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How to Fix Frame Drops and Stuttering in PC Games

Tap a step to see it in order.

  1. Check Task Manager for the bottleneck

    Open Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc) and compare CPU and GPU usage while the game is running to get a sense of which one is holding performance back.

  2. Turn on an in-game performance overlay

    Enabling an overlay like the NVIDIA app overlay or the Xbox Game Bar performance widget (Win+G) lets you watch real-time FPS and usage while you play.

  3. Lower graphics settings

    Try lowering demanding settings like resolution, shadows, and anti-aliasing one at a time and check how much each one improves your frame rate.

  4. Close background applications

    Closing unnecessary browser tabs or updater programs while gaming frees up more CPU and memory for the game itself.

  5. Switch your power plan to high performance

    Selecting "High performance" or "Best performance" in Windows power settings reduces the performance throttling that power-saving modes can cause.

  6. Keep your drivers and game up to date

    Outdated graphics drivers or game patches are often less optimized, so keeping both current is generally worth doing.

Find the cause before you start changing settings

Lowering graphics settings at random before knowing whether the bottleneck is your CPU or your GPU wastes time and can leave the real problem untouched. Since the fix that actually works depends on where the bottleneck is, diagnosing first makes the rest of the process far more efficient.

Small housekeeping fixes are often the easiest wins

Before touching in-game graphics settings at all, closing unnecessary background programs and switching Windows to a high-performance power plan cost nothing and can noticeably reduce stutter on their own. Keeping graphics drivers and game patches current matters too, since older versions are frequently missing optimizations that a newer release already includes.

Frequently Asked Questions

Should I look at CPU usage or GPU usage?

If one is sitting close to 100% while the other has headroom to spare, the one running hotter is the more likely bottleneck.

Which graphics settings should I lower first for the biggest improvement?

Settings that demand heavy computation β€” shadow quality, anti-aliasing, and draw distance β€” usually free up the most performance when lowered first.