How to Disable Fullscreen Optimizations on Windows 10/11

Sadly, Fullscreen Optimizations can sometimes cause FPS drops.

2 min. read

Updated onOctober 4, 2023

updated onOctober 4, 2023

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Key notes

Microsoft wantsWindows 10users to enjoy smooth gaming experiences on their computers.

For this reason, the company has optimized the operating system so as to find the perfect balance between users’ hardware configurations and the system requirements of the games they’re running.

There’s a Windows gaming-oriented feature that’s still pretty controversial among users.

It’s calledFullscreen Optimizationsand its role is to boost gaming performance and deliver a borderless full screen for you to enjoy your games.

Unfortunately, manyreportssuggest that, paradoxically, this feature triggers FPS drops.

Windows 10Full-screen Optimizations: ON or OFF?Googling around and reading other posts on this sub, it seems like this is a very controversial subject. […] I’ve seen posts saying to most definitely disable it ongameslike Overwatch and CS:GO.On the other hand, I’ve seen posts from MSFT engineers and comments expressing how great thefeatureis and how it’s actually supposed to improveperformanceslightly.

Should you use full-screen optimizations?

Judging by user reports, it seems that the best solution is to simply disable full-screen optimizations.

Many gamers described this option as a strange hybrid Fullscreen Exclusive/Borderless display mode that’s not as great as Microsoft says.

Moreover, certain games are particularly affected bylow FPS issueswhen players enable full-screen optimizations.

If you often play Overwatch, CS:GO, Sundered, and other CPU-demanding games, turning this feature off may actually improve your gaming experience.

In fact, there a quite a fewWindows services that you can disablein order to boost your gaming sessions.

Needless to say that alow FPS on a game startupwill severely hinder your experience, so don’t procrastinate and address such issues on the spot. Disabling fullscreen optimizations in Windows is a good place to start.

How to disable fullscreen optimizations Windows 10

You can quickly disable fullscreen optimization for games by changing theirCompatibilitysettings.

This is a manual process which you must do separately for every game where you experience FPS drops, but it only takes a minute.

1.Right-click on the .exe file of your game.

2.Go toProperties.

Go to theCompatibilityoption.

4.Check theDisable fullscreen optimizationsbox.

5.HitApplyand thenOKto save the changes.

For more information on how to fix frequent Windows 10 and 11 gaming issues, check out the troubleshooting guides listed below.

Finally, you can also uncheck the optionShow game bar when I play full screen games Microsoft has verifiedfrom the gaming section of the Settings app.

This is bound to produce a positive effect on your gameplay as well. That’s pretty much it. Easy, right?

If you have additional questions or maybe some suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments section below and we’ll surely check them out.

How to Disable Fullscreen Optimizations on Windows 10/11#

Should you use full-screen optimizations?#

How to disable fullscreen optimizations Windows 10#

How to Disable Fullscreen Optimizations on Windows 10/11

Should you use full-screen optimizations?

How to disable fullscreen optimizations Windows 10