“Low frame rate” is one of the most common issues you may encounter. Sometimes, it just suddenly appears without a sign, worsening the gaming experience. If FPS drops in all games, what can you do to improve this terrible situation? Be easy, here are the fixes from NewsPivot.
FPS, also called frame rate, is the abbreviation of Frames Per Second, and it is an essential part of a good gaming experience. Game lovers like you may tend to buy stronger graphics cards to ensure FPS is at a high level. You may also try a lot of ways to avoid “low frame rate in games”, so that you can play games smoothly.
If the frame drops in games, you will experience game stuttering issues, and your game character’s actions will take a long time to execute after you press the mouse or keyboard, which is especially fatal in a shooting game. The game stuttering with FPS drops is noticeable in multiplayer games.
Normally, the “frame drops” problem occurs in one of your installed games. But in some cases, you may experience massive FPS drops in all games, just like the following reports from a game player:
My computer is experiencing FPS drops in literally every game from Valorant/CS2 to Roblox and I need help to resolve this, does anyone have any ideas?reddit.com
Also read: How to Fix Valorant Low Client FPS on Windows 10/11?
Reasons Why Frame Drops
FPS drops in all games could be caused by many factors, and there are some common reasons we have summarized from the forums and communities:
- Hardware limitations: It’s one of the most common reasons for low FPS. If your GPU or CPU is struggling to render graphics or process game logic, you may get lower FPS in the game.
- Overheating: If you have played a game (especially a high-load game) for a long time, your computer may overheat and then limit the game’s performance.
- Driver issues: Outdated or corrupt graphics drivers can lead to FPS drops in all games. You need to ensure that your GPU drivers are up to date.
- Insufficient RAM or ROM: Some games may have high requirements for RAM, ROM, or both. If your system has no sufficient RAM and ROM to handle the game’s requirements, it can result in FPS drops as the system struggles to load assets and data.
- High graphic settings: Running games at a high resolution or with maxed-out graphics settings can put a strain on your hardware, which will cause game stuttering.
- Network issues: For some online games, a good network connection is required. You can check your internet connection and make sure that you are not experiencing any network-related issues.
- Software conflicts: It is not an unusual problem. In some cases, conflicts between game settings and other software on your PC can lead to FPS drops.
- Game-specific issues: Some games may have optimization issues that cause low FPS. You can check forums and community pages for any known performance issues and possible solutions.
How to Improve Low Frame Rate in Games?
As we have mentioned above, FPS drops in all games can be resulted from multiple factors. But how to solve this issue? The following methods are the answer.
Restart the System
No matter what’s happening to your PC, try to restart it, and some terrible things may be gone. For example:
Some software and processes conflict with games, and sometimes you can’t turn them off completely. At this point, you may just restart your PC, and these annoying things will be gone. You will be able to enjoy your games.
Change Game Graphic Settings
Not all graphics settings found in modern games will work for every configuration. Sometimes you may max all the options to see the most wonderful scenes of games, and then you find the games at a low frame rate. The games have configuration requirements, and each display effect also corresponds to different configuration requirements. It may cause low FPS if you customize some game options in higher levels than your computer is currently configured.
Anti-aliasing, Shadow Quality and VSync are considerably affecting your GPU’s capabilities, and you may turn them off. Other settings like Texture Quality, Shader Quality, Particles Quality, etc. are other kinds of options that can be set on lower levels to resist the game frame drops. Try different variations until you find the one that optimizes performance and quality while keeping acceptable FPS levels.
Sometimes lower display performance brings a better gaming experience.
Exactly how to set up graphics will vary from game to game, but these options can usually be found in the game’s settings or options menu.
Update Your Graphics Driver
If you find FPS drops in all games, it’s probably that your graphics driver is outdated. Follow the steps below to update your graphics driver.
Step 1: Right-click on the Start button or press Win + X, then find Device Manager and open it.
Step 2: Expand Display adapters and right-click on your GPU, then select Update driver.

Step 3: Restart your computer to see if the issue is fixed.
Turn off the Fullscreen Optimizations
The fullscreen optimizations feature is built into Windows 10 and is enabled by default. It helps to optimize the performance of games and apps when they are running in fullscreen mode. However, it has been proven that this feature could lead to FPS drops during gameplay.
To persist massive FPS drops in games, you may try to disable it. Here is the tutorial:
- Navigate to the installation path of your game, right-click the executable file, and choose Properties.
- Switch to the Compatibility tab and check the Disable fullscreen optimizations option.
- Click Apply and OK to save the changed settings.

Close Unnecessary Background Programs
If your RAM is in a high-load scenario, you may encounter “FPS drops in all games”. Too many apps run in the background processes when you play a game, the game performance will be limited because there are not enough resources to call.
To deal with it, you can press Win + X and find Task Manager, then open it. Or, you can right-click on the taskbar to find Task Manager and open it.
Choose the apps or other processes in Processes you don’t want to use, then right-click each one of them, and select End task.
Now your RAM should be greatly released, try to feel your games again.
Switch the Game to Fullscreen
Games run in fullscreen can always get better performance than windowed mode. When an application runs in fullscreen mode, it runs in “Exclusive mode”. That means it has full and direct control over the screen output. But when it runs in windowed modes, it needs to send its output to the Window Manager (Explorer) which then manages where on the screen that output is drawn.
You may just press Alt + Enter to change the game from windowed mode to fullscreen. Or, you can adjust the full screen and resolution ratio in the game.
Enable the Game Mode
There is a special mode for Windows 10/11 – Game Mode. It’s a practical function to help you improve your gaming experience. Here are the steps to turn it on:
Step 1: Press Win + I to open Settings, and then navigate to Gaming.
Step 2: Go to the Game Mode tab, then switch the button under Game Mode to On.

Choose High-Performance Power Settings
There are different power settings for Windows, and we often use the balance mode in daily usage. However, if you want to get rid of “FPS drops in all games”, you may use high-performance power settings. Here we go:
- Press Win + X and select Power Options.
- Click on Additional power settings.
- Choose Create a power plan.
- Select High performance and type the Plan name then click Next.
- Choose the desired settings and then select Create.
Scan for Malware or Virus
Besides, malware and viruses may also cause FPS drops in all games. You can perform a deep scan of your system by using antivirus or antimalware. Moreover, if you have no third-party security software, you can use Windows Defender, a built-in security solution.
Step 1: Press Win + I to open Settings.
Step 2: Navigate to Update & Security > Windows Security and click Virus & threat protection.

Step 3: When you get the Windows Security window, click Scan options.

Step 4: Choose the Microsoft Defender Offline scan and click the Scan now button.

This scan will help find and remove malicious software from your computer and require a restart of your computer. The scanning process will take about 15 minutes, please wait patiently.
Check for Your Hard Drive
If “games stuttering” happens without any signs, there may be something wrong with your hard drive. In this case, you need to check the disk health.
- Press Windows + R, type cmd in the Run box.
- Press Ctrl + Shift + Enter to run Command Prompt as administrator.
- Input the chkdsk *: /f command, and press Enter on your keyboard. Replace “*” with the actual drive letter that you want to check.
Then, the CHKDSK tool will scan and fix detected errors in the hard drive.
Upgrade to SSD
If you are using a hard drive disk, upgrading to an SSD could be quite an effective method to improve gaming performance and solve the low FPS problem. A good gaming SSD has a faster read speed, which has a more obvious advantage in some high-load scenarios.
Bottom Line
After reading this article, You already know how to solve “FPS drops in all games” on most occasions. Now, have a try, and see if the FPS issue is improved.