Adamx Tweaking Utility Guide

Setup walkthrough and a deep-dive on what every tweak does.

Getting started

Before you start

  • For best results, start from a clean Windows install before using the Adamx Tweaking Utility — you can follow this guide to reinstall Windows.
  • The Adamx Tweaking Utility is built to be all you need, so we don't recommend running a custom Windows image or other tweaking tools alongside it.
  • Majority of the tweaks only take effect after a system reboot so make sure to restart your computer after applying.
  • With the Profiles feature, you can save your current setup before experimenting so you can roll back with one click.
On a laptop? Avoid the power-related tweaks. Disabling power-saving features — the Power tab, plus the power-saving rows on the NVIDIA, Radeon, and BIOS tabs — is meant for desktops. On a laptop it can make throttling worse once your temps climb, cause instability, and hurt battery life. Leave the power savings on. (You should be gaming plugged in anyway, never on battery.)

Windows Updates can revert some tweaks

Some settings have been observed to be reverted by a Windows Feature Update:

  • Disable Game DVR & Game Bar
  • Remove Menu Show Delay
  • Disable Handwriting & Ink Collection
  • Disable Contact Harvesting
  • Disable SysMain
  • Services Manager
  • Some toggles in the Appearance tab

This list is not exhaustive, and different updates may touch different settings, so it's generally recommended to double-check every tab in the utility after installing an update to ensure everything is still set up correctly.

Toggles reflect the real, live setting — including a partial state

Every toggle reads its actual Windows, driver, or device value each time you open the tab, so it always reflects the true current state. If you change the same option outside the app — in AMD Adrenalin, the NVIDIA Control Panel, or Windows itself — the toggle updates to match the next time you view it.

Many tweaks apply across several targets at once: every network adapter, every USB or storage device, every GPU, or a group of related registry values together. When only some of those carry the tweak, the toggle shows an amber (partial) state instead of the usual blue — for example after you plug in a new device, or after a driver reinstall wiped most of a GPU's values. Amber means “applied, but not everywhere”; re-apply from the app to bring every target back into line.

Windows Defender

The utility configures Windows in ways that Defender's heuristic scanner can't tell apart from malware doing the same thing — disabling Memory Integrity, DEP, ASLR, Smart App Control, the CPU side-channel mitigations, and so on. Expect Defender to flag the installer or the running app at some point. The app is not malware; it's writing to the same registry keys you'd write yourself if you were configuring this manually.

Set Defender up once before you start and you won't see this again.

Add two Defender exclusions

Open Start → Windows Security → Virus & threat protection → Manage settings, scroll to Exclusions → Add or remove exclusions, then add both. The exact paths depend on which installer you used — the .msi (the default) or the .exe (the fallback):

  1. The downloaded setup file (so Defender doesn't quarantine it before install or on re-download for an update). Click Add an exclusion → File and pick whichever you downloaded:
    MSI: %UserProfile%\Downloads\Adamx_Tweaking_Utility-Setup.msi
    EXE: %UserProfile%\Downloads\Adamx_Tweaking_Utility-Setup.exe
    (or wherever your browser saves downloads)
  2. The install folder (so Defender doesn't quarantine the running app). Click Add an exclusion → Folder and pick the one matching your installer:
    MSI: %ProgramFiles%\Adamx_Tweaking_Utility\ (e.g. C:\Program Files\Adamx_Tweaking_Utility\)
    EXE: %LocalAppData%\Adamx_Tweaking_Utility\

Turn off Tampering Protection (if you want SmartScreen / Mark of the Web / certain Defender services off)

Some toggles can't be written while Tampering Protection is on — the registry write silently fails. On the same Virus & threat protection → Manage settings page, scroll down to Tampering Protection and turn it Off. You can re-enable it after applying the tweaks; Windows won't undo what you wrote.

If the app is already quarantined

  1. Open Windows Security → Virus & threat protection → Protection history.
  2. Find the Adamx Tweaking Utility entry → Actions → Restore.
  3. Add the two exclusions above so it doesn't happen again.

What we don't change

The utility never disables Defender's real-time scanning or removes Defender itself. The toggles in the Mitigations tab only touch the specific protections listed there.

Tweak tabs

Basic

Broadly-applicable Windows optimizations — gaming, update control, responsiveness, background apps, and maintenance. Flip the individual toggles for what you want.

Gaming

  • Disable Game DVR & Game Bar — turns off Game DVR / Game Bar background recording and removes its CPU + GPU overhead.
  • Disable Game Mode — turns off Windows Game Mode, which can stutter or cap FPS on some systems by managing CPU/GPU priority itself.
  • Disable Mouse Acceleration — disables Enhance Pointer Precision so mouse movement maps 1:1 to cursor travel. Critical for shooters.
  • Enable Hardware GPU Scheduling — turns on Hardware-Accelerated GPU Scheduling. Requires a compatible GPU, WDDM 2.7+ driver, and a reboot.

Updates

Take Windows Update off autopilot. It's generally recommended for most users to disable automatic Windows updates and only manually update when you're ready.

  • Disable Driver Installation via Windows Update — stops WU from installing or replacing drivers: forces Windows to use only locally-cached drivers, blocks the WU driver search path, excludes drivers from the monthly cumulative updates, and stops device-metadata downloads. Keeps WU from clobbering your manually-installed GPU/audio drivers with generic versions.
  • Disable Automatic Windows Updates — updates only install when you manually trigger a check. You become responsible for staying patched.

Responsiveness

  • Remove Menu Show Delay — menus and tooltips appear instantly instead of after the default ~400ms.
  • Fast Desktop Switching — removes the delay when switching between user accounts from the Start menu.
  • Disable Audio Ducking — stops Windows from auto-lowering other app volumes when a call or media starts.

Background Apps

  • Disable Background Apps — blocks Microsoft Store apps from running in the background when not in use.
  • Disable News and Interests — removes the News and Interests / Widgets pane from the taskbar.
  • Disable OneDrive File Sync — stops the OneDrive sync client. Files will no longer sync to the cloud.

Maintenance & Reporting

  • Disable Automatic Maintenance — stops Windows from running scheduled defrag, diagnostics, and optimizations in the background.
  • Disable Store Auto-Download — the Microsoft Store no longer auto-installs app updates.
  • Disable Sleep Study — turns off the Windows sleep-study logger that continuously records system and device activity throughout sleep and modern standby.

Convenience

  • Disable Accessibility Shortcut Prompts — no more “turn on Sticky Keys?” pop-ups from accidentally hitting the keyboard shortcut.

Privacy

Everything that stops Windows collecting, tracking, and monetizing your data — telemetry, the advertising ID, input/handwriting/speech personalization, search suggestions, tailored ads, app permissions, and lock-screen spotlight content. All of these are safe to turn on; flip the individual toggles for what you want.

Telemetry

  • Disable Telemetry — sets telemetry to the lowest allowed level and silences the diagnostic data toasts.
  • Disable Customer Experience Improvement Program — opts out of the CEIP usage upload.
  • Disable Feedback Prompts — stops Windows from periodically asking you to rate features.
  • Disable App Launch Tracking — stops Windows tracking which apps you launch for the Start menu's “most used” list.
  • Disable User Activity History — turns off Timeline and Activity History collection / upload to your Microsoft account.
  • Disable Windows Error Reporting — suppresses WerFault.exe crash upload dialogs and background crash reporting.

Advertising

  • Disable Advertising ID — disables the per-user ad ID apps use to track you across sessions.
  • Disable Language Header Tracking — prevents websites from accessing your preferred-language list via the Accept-Language header.

Input Personalization

  • Disable Typing Insights — opts out of typing statistics collection.
  • Disable Speech Data Collection — opts out of online speech recognition uploads.
  • Disable Handwriting & Ink Collection — stops Windows from collecting handwriting and typed text samples.
  • Disable Contact Harvesting — prevents Windows from scanning your contacts and emails for personalization data.

Search Suggestions

  • Disable Search Box Suggestions — disables Bing web suggestions in the Start menu and taskbar search.
  • Disable Dynamic Search Box — disables the dynamic search highlights and illustrations in the search box.

Tailored Experiences

  • Disable Tailored Experiences — stops Microsoft from personalizing tips, ads, and recommendations based on your diagnostic data.
  • Disable Windows Consumer Features — blocks auto-installed suggested Store apps like Candy Crush, Spotify, and Disney+.
  • Disable Cloud Content Optimization — disables cloud-optimized Start Menu content and first-run “soft landing” experiences.
  • Disable Online Tips — hides the Settings app online tips and the Security & Maintenance health indicator.

App Permissions

  • Deny Location Access — denies all apps access to your location via the Windows privacy API.
  • Deny App Diagnostics Access — denies apps access to diagnostic information about other running apps.
  • Deny User Notifications Access — denies apps the ability to read your Windows notifications.

Lock Screen

  • Disable Rotating Lock Screen — disables Windows Spotlight rotating lock-screen images and Microsoft-curated overlay ads.

Power

Tweaks that change how Windows manages CPU, USB, and storage power. Most trade a tiny amount of power draw for lower latency or higher consistency — turn them all on for a desktop, be a bit more selective on a laptop you actually want long battery life on.

  • Import Adamx Tweaking Utility Power Plan — installs and activates the custom Adamx high-performance power plan tuned for low latency.
    Applies 80+ power-plan settings — brief preview:
    • Disallow Throttle States
    • Setting IOC on all TDs
    • Deep Sleep Enabled/Disabled
    • Processor idle state maximum
    • Processor idle time check
    • Processor idle demote threshold
    • Processor idle promote threshold
    • Processor performance time check interval
    • Processor energy performance preference policy
    • Latency sensitivity hint min. unparked cores/packages
    • Latency sensitivity hint processor performance
    • Processor performance core parking over-utilisation threshold
    • Processor performance core parking increase policy
    • Processor performance core parking increase time
    • Processor performance core parking decrease time
    • Link State Power Management (PCI Express ASPM)
    • AHCI Link Power Management - HIPM/DIPM
    • AHCI Link Power Management - Adaptive
    • Primary NVMe Power State Transition Latency Tolerance
    • Primary NVMe Idle Timeout
    • USB 3 Link Power Management
    • Hub Selective Suspend Timeout
    • IO coalescing time-out
  • Disable Hibernation — turns off hibernation and deletes hiberfil.sys, reclaiming several GB on the system drive. Fast Startup is built on hibernation, so turning this off also turns off Fast Startup (below).
  • Disable Fast Startup — fully shuts the system down instead of hibernating the kernel, fixing cross-boot driver and update issues. Fast Startup can't run without hibernation: if you disabled Hibernation above it's already off — use this when you want to keep hibernation but still stop the fast-boot behavior.
  • Disable Power Throttling — stops Windows from throttling CPU clocks on background apps. Improves responsiveness at the cost of slightly higher power use.
  • Disable Deep IO Coalescing — disables disk I/O batching. Lower latency, slightly higher power draw.
  • Disable Timer Coalescing — prevents Windows from grouping timer callbacks. Timers fire on schedule at the cost of more wakeups.
  • Disable Dynamic Tick — forces the kernel timer to fire at a fixed rate instead of skipping ticks during idle (the tickless power-saving behavior), and clears any legacy platform-clock/tick overrides. Trades battery life for more consistent timer resolution.
  • Disable USB Idle in D3 — stops USB devices from issuing idle requests in the D3 low-power state, keeping them ready instead of parking when idle.
  • Disable USB Selective Suspend — prevents selective suspend on USB devices. Fixes mice and keyboards that stutter or drop input after sitting idle.
  • Disable USB Enhanced Power Management — turns off enhanced power management on USB devices so the controller doesn't aggressively idle them.
  • Disable Storage Idle Power Management — disables idle power management on SATA / NVMe drives. Eliminates first-access latency spikes when opening files.
  • Disable NVMe Idle Power Mode — forces the NVMe driver to keep drives at full power instead of dropping into its idle low-power state. Applies to all NVMe drives.
  • Disable Storage Enhanced Power Management — turns off enhanced power management on storage controllers so drives stay fully powered.

Network

Lowers latency by disabling unused Windows networking features and tuning your NIC for minimum delay. The standard toggles below are safe on a typical home setup; flip the individual toggles for what you want. The NIC Features and DSCP cards below the toggle list go further.

  • Tweak Network Adapter Advanced Settings — tunes advanced NIC properties (checksum and large-send offloading, RSS, priority/VLAN tagging, and wake-on-LAN) for minimum latency.
  • Disable Network Power Saving Features — disables Energy-Efficient Ethernet (EEE), Ultra Low Power (ULP), Green Ethernet, and similar power saving features on every adapter.
  • Apply Hidden Network Registry Tweaks — a curated set of per-NIC registry tweaks that may lower network latency and boost speeds.
  • Disable Hidden Network Power Saving — disables NIC power saving features not exposed in the adapter properties UI.
  • Tune AFD Parameters — tunes the Winsock kernel-mode driver for lower socket I/O latency and steadier throughput under load.
  • Tune NDIS Parameters — tunes the NDIS network-driver layer for lower overhead and steadier behavior under load.
  • Disable TCP Window Scaling Heuristics — stops Windows' scaling heuristics from silently overriding the manually set TCP autotuning level.
  • Disable NetBIOS over TCP/IP — disables NetBIOS on every interface. Reduces broadcast noise and attack surface.

NIC Features

A separate card below the toggle list for unbinding network protocols and services from every adapter — LLDP, the Network Adapter Multiplexor, LLTD Responder/Mapper, IPv6, File & Printer Sharing, and Client for Microsoft Networks. Tick the ones you want gone and click Apply; each is its own toggle, so disable only what you don't use (e.g. leave IPv6 on if your ISP needs it).

Game traffic priority (DSCP)

DSCP marks your game's outbound packets as high-priority so QoS-aware routers and ISPs favour them over background traffic.

  1. In the Network tab, find the DSCP card.
  2. Enable both QoS requirements if they aren't already: QoS Packet Scheduler driver and QoS Packet Scheduler component (each has its own Enable button).
  3. Under Create policy, enter a descriptive policy name (you'll use it to find the policy later).
  4. For executable file name, enter the game's exact filename, including .exe. Examples:
    • Fortnite: FortniteClient-Win64-Shipping.exe
    • Valorant: VALORANT-Win64-Shipping.exe
    • Don't know the name? Launch the game, open Task Manager, right-click the game's row → Open file location. The highlighted file is your target.
  5. Click Add, then test in-game. Results vary depending on your network and ISP.
  6. To revert: find the policy under Existing policies and click Delete.

Advanced

Memory management optimizations and process scheduling tweaks.

Memory

  • Disable Memory Compression — disables in-RAM memory compression. Lowers CPU overhead at the cost of slightly higher physical memory use.
  • Disable Page Combining — disables the kernel feature that deduplicates identical memory pages. Reduces CPU overhead at rest.
  • Disable SysMain (SuperFetch) — disables the SysMain service. Recommended only if the system is SSD-only; if an HDD is present you may keep it enabled unless it's causing high disk/CPU usage.

Scheduling

  • Process Scheduling — controls Win32PrioritySeparation, which decides how Windows shares CPU time between programs. Windows runs each thread for a brief slice of time (a “quantum”) before switching to the next; this setting tunes three things about those slices:
    • Length — Short switches between threads quickly for a snappy desktop and lower input latency in games; Long runs each thread longer for raw throughput (the server default).
    • Type — Variable gives whatever app is in the foreground a longer slice; Fixed gives every app the same slice regardless of focus.
    • Foreground boost — how much more CPU the app you're actively using gets over background work (1:1 is none, 3:1 is triple).
    Each option in the app is labelled with this decode plus the raw value. Recommended: Short · Variable · 3:1 (38), which matches the client default — Windows’ own default (2) resolves to exactly this on desktop editions, so picking 38 just makes it explicit and immune to edition differences (on Server, 2 resolves to Long · Fixed · 3:1 instead).

    Windows 11 24H2 / 25H2 note: on 24H2 and later the kernel sizes Variable (dynamic) slices from each process’s Quality-of-Service level — foreground vs. visible vs. background — rather than from the Length and ratio bits (25H2 shares 24H2’s kernel, so it behaves identically). So on these builds the Variable options (including the recommended 38) all behave like the default. The Fixed options take a different path that isn’t QoS-driven — every app gets the same slice regardless of focus — though 24H2 also shrank the underlying quantum unit roughly six-fold, so the exact slice lengths differ from older builds either way. It’s safe to set on any Windows version; we keep 38 as the default-matching recommendation.

NVIDIA

Tweaks for the NVIDIA driver stack.

Test the power-saving tweaks before keeping them. Disabling the GPU's power-saving features doesn't always raise performance — on a system with marginal cooling or existing instability it can make throttling or crashes worse. Apply, benchmark, and roll back any that don't actually help (save a Profile first so you have a known-good state to return to).
  • Clean Driver Install — downloads the latest Game Ready or Studio driver from NVIDIA (or imports a specific driver .exe you already have) and installs only the display driver: no telemetry, NVIDIA App, ShadowPlay or other extras. Optionally keeps HDMI/DisplayPort audio, PhysX, or the NVIDIA App + ShadowPlay. Full walkthrough below.
  • Apply NVPI Settings — applies a curated NVIDIA Profile Inspector profile optimized for performance.
    Preview the 28 settings this applies
    • Texture filtering - Quality
    • Texture filtering - Anisotropic filter optimization
    • Texture filtering - Anisotropic sample optimization
    • Texture filtering - Trilinear optimization
    • Texture filtering - Negative LOD bias
    • Texture filtering - Driver Controlled LOD Bias
    • Anisotropic filtering mode
    • Anisotropic filtering setting
    • Antialiasing - Mode
    • Antialiasing - Setting
    • Antialiasing - Gamma correction
    • Antialiasing - Line gamma
    • NVIDIA Predefined FXAA Usage
    • Maximum pre-rendered frames
    • FRL Low Latency
    • Preferred refresh rate
    • Power management mode
    • Threaded optimization
    • Shader disk cache maximum size
    • Pre-Compile Shader Options
    • Memory Allocation Policy
    • CUDA Sysmem Fallback Policy
    • Disable Ansel
    • NVIDIA Predefined Ansel Usage
    • OpenGL GDI compatibility
    • Preferred OpenGL GPU
    • Event Log Severity Threshold
    • Event Log Tmon Severity Threshold
  • Disable NVIDIA Driver Logging Features — stops the NVIDIA display driver from writing log entries.
  • Disable Write Combining — disables GPU write-combining. Can reduce micro-stutter on some driver versions.
  • Disable Preemptions — lets the GPU finish each frame in one uninterrupted pass instead of pausing for background work. Smoother frame pacing, fewer micro-stutters, tighter 1% lows.
  • Disable Hidden Power Saving Features — disables hidden GPU power-saving features in the driver.
  • Set GPU Power State to P0 — locks the GPU into P0 (maximum clocks).
  • Disable Clock Gating — disables clock gating across idle NVIDIA engines.
  • Disable Unnecessary NVIDIA Services — disables bundled NVIDIA background services that aren't required for gaming.

G-SYNC (variable refresh rate)

A fixed-refresh monitor redraws on its own clock, so any frame that finishes mid-cycle tears — a visible seam across the screen with uneven pacing behind it. G-SYNC ends that by letting the monitor refresh in lockstep with your frame rate, keeping the image whole and smooth anywhere your FPS lands inside its range. The NVPI profile leaves it alone on purpose, so set it up yourself once if you have a G-SYNC or G-SYNC Compatible display:

  1. Enable G-SYNC in the monitor's own on-screen menu first.
  2. In the NVIDIA App, open Graphics → Global Settings, set Monitor Technology to G-SYNC Compatible, then under System → Displays enable it for full-screen and windowed.
  3. Cap your frame rate a few FPS below your refresh rate with Max Frame Rate — 3 is the usual margin (240 Hz → 237, 165 Hz → 162, 144 Hz → 141). The cap holds you under the ceiling of the G-SYNC range to keep it active.
  4. Turn Vertical Sync on in the App (not in-game) as a backstop for the very top of the range. With the cap in place it never actually engages, so it adds no latency — G-SYNC + V-Sync + cap is the tear-free, low-latency combo.
No G-SYNC display? Without VRR you can't truly remove tearing, only make it far less noticeable: cap your FPS to a whole-number ratio of your refresh rate — an even divisor or multiple — so every frame lands at the same point in the refresh cycle and the tear line sits still instead of crawling. On 240 Hz that's 120, 80, or 60 (or 480 if your PC can push it), and it works both ways, so a 60 Hz panel can cap at 120 or 240. An arbitrary number like 165 on 240 Hz is the worst case — the seam drifts constantly. Leaving FPS uncapped gives the lowest latency but the most tearing.

Reinstall the NVIDIA driver (recommended once)

NVIDIA's full driver package bundles telemetry, the NVIDIA App, ShadowPlay, Ansel and more. The app's Clean Driver Install (top of the NVIDIA tab) downloads the latest Game Ready driver straight from NVIDIA — or the Studio driver if you create more than you game, via the Game Ready / Studio switch on the card — strips everything except the display driver, and installs it silently: no third-party tools or manual extracting needed. Run it once for a clean, bloat-free driver, then rerun it whenever a new driver ships.

Before you start:

  • Don't shut down or restart while the install is running.
  • Driver reinstallation reverts every NVIDIA toggle on the GPU tab — re-apply them after.

Steps:

  1. Open the NVIDIA tab and find Clean Driver Install at the top.
  2. Pick what to keep — each is its own checkbox:
    • Keep HDMI/DisplayPort audio — tick it if you get sound through your monitor or TV, untick it if you only use a headset or speakers. Keeping it can make Windows switch its default playback device, so set your headset back as default afterwards if that happens.
    • Keep PhysX — tick only if you play older PhysX titles (Borderlands 2, Mirror's Edge, the Batman Arkham series).
    • Keep the NVIDIA App — tick it if you record with ShadowPlay or use the overlay (they come as a pair). It also brings NVIDIA's telemetry back, so leave it unticked for the cleanest driver — you can always install the NVIDIA App later if you change your mind.
    • Not keeping the App? You can still change driver settings via the NVIDIA Control Panel from the Microsoft Store — the classic panel, without the telemetry.
  3. Click Install clean driver. The app downloads the driver from NVIDIA, debloats it, and runs the install.
  4. When it finishes, re-apply your NVIDIA toggles. Restart if the app says a restart is needed.

Radeon

Tweaks for the AMD Adrenalin driver stack.

Test the power-saving tweaks before keeping them. Disabling the GPU's power-saving features doesn't always raise performance — on a system with marginal cooling or existing instability it can make throttling or crashes worse. Apply, benchmark, and roll back any that don't actually help (save a Profile first so you have a known-good state to return to).
  • Enable Anti-Lag — enables Radeon Anti-Lag globally. Reduces input latency in GPU-bound games.
  • Disable Preemptions — lets the GPU finish each frame in one uninterrupted pass. Smoother frame pacing, fewer micro-stutters, tighter 1% lows.
  • Override Tessellation Mode — lets the driver override each game's tessellation setting (pair with the next toggle).
  • Set Max Tessellation Off — caps the maximum tessellation level to off, cutting GPU geometry load.
  • V-Sync: Off Unless App Specifies — sets the driver's Wait for Vertical Refresh to “off, unless the application specifies”, so V-Sync stays off by default but games that request it can still turn it on.
  • Texture Filtering: Performance — sets the driver's texture filtering quality (TFQ) bias toward performance.
  • Disable DMA Copy — routes GPU memory copies off the DMA engine so the 3D engine handles them directly.
  • Enable Block Write — enables block-write memory transactions for faster writing of graphics data to VRAM.
  • Enable Shader Cache — forces the driver shader cache on so compiled shaders are reused instead of recompiled, reducing in-game hitching.
  • Disable Stutter Mode — turns off the driver's stutter-mode power feature so the GPU doesn't throttle clocks to smooth frame delivery.
  • Disable ULPS — disables Ultra Low Power State so the GPU doesn't drop into its lowest-power idle mode (the usual cause of multi-GPU/idle clock stutter).
  • Disable SCLK Deep Sleep — stops the shader clock from entering its deep-sleep idle state, keeping it readier for sudden load.
  • Disable Thermal Auto-Throttling — turns off the driver's automatic thermal throttling. Only use with adequate cooling — the GPU's hardware thermal limit still applies.
  • Disable Light Sleep — disables the GPU's light-sleep idle state so it stays responsive instead of parking power between frames.
  • Disable GPU Power Down — stops the driver from powering down GPU blocks at idle, removing the wake-up cost when work resumes.
  • Disable GPIO Power Save Mode — disables the GPU's GPIO power-save mode, keeping its control lines fully active.
  • Disable Power Gating — disables power gating across Radeon GPU engines. Reduces first-draw latency.
  • Disable Clock Gating — disables clock gating across idle Radeon engines.
  • Max Pre-rendered Frames — caps how many frames the CPU queues ahead for the GPU, to reduce system latency. Be careful: lower values can actually increase latency if your CPU can't handle them. There's no single best value — test which works best for your PC, and you can come back and set a different value any time.
  • Disable Unnecessary AMD Services — disables bundled AMD background services that aren't required for gaming.
  • Radeon Software Slimmer (Useful Programs tab) — advanced; only run if you understand what each module strips.

FreeSync (variable refresh rate)

FreeSync is AMD's take on the same idea: rather than redrawing on a fixed clock, the monitor refreshes in step with your frame rate, so frames stop tearing and pacing stays smooth across its range. Set it up once if you have a FreeSync (or FreeSync Premium / Premium Pro) display:

  1. Enable FreeSync in the monitor's own on-screen menu first, then turn on AMD FreeSync in AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition → Gaming → Display.
  2. Cap your frame rate a few FPS below your refresh rate — 3 is the usual margin (240 Hz → 237, 165 Hz → 162, 144 Hz → 141) — with Frame Rate Target Control (or Radeon Chill) in Adrenalin, or an in-game limiter. The cap holds you under the ceiling of the FreeSync range, above which it stops working and tearing comes back.
  3. Set Wait for Vertical Refresh to Always on (or use Enhanced Sync) in Adrenalin as a backstop for the very top of the range. With the cap in place it never actually engages, so it adds no latency.
No FreeSync display? Without VRR you can't truly remove tearing, only make it far less noticeable: cap your FPS to a whole-number ratio of your refresh rate — an even divisor or multiple — so every frame lands at the same point in the refresh cycle and the tear line sits still instead of crawling. On 240 Hz that's 120, 80, or 60 (or 480 if your PC can push it), and it works both ways, so a 60 Hz panel can cap at 120 or 240. An arbitrary number like 165 on 240 Hz is the worst case — the seam drifts constantly. Leaving FPS uncapped gives the lowest latency but the most tearing.

Mitigations

The Security Mitigations Manager exposes Windows kernel and CPU-level mitigations as toggles, plus the app and download protections covered below. Toggling a row on disables that mitigation for the performance gain — the column header on the right says “Disable” for that reason.

  • Remember that turning off security protections can make your system less secure and more vulnerable to threats. Consider the risks before changing any setting.
  • Each mitigation is its own toggle — turn on the ones you want and leave the rest. Several rows can break kernel-level anti-cheat (see the warning below) and Meltdown is performance-blocked on AM5, so review those individually.
  • Click Apply changes to write all selections at once.
  • The app offers to create a restore point before applying. Take it.
These are real performance wins, not fine print. Disabling Memory Integrity (HVCI) and VBS can reclaim up to ~10% in some games, and turning off the CPU side-channel mitigations gives back cycles on every system call. The trade-off is security — you're switching protections off — plus the anti-cheat requirements below, so weigh each row on its own rather than assuming it isn't worth applying.
Start with Spectre and Meltdown. They're among the biggest gains here and, unlike the HVCI/VBS/virtualization rows, carry no anti-cheat requirement — the one caveat is Meltdown, which is performance-blocked on AM5. The rest are worth applying too; just check the warning below first.
Playing games with kernel-level anti-cheat? Several rows here can stop a game launching, kick you mid-match, or flag your account. Disabling DEP/NX affects Easy Anti-Cheat and BattlEye titles (Valorant needs NX too), and a minority of anti-cheats — Valorant (Vanguard) and FACEIT — require Memory Integrity (HVCI) on, so leaving HVCI, VBS, Hypervisor Launch, or VSM off blocks them (HVCI is built on all of them), as does disabling Control Flow Guard. The app flags each of these rows with a red warning sign. If a game stops working after applying, re-enable the affected row and click Apply again.

Note that HVCI and VBS also switch back on by themselves whenever CPU virtualization is enabled in BIOS, and Windows won't let you disable VBS while Hyper-V, Virtual Machine Platform, Windows Sandbox, or Memory Integrity are in use.

App & download protections

Alongside the kernel and CPU mitigations, the manager holds the Windows protections that decide which apps and downloads are allowed to run. Disabling them removes prompts and a little launch latency at the cost of a safety layer — skip them if you regularly download from random places.

  • Disable SmartScreen — turns off Windows SmartScreen so executables don't make a network call to Microsoft's reputation service before launching. Cuts cold-start latency on first-run binaries; loses the “this app is unrecognized” prompt.
  • Disable Mark of the Web — stops Windows from tagging downloaded files as “from the Internet,” so Office and other apps no longer show the “this file came from another computer” warning. Trade-off: removes one friction layer against malicious downloads.
  • Disable Smart App Control — one-way: once off, Windows won't let you re-enable it from the app (only a clean install or reset restores it). Turn it off only if you understand that.
If you disable Defender (for example with a third-party tool), disable Smart App Control here too. With SAC on but Defender off, Windows tries to validate every app launch and install against Microsoft's cloud reputation service through a missing local provider — installs and launches can hang for minutes or never finish.

Services

The Services Manager batch-disables groups of unused Windows service stacks. Each row toggles a category — on disables every service in the group, off restores them to their designed startup types.

  • System Restore Points: turning this off only stops Windows from creating restore points from inside Windows. You can still use existing restore points and create new ones from Windows Recovery Mode.
  • VPN stack: disables the services behind Windows' built-in VPN/dial-up client (SSTP, L2TP, IKEv2) and IP Helper tunneling. Disable if you don't use the Windows VPN feature. Third-party VPN apps ship their own drivers and are mostly unaffected, but test yours after applying.
  • Wi-Fi stack: only safe on a wired desktop you'll never want to use Wi-Fi on.
  • Bluetooth: disables every Bluetooth service. Bluetooth devices won't pair or connect, except devices using their own dongle.
  • Printing & scanning: printing and scanning stop working — disable if you never print or scan from this machine.
  • Diagnostics & telemetry: turns off Windows feedback collection, error reporting, and the connected-user-experience tracker. Some Windows troubleshooters stop working.

BIOS

The BIOS tab writes BIOS Setup Question values directly to firmware via SCEWIN — no manual UEFI poking required. Pick your CPU vendor when prompted, toggle the rows you want, click Apply, and reboot. Firmware writes only take effect after the next BIOS pass, and any setting your motherboard doesn't expose appears greyed out.

Most systems are compatible with BIOS tweaks. If you built your own PC, you're almost certainly fine. The exceptions are laptops and prebuilt OEM PCs (Dell, HP, Lenovo), whose firmware is locked down by the OEM and hides most of these options. If a Setup Question isn't exposed by your firmware, the row stays greyed out and clicking Apply silently skips it.

Two motherboard brands need an extra step. ASUS and ASRock ship with runtime-variable protection turned on, which blocks SCEWIN from writing to firmware — but the fix differs by vendor. This applies to ASUS (Z790+, B760+, H770+ | X670+, B650+, A620+) and ASRock (Z590+, B560+, H510+ | B550, X670+, B650+, A620+) boards.

1. Both: in Device Manager (Win+R → devmgmt.msc), under Other devices, make sure every PCI Device is enabled.

2. ASUS: in BIOS, enable Publish HII Resources under the Tool menu, then go to Advanced → UEFI Variables Protection and set Password protection of Runtime Variables to Disabled. Save & Exit. A quick, non-destructive toggle — that's all ASUS boards need.

3. ASRock: the same Password protection of Runtime Variables setting must be disabled, but ASRock hides it from the BIOS menu and there is no reliable way to turn it off in firmware. The only known route is modding the BIOS image and flashing it with a hardware programmer — which risks bricking the board and is strictly for advanced users at their own risk. On an affected ASRock board, treat the BIOS tweaks as unavailable and apply the equivalent settings from your board's normal, visible BIOS menu instead.

Before buying Elite for BIOS tweaks specifically: open the BIOS tab in the free version, let it initialize SCEWIN and detect your motherboard, and see how many rows light up vs. how many are greyed out. That's exactly what you'd be able to apply once you upgrade — no surprises.
Test the power-saving rows before keeping them. Disabling CPU and chipset power-saving features doesn't always raise performance — on a system with marginal cooling or existing instability it can make throttling or crashes worse. Apply, benchmark, and revert any that don't actually help.
These are real performance wins, not fine print. The virtualization rows (Intel VT-x / VT-d, AMD SVM / IOMMU) remove virtualization overhead and cut memory-access latency, and the security rows (Intel SGX, AMD memory encryption) free reserved RAM and skip per-access work. The trade-off is security plus the anti-cheat requirements below, so weigh each row on its own rather than assuming it isn't worth applying.
Playing games with kernel-level anti-cheat? The virtualization rows can stop a game launching, kick you mid-match, or flag your account. Competitive Fortnite and FACEIT require IO virtualization (Intel VT-d, AMD IOMMU) left on — it backs Kernel DMA Protection — and Valorant (Vanguard) and FACEIT require Memory Integrity (HVCI), which can't run without CPU virtualization (Intel VT-x, AMD SVM). On Intel the single “Disable virtualization” row turns off VT-x and VT-d together, so it hits both; on AMD the SVM and IOMMU rows are separate. The app flags each affected row with a red warning sign. If a game stops working after applying, re-enable the row and click Apply again.

The catalog only shows tweaks for your detected CPU vendor (Intel or AMD). Both lists are collapsed below — expand the one matching your CPU.

Intel BIOS tweaks

Intel — Power-saving features

  • Disable C-states — keeps CPU cores out of deep idle so they're always ready for work. Removes wake-up stalls when bursty work hits.
  • Disable PCIe clock gating — stops the PCIe controller from gating its clock during idle, removing wake-up cost on every device access.
  • Disable Energy Efficient P-state — removes the BIOS hint that biases Windows toward lower-power P-states. CPU ramps up faster under load.
  • Disable ASPM — PCIe Active State Power Management off. GPU / NVMe / NIC links stay permanently active instead of sleeping during idle.
  • Disable LTR — turns off Latency Tolerance Reporting, the budget devices use to enable deep PCIe L1 sub-states. Off keeps links out of their slowest-to-wake sleep, same path as ASPM.
  • Disable Race To Halt (RTH) — disables the strategy of finishing work as fast as possible just to enter idle quicker for power savings.
  • Disable OBFF — Optimized Buffer Flush/Fill off. Devices stop deferring traffic and interrupts into power-aligned idle windows, so they're serviced promptly instead.

Intel — Performance

  • Disable spread spectrum — stops the BIOS from intentionally jittering BCLK and PCIe clocks to spread EMI. Tighter clocks at the cost of slightly more interference.
  • Disable XHCI hand-off — BIOS stops owning USB controllers during boot so Windows takes them directly. Avoids the BIOS's slower USB stack.

Intel — Security

  • Disable Software Guard Extensions — turns off Intel SGX. Frees the reserved RAM region; SGX is rarely used outside select DRM and security tools.

Intel — Virtualization

  • Disable virtualization — disables both VT-x and VT-d. Removes virtualization overhead and lowers memory-access latency. Leave this on if you play Valorant or competitive Fortnite — Valorant's Vanguard needs VT-x (its required Memory Integrity/HVCI can't run without it) and competitive Fortnite requires VT-d enabled.

Intel — Miscellaneous

  • Enable PCI delay optimization — tightens BIOS-side PCIe device-init delays. Slightly faster boot.
AMD BIOS tweaks

AMD — Power-saving features

  • Disable C-states — keeps CPU cores out of deep idle so they're always ready for work. Removes wake-up stalls when bursty work hits.
  • Disable chipset power-saving features — turns off chipset-level power-state negotiations across PCIe and the SoC fabric.
  • Disable AB clock gating — clock gating off on the SoC's Advanced Bus fabric. Internal data paths stay always-on.
  • Disable ECO mode — turns off AMD's BIOS-level lower-TDP profile so the CPU runs at its full power budget.
  • Disable AMD Cool'n'Quiet — turns off Cool'n'Quiet, AMD's CPU power-saving feature. CPU runs at a higher floor frequency.

AMD — Performance

  • Disable spread spectrum — stops the BIOS from intentionally jittering clocks to spread EMI. Tighter clocks at the cost of slightly more interference.
  • Disable XHCI hand-off — BIOS stops owning USB controllers during boot so Windows takes them directly.

AMD — Security

  • Disable memory encryption — turns off transparent memory encryption (TSME / SMEE). Saves the encrypt/decrypt cycle on every RAM access.

AMD — Virtualization

  • Disable SVM — Secure Virtual Machine off (AMD's VT-x equivalent). Removes virtualization overhead and lowers memory-access latency. Leave this on if you play Valorant — its Vanguard requires Memory Integrity (HVCI), which can't run without SVM.
  • Disable IOMMU — AMD's IO Memory Management Unit off (the VT-d equivalent). Removes IO virtualization overhead. Leave this on if you play competitive Fortnite — its anti-cheat requires IOMMU enabled.

Cleanup

Run all cleanup actions periodically. They free disk space and clear stale caches that can mask real performance issues.

Appearance

Cosmetic toggles — visual effects, recycle bin, File Explorer styling, context menu cleanup. Apply to taste; nothing here affects performance.

Also keep in mind that across different versions of Windows (especially a brand-new version), some tweaks — notably on this Appearance page — may show as checked but not actually be taking effect, so it's recommended to re-apply. This applies in particular to some of the File Explorer and context-menu options. For example, Hide Home in File Explorer is currently buggy: if you delete a file and then undo the delete, Home reappears in Explorer until you refresh the window — a strange bug that's being looked into. Please notify Adamx if you find any of these anomalies so a quick fix can be added.

Beyond the tabs

Profiles

Save your current toggle state as a named profile and switch between setups with one click.

  1. Apply the tweaks you want.
  2. Open the Profiles tab and click New profile.
  3. Name it and pick a color tag.
  4. Switch profiles whenever you want a different setup — e.g., one for competitive games, one for video editing or streaming.

Profiles are tied to your account, so they survive reinstalls and follow you to a new PC after you move your license there.

Useful Programs

Curated launchers for trusted utilities. Click any tile and the app downloads, extracts, and launches it for you — subsequent clicks reuse the cached copy and launch instantly. Pick the tool you need from the list below.

Autoruns — Sysinternals (Mark Russinovich)

Stops apps and drivers from auto-starting at every boot.

  1. Logon tab: untick anything you don't want at login.
  2. You may further use this program however you like to disable any unwanted task but be careful and avoid unticking anything you do not completely understand!

MSI Mode Utility — mbk1969

  • Enable MSI Mode (the checkbox) on devices that show Msi under Supported Modes.
  • Don't enable it on devices that don't list Msi — that can leave Windows unable to boot.
  • Driver updates revert MSI Mode — re-enable after each driver update. Some newer GPUs will actually have MSI Mode enabled by default, this is good!

Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) — Wagnardsoft

Wipes every last trace of an existing GPU driver — reach for it when a driver is misbehaving, a previous install left corrupt files behind, or you're switching GPU brands. For a normal driver refresh the NVIDIA tab's Clean Driver Install already does a clean install on its own.

  1. Set GPU type to your card's vendor (NVIDIA or AMD).
  2. Click Clean & do NOT restart. The screen will flicker — that's normal.
  3. When DDU finishes, the screen drops to a basic resolution. Multi-monitor users: only the primary monitor stays active until the driver is back.

Don't shut down or restart while DDU or the driver install is running.

MSI Afterburner — MSI

GPU fan curve, clock, and power-limit tuning.

  1. Maximize the Power and Temp limits.
  2. Unlock the fan curve via the A button at the bottom and pick a curve you can live with noise-wise.
  3. Click the checkmark, save the result to a profile slot, then click the Windows-icon button (top right) to load it at boot.

For deeper undervolting and clock tuning, look up Cancerogeno's NVIDIA OC guide once you're comfortable with the basics.

Apps to avoid or adjust for gaming

  1. Discord: disable Hardware Acceleration and In-Game Overlay.
  2. Spotify: disable Hardware Acceleration.
  3. Steam: disable Steam Overlay; remove from startup via Task Manager or Autoruns.
  4. Logitech G HUB: uninstall — use Logitech Onboard Memory Manager instead.
  5. Browsers: disable Hardware Acceleration (will make browser slower in certain scenarios, you can keep it ON but be sure not to have your browser open while gaming or when needing maximum GPU performance) and disable “Continue running background apps when closed.”
  6. Periodic Memory Cleaners: avoid — they cause stutters.