How to Increase FPS — In the Order That Actually Works
Most FPS advice starts with buying something. Start instead with the settings that silently cap you, the software quietly eating frames, and the heat throttling what you already own. Hardware is step four, not step one.
Step 1: Remove the caps you did not know were set
Before touching a game menu, confirm the ceiling is where you think it is. Run the refresh rate test: if your 144Hz monitor is running at 60Hz, every other optimisation is fighting for scraps under a lid you can lift in thirty seconds in display settings. Then check power: laptops on battery-saver plans throttle both CPU and GPU, and the performance plan is free frames. Inside games, find the frame rate limiter and VSYNC settings — a limiter set long ago for a different monitor, or VSYNC behaviour at a halved rate, explains a remarkable share of 'my powerful PC feels slow' reports.
Resolution is the heaviest single lever in any game: dropping from 4K to 1440p typically buys back more than half the lost frames, and modern resolution scaling and upscaling (DLSS, FSR, XeSS) exist to buy most of the rest while keeping the image close. Use them before lowering the settings that make a game look like itself.
Step 2: Starve the background, feed the game
Every overlay, recorder, sync client, RGB utility and forgotten browser tab taxes the same CPU and GPU your game needs, and the tax shows up first in the 1% lows — the stutters — rather than the average. Close what you can, disable overlays you do not use, and keep drivers current, because GPU drivers carry per-game fixes that are sometimes worth more than a settings change. If stutter persists on a clean desktop, the stutter test's rhythm-reading method will help you tell a polling background app from a thermal problem before you spend anything.
Step 3: Heat is a settings problem too
Components protect themselves by slowing down, and they do it gradually — which is why a system can benchmark brilliantly for two minutes and sag twenty minutes into a session. Dust in fans and vents, a laptop flat on a bed, a case with one tired fan: each converts your hardware into a slower version of itself. Clean the airflow path, give laptops a hard surface or a stand, and watch whether long-session frame rates recover. The stress benchmark on the FPS test page is a quick proxy: if a 60-second heavy run decays steadily while a 10-second run looks fine, heat is on the list.
Step 4: Upgrade the thing that is actually the ceiling
Only now does spending enter, and the calculator earns its keep: run your games through the FPS calculator with your current parts and with the upgrade you are considering. If your results are CPU-capped in the titles you play, a graphics card buys little there; if the GPU estimate is the binding number at your resolution, the processor is innocent. Memory deserves a mention before either: too little RAM, or a single stick running in single-channel mode, causes stutter that no GPU upgrade cures. The cheapest upgrade is the one aimed at the measured bottleneck — and measuring, by now, is a habit you own.
Frequently asked questions
What single setting gives the most FPS?
Resolution, and its modern form, resolution scaling or upscaling. It reduces the work of every pixel in every frame, which no other setting matches. Shadows and volumetrics are the next tier of levers in most games.
Does more RAM increase FPS?
If you were running out, dramatically — swapping to disk causes severe stutter. If you already have enough, more RAM alone adds little; but moving from one stick to two (dual channel) can help noticeably on many systems.
Is overclocking worth it?
It buys single-digit percentages for real risk and heat. Do every step on this page first; overclocking is a hobby with a small FPS side effect, not an FPS strategy.
Why is my FPS high but the game feels stuttery?
That is a frame-time problem, not a rate problem — uneven delivery hidden by a good average. The stutter test and the guide to 1% lows are built for exactly that complaint.