As a gamer, you would be able to relate better to FPS or Frames Per Second, a term commonly used to describe the quality of gaming. But what does FPS signify in the first place?
Well, it is often considered the by-product of a powerful or standard internal setup pertaining to a laptop, which in turn is attributed to the frames that a concerning game can be played at, as viewed on the screen! Confused?
Well, a simpler way of looking at it is to understand how any AAA title is played on a laptop and how the visuals determine the playing experience. If the laptop has an impactful and resourceful graphics card stacked within, the games run smoothly, which means at higher fps. The opposite applies if the laptop doesn’t even have a dedicated graphics card in play, which automatically pushes the FPS levels down, thereby degrading the gaming experience.
Therefore, it can be safely inferred that a higher FPS count is synonymous with a better gaming experience. But then, if you are into the technical aspects of Frames Per Second, you need to know a few vital aspects before looking to improve the count in the first place.
How does FPS determine and influence the Gaming Experience?
Higher FPS means that the game flows smoothly on the screen, without jitters and lags. Without frame drops, you can keep an eye on every aspect of the gameplay and need not let go of the vigilance. Plus, a higher FPS count is a must for first-person shooters, MOBA, and MMORPG games, which hardly remain playable if the screen starts dropping frames and getting stuck during the performative phases.
Coming to the specifics, anything north of the 60-fps mark is good for most games. But then, there are quite a few factors that determine the fps count that a particular game can assume. These factors can be the quality of the GPU, type of storage, RAM allotment, screen configuration, and even the game configurations.
Also, despite the inherent limitation of a game, in accordance with a given processing setup, you can amplify the frame rate significantly by making a few adjustments and tweaks along the way.
How to Increase FPS on a Laptop in Windows 10?
Firstly, I shall not be game-specific while talking about the ways to increase the FPS. Also, while following the upcoming strategies you must ensure that the laptop FPS for a particular game is at least in sync with the FPS level supported by the laptop screen.
- Update GPU Drivers
Well, this strategy works only if the Windows laptop has a dedicated GPU in the first place. If the condition is met, you should take a closer look at the graphics card drivers and update them at the earliest. Newer games require updated GPU drivers and once you achieve the same, you can see incremental growth in the number of frames per second for any given title.
If you are not aware of how the drivers can be updated, you must first determine the type of graphics card involved by checking the specifications or by heading over to the device manager for checking details and info relevant to the display adapter. Once determined, you can simply hit update and install the new-gen drivers from the company website.
- Overclock the GPU
While overlocking seems like a gaming commonplace to professional gamers, enthusiasts might take some time to wrap their heads around this concept. However, I shall try my best to explain it most blandly. Overclocking a GPU aims at speeding it up in short bursts.
When done correctly, overclocking the GPU improves the existing clock speed of the same by at least 10 percent, which then takes the frame rates higher. However, you need to keep a word of caution in mind while proceeding with overclocking. Despite keeping the performative perks in mind, you should not regularly overclock the GPU as the process itself is quite demanding and exaggerated usage can have a negative impact on the hardware.
Coming to the effects, an overclocked GPU is good enough to push the FPS higher for specific games. However, overclocking also increases the heat levels, which in excess can lead to some throttling effects.
- Switch Over to an SSD
If your graphics card is up to date, you must shift your gaze elsewhere. You must focus on upgrading the HDD to a solid-state drive, provided your Windows laptop is capable of accommodating one. But then, you should know that upgrading to the SSD doesn’t come with direct FPS amplification benefits. Instead, it first minimizes the loading time for some of the more demanding games and eventually ensures that the games run swimmingly enough.
You should see if the laptop has M.2 slots for adding or replacing the HDD with an SSD. If pricing is an issue, you can start small by opting for a 256GB SSD to work in tandem with the existing hard drive.
- Decrease Overall Resolution
Honestly speaking, this strategy has the most immediate benefits when it comes to improving the frame rates. Almost every game performs better at lower resolutions i.e., at 1080p, or even 720p for that matter, provided you have a mid-range graphics card in play. Unless you have something as impactful and powerful as the RTX 20-series or RTX 30-series GPU, it is better to lower the screen resolution to achieve higher frame rates, almost immediately.
For 2K, QHD, or even 4K screens, it is better to lower the resolution of 1080p while playing demanding games. While this might pixelate the game to a certain extent, more so if you choose to go the 720p way, it is quite a basic compromise to make for experiencing smooth and no-lag gameplay.
- Tweak in-game Settings
Top-notch visuals and frame rates are inversely related, especially if you are deep into professional gaming. If none of the mentioned strategies works, you can simply head over to the in-game platform and make significant changes to the visual quality, i.e., to turn off shadows, drawing distance, and other elements, to improve the frame rates.
Also, if you can reach out to the Settings tab, you must select ‘Smoothing’ and try to increase the same for lower pixelation and eventually getting an FPS boost.
Honorary Mention
If your laptop has an HDMI or even a Thunderbolt port, you can always connect it with an external display with a higher screen refresh rate. In most cases, the gaming FPS count is restricted by the limitations of the screen itself. However, if you can get hold of an external display, you can very well make it scale newer FPS heights.
But that’s not even the fun part. If the laptop has additional ports, you can even consider pairing an external GPU to ensure that the external screen gets to experience the best processing performance.
Wrap-Up
While these are some of the best strategies to improve the overall FPS count for amplifying the gaming experience, you must keep an eye on the screen refresh rate as well. If the screen refresh rate is lower than the achievable FPS, you might start experiencing trailing and frame drops as the laptop hardware becomes incapable of keeping up with higher frames. This is the point where the resolution needs to be increased for keeping the FPS count lower than that of the screen.
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