Adjusting the visual effects in Windows 10 allows you to control the trade-off between everything looking pretty and the best performance your computer can deliver.

This also depends on your computer’s hardware specifications and how much performance improvement you can experience from certain adjustments.

Table Of Contents

Adjust Visual Effects in Windows 10 for Best Performance
Related questions
- How do I change Aero settings in Windows 10?
- Does disabling Windows Aero improve performance?
Conclusion

The adjustments are easy and require no specialized knowledge to get optimal settings for your requirements.

Adjust Visual Effects in Windows 10 for Best Performance

1. Open advanced system settings

Right-click on the ‘This PC’ icon on the desktop. Left-click on ‘Properties’ and left-click on ‘Advanced system settings’.

If, for some reason, your ‘This PC’ icon is missing from your desktop, simply hold down the Windows key on your keyboard tap the ‘R’ key, and release the Windows key.

Then type in ‘sysdm.cpl’ (without the quotes) and click on the ‘OK’ button.

2. Open performance settings

Click on the ‘Advanced’ tab then click on the ‘Settings’ button in the Performance box. This will open the visual effects options window.

3. Configure the visual effects options

If your computer is desperate for a speed increase, select the radio button called ‘Adjust for best performance’.

In most situations, you must either adjust for maximum performance or let Windows choose what’s best.

Tweaking settings on a granular scale (selecting individual checkbox options) will probably not bring about any real advantage. Some specific adjustments improve things slightly more than others, but a global adjustment will be best in 99% of situations.

The only setting I recommend you try once you have enabled the best option is ‘Enable Peek’. Try out the performance with it enabled and disabled.

How do I change Aero settings in Windows 10?

Follow the procedure above to get to the visual effects options. Then uncheck ‘Enable Peek’ or select the ‘Adjust for best performance’ radio button.

Does disabling Windows Aero improve performance?

Most likely not. Turning off Aero returns the UI processing back to the CPU instead of the GPU (disabling acceleration), so depending on your hardware, you may not experience any gains.

Conclusion

Adjusting the visual effects is just one of the many ways to speed up Windows 10. It will add a boost, especially in the area of graphics performance.

So, if you have an outdated graphics card or integrated graphics processor, you will notice a far more snappy response when updating your display.

If you are encountering an issue where your display seems washed out, I recommend you go and read my other post about HDR causing a washed-out effect in Windows.