Game Mode, a feature introduced to Windows 10 way back with the Creators Update of 2017, was supposed to make gaming a much better experience – but it seems the opposite is true.
Many PC gamers have noticed that with Game Mode enabled, which should usually prioritise games and minimise background tasks to improve performance, many games actually encountered poorer frame rates, stutters and freezes.
As the Guru3D website explains, there have been reports that games such as Call of Duty: Warzone and League of Legends have been encountering issues with Game Mode, while both AMD and Nvidia graphics cards can also be affected.
The website singles out AMD’s Radeon RX 5700 XT, RX 570, RX 480 and R9 29 and Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 980 and the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti as being particularly prone to issues when Game Mode is on.
It’s certainly frustrating, especially as Game Mode is supposed to improve game performance, but thankfully it can be easily fixed by disabling Game Mode.
How to turn off Game Mode in Windows 10
The process of turning off Game Mode in Windows 10 is pretty straightforward. To do this, open up the Start Menu and click the icon of a cog. This opens up the Settings app.
In the app, click ‘Gaming’ then on the left-hand menu, select ‘Game Mode’ then click the toggle to turn it off.
You should now see improved gaming performance. Hopefully Microsoft is aware of this issue and will fix it in a future update to Windows 10. We’ve contacted Microsoft for comment.