how to increase FPS in PC games (2026) — the complete, no-nonsense guide

How do you get more FPS in PC games?

Here's the good news: low frame rate rarely means you need a new graphics card. Most of the FPS you're missing is sitting behind a few free settings. The single biggest lever in 2026 is upscaling — turning on DLSS, FSR, or XeSS boosts FPS by 30-60% with Quality mode often indistinguishable from native. After that: cap your frame rate for smoothness, lower the handful of settings that actually cost FPS (ray tracing, shadows, volumetrics), update your GPU drivers, and check for a [bottleneck](/cpu-or-gpu-bottleneck-how-to-tell-2026). Only when you've done all that — and you're still short — does a hardware upgrade make sense. This is the full playbook, in order of effort-to-payoff.

Start with the free levers (in this order)

Work top-down and stop when you're happy. 1) Upscaling first. In any modern game, enable DLSS (NVIDIA), FSR (AMD/any GPU), or XeSS (Intel) on Quality mode — it renders the game at a lower internal resolution and AI-upscales it, buying 30-60% more FPS for a visual difference most people can't spot. This is the highest-value single toggle in PC gaming. 2) Lower the expensive settings. A few settings eat most of your frame budget — ray tracing costs 30-50%, and dropping shadows from Ultra to High saves 10-15% with almost no visible change. Meanwhile textures are nearly free on FPS (they only use VRAM), so keep them high. 3) Update drivers + Resizable BAR. A fresh GPU driver and enabling Resizable BAR in your BIOS are free, five-minute gains. 4) Close background apps — browsers and overlays quietly steal CPU and RAM. Do these four and most people gain a huge chunk of FPS without spending a cent.

Then diagnose — is it FPS, stutter, or a bottleneck?

Once the easy wins are in, get specific about what's actually wrong, because 'my game runs bad' has three different fixes. If your average FPS is just low, the settings and upscaling steps above are your main tools. If the game hitches and stutters even at a high average frame rate, that's a different problem — usually shader compilation or frame pacing, and no amount of settings-lowering fixes it (you fix stutter its own way). And if your [GPU isn't even being fully used](/cpu-or-gpu-bottleneck-how-to-tell-2026) — sitting at 60-70% while frames stay low — you have a CPU bottleneck, and the fix is your processor or RAM, not your graphics settings. The way to tell is a quick overlay: MSI Afterburner with RivaTuner (or HWiNFO) shows your CPU and GPU usage live while you play. Five minutes of watching those two numbers tells you exactly which of the three problems you have — and points you at the right fix instead of guessing. Diagnosing before spending is the whole game.

When hardware really is the answer

Sometimes the honest answer is an upgrade — but you'll know which part to upgrade because you diagnosed first. If you're [GPU-bound](/cpu-or-gpu-bottleneck-how-to-tell-2026) (GPU pinned at 100%) at settings you don't want to lower further, a better graphics card is the fix — see our picks for 4K, 1440p, and budget builds. If you're CPU-bound (GPU underused, CPU maxed), it's a CPU or RAM upgrade instead. And if you're not sure whether to spend at all, read our honest breakdown of upgrading your GPU vs just tweaking settings — for a lot of people, the free levers close the gap entirely. The rule that saves the most money: free tweaks, then diagnose, then targeted upgrade — in that order, never the reverse.

The order that saves money: upscaling and settings first, diagnose second, upgrade last. Fix stutter its own way, find your bottleneck, learn which settings cost FPS, and only then weigh a GPU upgrade. Sources: Switchblade Gaming, BenchMyFPS.