minutes of gameplay so that you can save a clip retroactively. This background recording consumes GPU encode capacity and VRAM bandwidth even when you are not actively saving anything. Disabling captures frees those resources for the game itself.
reg add "HKCU\System\GameConfigStore" /v "GameDVR_Enabled" /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\GameDVR" /v "AllowGameDVR" /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f

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