PC OPTIMIZATION FOR COMPETITIVE GAMING — BEGINNER'S GUIDE

If you just built or bought a gaming PC and want to get the most out of it for competitive games, the default Windows installation leaves a lot of performance on the table. This guide covers the most impactful changes you can make, in order of impact, without needing technical expertise.

Step 1 — Change Your Power Plan (2 minutes)

This is the single easiest and most impactful change. Press Win + R, type powercfg.cpl, press Enter. In the window that opens, select High Performance. If you only see Balanced, click "Show additional plans." This tells Windows to stop throttling your CPU to save power and keep it running at full speed during gaming.

Step 2 — Disable Xbox Game Bar (1 minute)

Press Win + I to open Settings, go to Gaming → Xbox Game Bar, and toggle it off. Then go to Gaming → Captures and turn off "Record in the background while I'm playing." Game Bar runs a continuous video buffer that wastes CPU and memory your games need.

Step 3 — Enable XMP/EXPO in BIOS (5 minutes)

Restart your PC and press Delete or F2 during startup to enter BIOS. Find a setting called XMP, XMP Profile, or EXPO — usually under Memory or OC settings. Enable Profile 1. Save and exit. This makes your RAM run at its rated speed instead of the default slow speed, improving FPS by 5–25% in CPU-bound games.

Step 4 — Update and Clean Install GPU Drivers

Download DDU (Display Driver Uninstaller) from guru3d.com and the latest GPU drivers from NVIDIA.com or AMD.com. Boot into Safe Mode, run DDU to clean old drivers, then install the new ones fresh. Old driver fragments cause random crashes and performance issues.

Step 5 — Set Games to Fullscreen Mode

In every competitive game you play, set the display mode to Fullscreen (not Borderless Windowed). Fullscreen gives the game direct control of your display, bypassing Windows' extra processing layer and reducing input latency noticeably. This applies to CS2, VALORANT, Apex, Fortnite and all other competitive titles.