All 85 tweaks, and what each one does

Turns off Enhanced Pointer Precision so your mouse moves the same distance on screen every time, no matter how fast you flick it.

Gives the game you’re actively playing a bigger CPU time-slice than background processes, so it stays smoother under load.

Forces true exclusive fullscreen instead of Windows’ borderless-window emulation, which removes a layer of compositor input lag.

Stops Windows from silently buffering background game clips, which frees up disk I/O and GPU headroom.

Kills the Win+G overlay and its startup panel so it can’t pop up or eat frame time mid-match.

Tells Windows to hold back background updates and notifications while a game has focus.

Stops Windows’ energy-saving scheduler from quietly capping CPU performance for the foreground app.

Removes the multimedia scheduler’s reserved CPU headroom and pushes the Games task profile to High priority.

Lets your GPU manage its own memory queue instead of Windows, cutting a step out of the render pipeline.

Stops the “Do you want to turn on Sticky Keys?” box from minimising your game when you tap Shift five times mid-fight.

Good to know: Takes full effect after you sign out or restart.

Cuts the delay before a held key starts repeating to the minimum, so held inputs respond straight away.

Good to know: Takes full effect after you sign out or restart.

Tells Windows to give Fortnite High CPU priority every time it starts, so background apps can’t take CPU time from it mid-fight. Nothing touches the game itself.

Good to know: Takes effect the next time Fortnite starts.

Turns off "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" for your USB hubs and input devices, so your mouse and keyboard never have to wake up before an input registers.

Stops Windows batching small outgoing packets before sending them, so inputs like clicks and movement hit the wire immediately.

Locks the TCP receive window instead of letting Windows resize it dynamically, which smooths out jitter on some connections.

Stops your network adapter batching outgoing packets in hardware, trading a little throughput for lower latency spikes. Support varies by adapter/driver.

Good to know: Your connection drops for a few seconds while the adapter restarts.

Turns off Energy-Efficient Ethernet, Green Ethernet and Windows switching your network adapter off to save power. Those power-saving modes can cause lag spikes and dropouts.

Good to know: Your connection drops for a few seconds while the adapter restarts.

Removes the 10-packets-per-millisecond cap Windows puts on non-multimedia network traffic.

Stops your PC uploading Windows Update bandwidth to other users’ PCs (peer-to-peer update sharing) in the background.

Removes any reserved bandwidth slice the QoS packet scheduler holds back from everything else.

Stops your network adapter waiting to bundle incoming packets before telling the CPU about them, so game packets are handled the moment they arrive. Uses a little more CPU.

Good to know: Your connection drops for a few seconds while the adapter restarts. Presets skip it on laptops.

Switches to Windows’ hidden Ultimate Performance plan, which removes almost every power-saving throttle. Restoring puts your previous plan back.

Switches to Windows’ Balanced plan. AMD recommends it for Ryzen CPUs because it lets them boost highest on their best cores, and it keeps laptops cooler. On these PCs Winsmate uses it instead of Ultimate Performance. Restoring puts your previous plan back.

Keeps every CPU core awake and ready instead of letting Windows "park" idle cores, which removes the wake-up delay under sudden load.

Switches Windows off the High Precision Event Timer and its power-saving dynamic tick, for a steadier, lower-latency clock source.

Keeps kernel and driver code fully resident in RAM instead of letting it get paged to disk.

Stops the filesystem writing a timestamp update every single time a file is read, cutting disk overhead.

Stops NTFS generating a legacy short filename for every file it creates. Pure overhead on modern systems.

Stops Windows power-cycling idle USB devices, which removes the tiny wake-up latency on your mouse and keyboard.

Keeps your PCIe lanes (GPU, NVMe) running at full power instead of dropping into a low-power link state between bursts.

Sets the processor performance boost policy to Aggressive so your CPU ramps to peak clocks faster.

Stops Windows compressing inactive RAM in the background. On systems with plenty of memory this removes CPU overhead and smooths out frametimes.

Good to know: Best left on if you have 8GB of RAM or less. Presets skip it automatically on those PCs.

When a program crashes a few times, Windows quietly runs it with slower "safe" memory handling from then on. A game that crashed once can stay slower for good. This switches that off.

Blocks Store apps from running and syncing in the background, freeing up CPU and network for your game.

Turns Windows diagnostic data collection down to its minimum allowed level.

Good to know: On Home/Pro editions Windows may cap this at "Required" regardless.

Turns off Cortana integration in search, freeing the background process it runs.

Keeps Start Menu search local-only instead of round-tripping every keystroke to Bing.

Stops the background indexer that constantly scans your drives to keep file search fast.

Good to know: File search will be slower (unindexed) while disabled.

Stops Windows pre-loading apps into RAM based on usage history. Mainly useful on SSD/NVMe systems.

Good to know: Skip this one if you’re still on a mechanical hard drive. Presets skip it automatically there.

Turns off the "suggested" tiles, app promos, and tips Windows injects into the Start Menu.

Stops apps using your per-user advertising ID to build a profile for personalised ads.

Stops Windows recording and uploading your app and document activity history.

Removes the Widgets board and its always-running background feed service from the taskbar.

Removes the Copilot button and its background process entirely.

Stops Windows silently installing "recommended" Store apps on your account.

Turns off promotional content and app suggestions on the lock screen.

Stops Windows’ daily automatic maintenance task from running scans and cleanup while you’re at the PC.

Stops Windows Update restarting your PC on its own while you’re signed in. Updates still download and install. You just choose when to restart.

Stops Windows Update replacing your graphics driver (and other drivers) with older versions it picks for you. Get GPU drivers from NVIDIA, AMD or Intel instead.

Stops Microsoft Edge preloading at startup and staying open in the background after you close it, which frees memory for your game.

Good to know: While this is on, Edge says it’s "managed by your organisation". That’s just how Edge labels these settings.

Deletes the hibernation file, which is as big as your RAM, so you get that disk space back. Every shutdown also becomes a clean start for your drivers.

Good to know: Presets skip this on laptops, where hibernation saves your battery when the lid is closed.

Uninstalls OneDrive and stops it syncing in the background. This one can’t be auto-restored. Reinstall it from microsoft.com if you change your mind.

Turns off the four Xbox background services (Live auth, game save, networking and accessories) to free CPU and memory.

Good to know: Game Pass and some games use these to sign in. Restore it here if a game won’t launch.

Stops and disables the Connected User Experiences and Telemetry service that continuously collects and uploads diagnostic data in the background.

Turns off the scheduled jobs that wake up to scan your apps and drives and send compatibility and feedback reports (Compatibility Appraiser, Customer Experience, disk diagnostics, feedback).

Stops the service that collects crash data and uploads it to Microsoft after an app or game crashes, which can hog the disk right when you relaunch.

Removes the "Recommended" tips, promoted apps and account reminders from the Windows 11 Start menu.

Stops the Settings app showing suggested content and the "Let’s finish setting up your device" and "Get even more out of Windows" nags.

Stops the search box loading trending topics and daily illustrations from the internet.

Removes the fun facts, tips and tricks Windows prints on top of your lock screen picture.

Stops Windows Recall taking screenshots of everything you do and analysing them in the background. Only Copilot+ PCs have Recall. On other PCs this just keeps it off if an update adds it.

Stops Microsoft using your diagnostic data for personalised tips and ads, and stops the "How likely are you to recommend Windows?" pop-ups.

Stops notification banners sliding in over your game. Notifications still collect quietly in the notification centre.

Good to know: Not in the presets, because you might want some pop-ups (Discord, calendar). Turn it on yourself if you don’t.

Turns off the Windows location service, which also stops apps waking your Wi-Fi to scan for nearby networks to work out where you are.

Good to know: Weather, maps, Find my device and automatic time zone stop working while it’s off, so it’s not in the presets.

Turns off the printing service. If you never print from this PC, it’s one less background service (and it’s had serious security holes before).

Good to know: Not in the presets. Turn it back on here before you print.

Stops Windows deleting temp files and emptying the Recycle Bin by itself in the background. Winsmate’s Clean up page does the same when you choose.

Good to know: Not in the presets: if your drive is nearly full, Storage Sense helps.

Strips menu fades, shadows, tooltip animations and taskbar animations in one move, but keeps your fonts smooth.

Good to know: Sign out and back in for every effect to update.

Turns off the blurred/translucent look on the taskbar and Start Menu.

Removes the minimize/maximize/restore animation so windows snap instantly.

Removes the artificial delay before Start Menu and right-click menus open.

Removes the built-in delay Windows adds before launching your startup apps.

Turns off the "peek at desktop" preview that fires when you hover the taskbar corner.

Stops Windows popping up other-window suggestions every time you snap a window to the side.

Right-click any app on the taskbar and pick End task to close a frozen game instantly, without opening Task Manager.

Good to know: Windows 11 only.

Turns on Windows 11’s faster way of showing borderless and windowed DirectX 11 games (Fortnite’s Performance mode is DirectX 11), cutting input lag when you don’t play in exclusive fullscreen.

Good to know: Windows 11 only. Restart your game to see it.

Lets games that don’t support G-SYNC or FreeSync themselves use your monitor’s variable refresh rate anyway, for smoother frames without tearing.

Good to know: Only useful on a G-SYNC or FreeSync monitor, so it’s not in the presets.

Turns off Multiplane Overlay, the fix NVIDIA published for flickering, black flashes and stutter when you game with a second monitor or a video playing on the other screen.

Good to know: Only turn this on if you get flicker or stutter with two monitors. Some newer Windows 11 versions ignore it.

Stops Windows 11 taking control of your RGB keyboard, mouse and headset lights, which can fight with Razer, Logitech or Corsair software and use CPU.

Good to know: Not in the presets. Use it if your RGB software keeps losing control of your lights.

Turns off driver-level audio "enhancements" on every playback device. They add processing latency for no gain in-game. Your sound blips for a second while the audio service restarts.

Disables the NVIDIA telemetry container service that phones home driver/usage data in the background. Newer drivers don’t ship it at all. Winsmate tells you if yours doesn’t.

Forces your NVIDIA GPU to hold higher clock speeds instead of dropping into a power-saving state between frames, for steadier FPS. Most noticeable on laptops.

Turns off Virtualization-Based Security and Hyper-V, which can recover 5–15% FPS on some CPUs. Not recommended if you run virtual machines.

Turns off Meltdown/Spectre-class CPU speculative-execution mitigations using Microsoft’s documented override keys. Recovers CPU performance at the cost of those protections.

Turns off Memory Integrity, the part of Windows’ virtualization security that checks drivers. Microsoft says it can cost performance in some games. A lighter option than turning off all of VBS.

Good to know: Some anti-cheats and work PCs require Memory Integrity. If a game asks for it, restore this.

Keeps every CPU core fully awake instead of letting it nap between tasks, removing the tiny wake-up delay. Your CPU runs hotter and uses more power all the time.

Good to know: Desktops only (never on laptops). Watch your temperatures.