How to Optimize a Gaming PC in 2026: Definitive FPS Boost

Knowing how to optimize a gaming pc means understanding what actually slows one down. Most users run outdated gpu drivers, leave background tasks consuming valuable system resources, and run power settings that actively throttle their hardware. You don’t need exotic tweaks or third-party software. You need to fix the right settings in the right order to properly optimize pc for gaming, and this guide walks through every one of them.

The result of a properly optimized gaming pc is better gaming performance across the board: higher average fps, lower input lag, smoother gameplay in demanding games, and a more consistent gaming experience across all your favorite titles. Taking the time to fine-tune your setup ensures you enjoy smooth pc gaming at optimal performance every single time you boot up.

Step 1: Update Windows Before Anything Else

Before touching any gpu settings or in game settings, update your Windows PC completely. This matters because Windows updates include driver compatibility fixes, scheduler improvements for modern games, and network performance patches that directly affect your gaming experience.

How to update Windows 11:

Open Settings (Win + I)
Click Windows Update
Click Check for updates and install everything
Restart your system
Repeat until the update page shows “You’re up to date”

Windows 11 in particular has seen meaningful gaming improvements through updates — including better thread scheduling for hybrid-core CPUs like Intel’s Core Ultra lineup, improved Game Mode behavior, and latency fixes to reduce lag during intense online matches. Running an outdated Windows build can leave these improvements on the table entirely.

Step 2: Update Your GPU Drivers

Your graphics card is the single most important component for gaming performance, and gpu drivers are how it communicates with your games. Outdated drivers cause lower frame rates, stuttering, and compatibility failures in most modern games. Updating them is the single highest-impact software change you can make on any gaming rig.

For NVIDIA GPUs:

Open GeForce Experience or go to nvidia.com/drivers
Search your card model and download the latest Game Ready Driver
Install using Express Installation
Restart your PC

For AMD GPUs:

Open AMD Radeon Software or go to amd.com/support
Click Check for Updates
Install the latest Adrenalin driver
Restart your PC

Always update gpu drivers directly from NVIDIA or AMD’s official sources. Third-party driver tools are unreliable and occasionally install incorrect versions. After updating, open the nvidia control panel or amd radeon software and confirm the version number matches the latest release to ensure your underlying graphics card settings are running on a stable foundation.

Step 3: Enable Game Mode in Windows

Game Mode is a Windows feature that improves gaming performance by reallocating system resources. When you enable game mode, Windows reduces the priority of background tasks and dedicates more CPU and GPU bandwidth to the active game.

How to enable game mode:

Press Win + I to open Settings
Click Gaming
Click Game Mode
Toggle Game Mode to On

For most users, Game Mode provides modest but real gains in frame consistency and reduces the likelihood of frame drops caused by background Windows processes. It is most impactful on lower-end systems where system resources are genuinely constrained, but it’s worth enabling on any gaming setup to guarantee better performance when running intensive software.

Important: On some high-end systems with lots of RAM, Game Mode occasionally causes issues with certain games. If you notice stuttering after enabling it, toggle it off for that session.

Step 4: Set Your Power Plan to High Performance or Ultimate Performance

Windows ships with a default “Balanced” power plan that throttles CPU and GPU performance to save energy. For gaming, this is exactly what you don’t want. Switching to a high-performance power plan or the hidden ultimate performance plan ensures your hardware runs at maximum capability during gaming sessions.

To enable High Performance:

Press Win + R, type control panel, press Enter
Go to Hardware and Sound → Power Options
Select High Performance

To unlock Ultimate Performance (hidden by default in Windows 11):

Press Win + X, open Windows PowerShell (Admin)
Type: powercfg -duplicate scheme e9a42b02-d5df-448d-aa00-03f14749eb61
Press Enter
Return to Power Options — Ultimate Performance will now appear
Select it

Ultimate performance removes any remaining power-saving micro-throttles. The difference is most noticeable in competitive games where consistent CPU response time matters — lower and more consistent frame times directly translate to a smoother gaming experience and reduced input lag.

Step 5: Disable Startup Programs and Background Tasks

Every unnecessary program running in the background consumes valuable system resources — CPU cycles, RAM, and sometimes GPU resources — that your games need. Heavy background tasks are one of the most common reasons a gaming pc feels slower than it should.

How to disable startup programs:

Press Ctrl + Shift + Esc to open task manager
Click the Startup tab at the top
Right-click any program you don’t need at boot and select Disable
Common candidates: Discord auto-start, browser update helpers, cloud sync apps, and game launchers you don’t use

During gaming sessions:

Open task manager again (Ctrl + Shift + Esc)
Check the Processes tab for anything consuming CPU or RAM you don’t need
Close browsers, streaming apps, and any background downloads

For online gaming, also close any VPN software when not needed — VPNs add routing overhead that increases latency and hurts network performance. The goal is to leave as much RAM and CPU bandwidth as possible free for the game’s own processing needs.

Step 6: Optimize NVIDIA Control Panel Settings

For Nvidia gpus, the Nvidia control panel is where you make the most impactful adjustments to your graphics card settings. These settings override in-game defaults and apply to all supported games unless you create per-game profiles.

How to open NVIDIA Control Panel:

Right-click your desktop
Click NVIDIA Control Panel
Or open control panel → Appearance and Personalization → NVIDIA Control Panel

Navigate to Manage 3D Settings → Global Settings and configure the following:

Power Management Mode → Prefer Maximum Performance

By default, NVIDIA cards can drop their clock speeds when a game doesn’t push them hard. Switching to “Prefer Maximum Performance” keeps the gpu performance consistent at all times. This eliminates frame time spikes at the start of GPU-heavy scenes and reduces input lag in less demanding areas of a map.

Low Latency Mode → On or Ultra

Low Latency Mode controls the render queue — specifically, how many frames the GPU prepares in advance before sending them to your display. Setting this to Ultra reduces input lag by ensuring the GPU renders frames as close to “now” as possible rather than buffering ahead. This is one of the most direct ways to reduce input lag on Nvidia gpus.

Preferred Refresh Rate → Highest Available

This ensures Windows always forces your monitor’s maximum hardware refresh rate in full screen games, overriding any accidental in-game caps or legacy software limits. (Note: Legacy settings like “Maximum Pre-Rendered Frames” are now natively handled by setting Low Latency Mode to Ultra).

Texture Filtering Quality → High Performance

This setting controls the filtering algorithm used for textures at angles. “High Performance” uses the fastest bilinear filtering method. Most games manage texture quality on their own through in game settings, so setting this to High Performance in the nvidia control panel hands control back to the game without adding driver-level overhead.

Shader Cache Size → Driver Default

Leave this at driver default unless you have specific reason to change it. The shader cache stores pre-compiled shaders to reduce stuttering in supported games. Increasing the cache size can help on large NVMe SSDs, but the default is appropriate for most gaming PCs.

For competitive gaming, also enable NVIDIA Reflex in supported games:

Nvidia Reflex is NVIDIA’s latency-reduction system that synchronizes the CPU and GPU render pipeline. In supported games — Fortnite, Valorant, Apex Legends, Warzone, and many others — enabling Nvidia reflex in the in-game settings can reduce system latency by 30–50% with minimal FPS cost. It is one of the single most impactful settings for online gaming responsiveness.

Step 7: Optimize AMD Radeon Software Settings

For amd gpus, amd radeon software is the equivalent of the nvidia control panel. Open it by right clicking your desktop and selecting AMD Radeon Software, or search for it in the Start menu.

Navigate to Gaming → Global Graphics and configure:

Radeon Anti-Lag → Enabled

Radeon Anti Lag is AMD’s direct equivalent to NVIDIA Reflex’s input lag reduction. When you enable Radeon Anti Lag, it controls the pacing of CPU work to reduce the gap between when you click your mouse and when the result appears on screen. In fast-paced competitive games, enabling Radeon Anti Lag can make aiming feel noticeably more responsive. This is the highest-value single setting in amd radeon software for online gaming.

Radeon Anti-Lag+ (where available):

In supported titles, Anti-Lag+ integrates directly with game logic at the engine level for even greater latency reduction. Check AMD’s supported games list to see if your titles qualify.

Radeon Boost → Situational

Radeon Boost dynamically lowers render resolution during fast camera movement and scales it back up when the scene is static. This boosts fps in fast movement scenarios at a small image quality cost. Useful for competitive players where raw framerate matters more than visual sharpness.

Image Sharpening → 80% Sharpness

If you use any form of upscaling (FSR), enable Image Sharpening at around 80% to restore detail lost in the upscaling process. For native resolution gaming, leave this off.

GPU settings for performance:

Set Graphics Profile to eSports or Standard depending on your use case. eSports prioritizes maximum performance at reduced visual quality — appropriate for competitive titles. Standard gives a balanced approach for most modern games.

Step 8: Enable Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling

Hardware accelerated GPU scheduling (HAGS) is a Windows 11 feature that changes how the graphics processing unit manages its own video memory. Without HAGS, the CPU manages the GPU’s memory — with HAGS enabled, the GPU takes control of this process directly, which reduces latency and CPU overhead.

How to enable HAGS:

Open Settings (Win + I)
Go to System → Display
Scroll down to Graphics
Click Default graphics settings
Toggle Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling to On
Restart your PC

HAGS works best on modern systems with up-to-date nvidia gpus or amd gpus and a current GPU driver. It helps the GPU handle game data scheduling more efficiently while the processor comfortably handles game logic, which translates to more consistent frame delivery in demanding games. It is supported on most GPUs from the last 4–5 years.

Note: On some older systems or specific game/driver combinations, HAGS can occasionally increase stuttering. If you notice issues after enabling it, toggle it off and retest.

Step 9: Optimize In-Game Settings

No amount of driver or Windows tuning compensates for unoptimized in game settings. The game settings panel is where most users leave significant performance on the table — either by running settings higher than their GPU can handle, or by running at the wrong resolution scale.

Settings with the highest performance cost (lower these first in demanding games):

Shadows:

The single most GPU-expensive setting in most modern games. Dropping shadows from Ultra to Medium can boost fps by 10–20% in many titles with minimal visual impact during fast gameplay.

Ray Tracing:

Only enable ray tracing if your GPU can maintain your target framerate with it on. For GPUs below the RTX 5070 tier, ray tracing in demanding games often destroys consistent gaming performance. Use DLSS or FSR Super Resolution to compensate.

Volumetric Effects / Fog:

High-cost settings that consume GPU fill-rate performance. Medium settings are visually comparable in most games.

Anti-Aliasing Mode:

If your GPU supports DLSS (Nvidia gpus) or FSR (amd gpus), use those instead of TAA or MSAA. DLSS Quality and FSR Quality modes produce sharper images than most traditional anti aliasing mode options at higher performance.

Settings to adjust carefully:

Texture Quality:

In most games, texture quality primarily loads VRAM rather than GPU compute. If your GPU has 8GB+ of VRAM, running textures at High or Ultra typically doesn’t hurt performance. If you’re VRAM-limited (especially on RTX 5060 with 8GB), dropping textures from Ultra to High can reduce stuttering at 1440p.

Resolution Scale / Render Scale:

Dropping from 100% to 85% render scale while keeping native display output can significantly improve GPU performance. With DLSS or FSR active, this is handled automatically. Without upscaling, 85–90% render scale is a reasonable performance-quality trade.

Frame Rate Limit:

Always set a frame rate cap. Uncapped framerates cause the GPU to render frames that exceed your monitor’s refresh rate, consuming thermal headroom without producing usable output. Cap to your monitor’s refresh rate (144 FPS for 144Hz, 240 FPS for 240Hz) or slightly above if you want VRR (variable refresh rate) to have overhead.

Step 10: Match Your Monitor’s Refresh Rate and Enable VRR

Running a 144Hz monitor at its correct refresh rate sounds obvious, but a surprising number of gaming setups run at 60Hz due to an incorrect Windows display setting. Check this before anything else when diagnosing poor gaming performance.

How to set the correct refresh rate:

Right-click your desktop → Display Settings
Scroll to Advanced Display
Under “Choose a refresh rate,” select your monitor’s maximum supported rate

Enable VRR (Variable Refresh Rate):

If your monitor supports G-Sync (nvidia gpus) or FreeSync (amd gpus), enable it in both the monitor’s OSD menu and in the nvidia control panel or amd radeon software. VRR synchronizes the GPU’s frame delivery to the monitor’s refresh timing, eliminating screen tearing and reducing the perception of inconsistent frame delivery without the input lag penalty of traditional V-Sync.

G-Sync setup (NVIDIA):

Open nvidia control panel
Go to Display → Set Up G-SYNC
Check “Enable G-SYNC” and choose your monitor
Enable G-SYNC for windowed and Fullscreen mode

For competitive gaming with high and consistent frame rates well above your monitor’s refresh rate, VRR is less important — at 400 FPS on a 144Hz monitor, your GPU is producing so many frames that tearing is less visible. For games where framerate fluctuates significantly (open world games, demanding titles), VRR makes all the difference.

Step 11: Optimize Your Network for Online Gaming

Even a powerful gaming rig can have a poor online gaming experience if the network setup is wrong. Network performance directly affects input lag, ping consistency, and packet loss in every online game — and these are the performance factors that most affect your competitive edge in fast-paced online gaming.

Wired connection is non-negotiable for serious online gaming:

A wired connection via Ethernet cable eliminates the wireless interference, signal competition, and variable latency that even a good Wi-Fi setup introduces. In competitive online gaming, the difference between 5ms wired latency and 12–25ms wireless latency is enough to affect reaction-based scenarios. If your gaming setup can support a cable run to your router, use it.

If a wired connection genuinely isn’t possible, use Wi-Fi 6E or Wi-Fi 7 on the 6GHz band, which has far less interference than 2.4GHz or 5GHz networks in most home environments.

Router settings that improve gaming:

Enable Quality of Service (QoS) and prioritize your gaming pc’s traffic — this ensures your game packets aren’t queued behind large file downloads or streaming
Update your router firmware — firmware updates include network performance optimizations and bug fixes
Assign a static IP to your gaming pc for more stable routing
Use DNS servers with low response times — Cloudflare (1.1.1.1) and Google (8.8.8.8) both offer lower DNS resolution times than most ISP-provided defaults

These steps can significantly improve performance in online gaming by reducing the inconsistency in your connection, even when your raw internet speed is already fast.

Step 12: Optimize Storage for Faster Load Times

Storage does not directly affect FPS during gameplay, but it significantly affects game loading times, shader compilation stutters, and open-world streaming performance in games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Microsoft Flight Simulator.

Best practices:

Keep your OS drive and primary games drive at less than 80% full — storage space depletion slows read/write speeds on both SSDs and HDDs
Install your most-played games on an NVMe SSD rather than a SATA SSD or HDD. NVMe drives deliver 3–7x faster sequential read speeds than SATA SSDs, which reduces shader compilation stutters in modern games
Run Disk Cleanup or Storage Sense monthly to remove temporary files, outdated Windows update caches, and download folder clutter that accumulates over time

PCIe 5.0 NVMe drives (available on AM5 and Intel LGA1851 motherboards) offer sequential reads above 12,000 MB/s — primarily beneficial for content creators and developers. For gaming load times, a quality PCIe 4.0 NVMe drive is more than sufficient.

Step 13: Consider GPU Overclocking (Advanced)

GPU overclocking can squeeze additional gaming performance from your graphics card without any hardware cost. Done correctly, it is stable, permanent, and delivers measurable FPS gains. Done incorrectly, it causes crashes and potentially reduces GPU lifespan.

The correct approach:

Download MSI Afterburner (free, works for both Nvidia gpus and amd gpus)
Increase Core Clock Offset by +50 MHz
Run a stability test using benchmarking tools like 3DMark or Unigine Superposition for 15–20 minutes
If stable, increase by another +25 MHz and test again
If you hit a crash or artifact, reduce by 25 MHz and lock that as your stable overclock
Similarly test Memory Clock increases in +100 MHz increments

A stable GPU overclock of +100–150 MHz core and +200–400 MHz memory typically yields a 3–8% FPS improvement in most games. More than that is possible but requires better cooling and more aggressive testing.

Important: GPU overclocking behavior varies significantly by hardware configurations. The same GPU model from different manufacturers may have different thermal headroom and power limit tolerances. Always monitor temperatures — keep GPU temps below 85°C under load.

Step 14: Calibrate Your Display

Display calibration doesn’t affect FPS directly, but it significantly affects your gaming experience. A poorly calibrated monitor can make dark scenes hard to read, wash out color in detailed environments, and cause eye strain during long sessions.

Basic calibration steps:

Open Windows Settings → System → Display → Advanced Display
Click Display adapter properties → Color Management
Run the Windows Color Calibration wizard (search “Calibrate display color” in Start)
Adjust brightness to the point where a black square is just barely distinguishable from the border in a dark room
Set gamma to the center reference point
Adjust contrast until white detail is visible in bright test images

For competitive gaming, prioritize visibility over aesthetics — slightly higher gamma (darker mid tones) can help distinguish enemies in shadowed areas. For single-player and visual games, a calibrated natural profile gives more accurate color and better visual immersion.

Step 15: Choose and Optimize Your Input Devices

Your input devices — gaming mice, keyboards, and controllers — are the final link between your intent and the game. The right hardware and configuration make all the difference in competitive gaming.

Gaming mice settings:

Set mouse DPI to a range you can use precisely — most competitive players use 400–1600 DPI
Disable mouse acceleration in Windows (Control Panel → Mouse → Pointer Options → uncheck “Enhance pointer precision”)
In-game sensitivity should be set so a full mouse swipe across your pad equals roughly a 180° turn in-game — this gives fine control without excessive movement

Polling rate:

Gaming mice with 1000Hz or 2000Hz polling rates report their position to your gaming pc up to 1000–2000 times per second. At 1000Hz, the mouse latency contribution is just 1ms. Enable maximum polling rate in your mouse software.

Keyboard:

Disable unnecessary keyboard backlighting software that runs as a background task — these applications can consume system resources. Set your keyboard’s repeat rate to maximum in Windows (Control Panel → Keyboard).

What Slows Down a Gaming PC: Root Causes

Understanding the root causes of slow gaming performance helps you prioritize fixes correctly.

Cause	Impact	Fix
Outdated gpu drivers	FPS loss, crashes, poor VRAM management	Update via NVIDIA/AMD official sites
Wrong power plan	CPU throttling, inconsistent clocks	Switch to Ultimate Performance
Background tasks	CPU/RAM waste, frame spikes	Disable startup programs, close launchers
Game Mode disabled	Less GPU/CPU allocation	Enable in Windows Settings
NVIDIA/AMD settings at defaults	No low-latency optimization	Configure per steps above
HAGS disabled	More CPU overhead in GPU scheduling	Enable in Windows Display Settings
Wrong refresh rate	Capped FPS	Set correct rate in Windows
Wi-Fi for online gaming	Higher latency, instability	Switch to wired connection
Full storage drive	Slower load times, shader stutters	Keep drives under 80% capacity
VRR disabled	Screen tearing	Enable G-Sync or Free Sync

When Software Optimization Is No Longer Enough

Optimization delivers real results, but it has a ceiling. If you complete every step in this guide and still struggle with poor gaming performance in most modern games, the problem is hardware — and no software tweak will fix it.

Signs your hardware needs upgrading:

Your graphics card is consistently at 99% utilization in demanding games and FPS is still below 60 at your target settings
Average fps remains under 60 in games released in the last two years even at reduced settings
System RAM is consistently above 90% during gaming, causing stuttering that isn’t present on other machines
Your CPU shows high utilization (above 85%) even with background tasks closed — indicating a CPU bottleneck rather than a GPU one

Optimization first, hardware second. Always complete the steps in this guide before concluding that hardware is the problem — incorrect settings and background processes cause the same symptoms as underpowered hardware and are far cheaper to fix.

If optimization genuinely isn’t enough, the components with the highest gaming performance impact to upgrade are GPU first, then RAM speed/capacity, then CPU if you’re bottlenecked at high framerates.

Gaming PC Optimization Checklist

Use this before every major gaming session or after installing new games:

✅ Windows fully updated
✅ GPU drivers updated (NVIDIA or AMD)
✅ Game Mode enabled
✅ Power plan set to High Performance or Ultimate Performance
✅ Startup programs reviewed and unnecessary ones disabled
✅ Background tasks closed in Task Manager before gaming
✅ NVIDIA Control Panel or AMD Radeon Software configured
✅ Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling enabled
✅ In-game settings tuned per game
✅ Monitor set to correct refresh rate
✅ VRR (G-Sync / Free Sync) enabled
✅ Wired connection active for online gaming
✅ Storage drives under 80% capacity
✅ Benchmarking tools run after changes to confirm improvement

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the single most impactful thing you can do to optimize a gaming PC?

Update your GPU drivers. Outdated drivers cause more gaming performance problems than any other single factor — stuttering, crashes, and frame rate loss all trace back to driver compatibility. After drivers, enabling the High Performance or Ultimate Performance power plan and setting the NVIDIA Control Panel or AMD Radeon Software to prefer maximum performance are the next highest-impact changes.

Does Game Mode actually improve gaming performance?

Yes, modestly. Game Mode tells Windows to reduce the priority of background tasks and allocate more system resources to the active game. On systems with limited RAM or mid-range hardware, the effect is more noticeable. On high-end gaming rigs with abundant resources, the impact is small but still positive — there’s no reason not to enable game mode.

Should I enable Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling?

Yes, on modern systems. HAGS reduces CPU overhead in GPU memory management and can improve frame consistency in demanding games. It’s supported by most graphics’ cards released in the last 4–5 years and works on both Nvidia gpus and amd gpus. Enable it and run your benchmarking tools before and after to confirm it’s helping your specific hardware.

What NVIDIA Control Panel settings reduce input lag the most?

Low Latency Mode set to Ultra, Maximum Pre-Rendered Frames set to 1, and Power Management set to Prefer Maximum Performance are the three highest-impact settings. Combined with Nvidia reflex enabled in supported games, these settings can reduce total system latency by 30–50ms in competitive titles.

Does Radeon Anti Lag work as well as NVIDIA Reflex?

Radeon Anti Lag achieves similar goals — reducing the delay between mouse input and the on-screen response — but works differently. Both are effective, and both are worth enabling for online gaming. In supported titles, Anti-Lag+ (which integrates with game logic at the engine level) is more effective than the standard version.

Is a wired connection really necessary for online gaming?

For competitive online gaming, yes. A wired connection provides lower and more consistent latency than Wi-Fi. The difference between 5ms wired and 15–25ms wireless is meaningful in games where reaction speed and network timing matter. For casual single-player or cooperative games, Wi-Fi is adequate. For competitive ranking play, wire your gaming rig.

How much FPS improvement can I expect from optimization?

Results vary significantly based on how poorly optimized your starting state was. Users with outdated drivers, wrong power plans, and unconfigured GPU settings commonly see 15–30% FPS improvement from a full optimization pass. Users who are already reasonably configured may see 5–10%. In all cases, the consistency and minimum framerate improvements are often more impactful than average FPS gains.

When should I upgrade instead of optimizing?

Optimize first — always. If your GPU is consistently at 99% utilization with all background tasks closed and settings reduced, and average fps is still below your target, you’ve found the hardware ceiling. At that point, the GPU is the first component to upgrade. If your CPU is maxed while your GPU has headroom, consider a CPU upgrade. If RAM usage is consistently near 100%, add memory.

Ready to Game Without Compromise?

If you have systematically worked through every software tweak in this guide and your frame rates are still crawling, your settings aren’t the problem—your hardware has simply hit its physical limit. Modern titles in 2026 demand immense processing power, and sometimes the only real fix is a platform upgrade.

When shopping for a replacement system, your budget and component balancing should dictate your choice. For instance, if you are looking for high frame rates at 1080p or entry-level 1440p gaming without breaking the bank, target a selection of gaming PCs under $1,500 that offer excellent price-to-performance value. If you want to comfortably max out settings at mid-tier resolutions, scaling up to well-balanced gaming PCs between $1,500–$2,000 will give you the necessary hardware headroom for smoother frame delivery.

For enthusiasts trying to eliminate the hardware ceiling entirely, configuring a top-tier system is the definitive path forward. Competitive esports players who need frame consistency at extreme 360Hz+ refresh rates will benefit most from specialized AMD gaming PCs featuring Ryzen 7 9800X3D builds. On the other hand, if you are chasing flawless AAA cinematic ray tracing at native 4K, investing in ultra-enthusiast high-end gaming PCs equipped with RTX 5080 or RTX 5090 graphics cards ensures you can run any game fully uncapped.

Ultimately, your upgrade path comes down to what you are willing to spend to clear your performance bottlenecks. You can evaluate our complete collection of all gaming PCs arranged by budget to find the exact configuration that aligns with your competitive goals.

How to Optimize a Gaming PC in 2026: Every Setting That Actually Matters