Custom Boot for Gaming ?

[JimmyRecard00]

Hello

When gaming, I’ve heard it can help to disable as much stuff in Windows as possible that you don’t need for gaming.., eg close your browser, and disable things loading on startup and running in the background that you don’t need etc….

I’m wondering – is there a way I can make it easy to have a Custom Boot for Windows where I strip out the stuff I don’t want/need just for gaming (and also for Music Production where I’ll probably kill the internet all together)?

How would I set it up and activate it when I want to play?


This will be for a 3070 Ti, 12th gen system probably with dual boot Win 10/11 and either a 4K or 1440p monitor.

Could part of it be changing firewall settings or to simplify things maybe adding a second firewall that just blocks absolutely everything and you just add exceptions for each game you want to play the first time you play them…. Does that make sense? And again – use macros to turn it on/off?

As an alternative – could you run some macro that closes a bunch of stuff, and have one to reopen them after?

I assume this won’t be as good as the system memory/cache etc will still be more full than it would be from a stripped out boot?


But is this an option too, any others?

And please do note I’d like to hear about how to do this for BOTH Windows 10 AND 11 !



Thank you for your help

 

[ZedClampet]

This is what Windows Game Mode does. Just use the search on the desktop to search for Game Mode and make sure it's turned on. But it doesn't close big programs, just the background stuff whenever you start a game.

The truth is that closing down your browser and extra programs is really all you need. But if you want to test to see how much closing things down impacts your FPS, do the following. Run a game right now without closing anything down and see what you are getting for FPS. Then reboot your system and close any programs you have set to open on start-up. Turn on Game Mode. Start your game back up and see what your new FPS is. If you have a good system, it's probably the same that it was the first time unless you just have a ton of things open.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

If you were running a low end CPU and a small amount of RAM. With a 12700K and 16/32GB you won't know the difference if there's a few launchers or AV idling in the system tray while you're playing, Game mode or no.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

This is what Windows Game Mode does. Just use the search on the desktop to search for Game Mode and make sure it's turned on. But it doesn't close big programs, just the background stuff whenever you start a game.

The truth is that closing down your browser and extra programs is really all you need. But if you want to test to see how much closing things down impacts your FPS, do the following. Run a game right now without closing anything down and see what you are getting for FPS. Then reboot your system and close any programs you have set to open on start-up. Turn on Game Mode. Start your game back up and see what your new FPS is. If you have a good system, it's probably the same that it was the first time unless you just have a ton of things open.

Wow, I didn't even know that exists. I looked it up, and it's already turned on for me. That's pretty cool!

This thread brings back memories, though. I remember creating several custom DOS boot disks back in the day. You had to customize different ones for whatever each individual game needed. I don't miss those days at all.

 

[Brian Boru]

What @ZedClampet and @Kaamos_Llama said.
I run an i7-7 and a 1060, and I never shut stuff down. If I'm gaming, the game typically spends 80-90% of its time Alt-tabbed, ie minimized to Taskbar while I work in Office or browsers or watch YouTube, whatever.

This works for eg Far Cry 5 & New Dawn, they're probably the newest games I have—or Humankind demo. I do have my StartUp programs cut to the essentials tho, and like many here I don't care about FPS, only that the game plays as I want it to.

disable as much stuff in Windows as possible that you don’t need

Press Win key, type…
msconfig
…and press Enter.
Click Services tab, tick bottom-left box to hide MS services, then click the 'Disable all' button. You will probably need to reboot after you're finished the task/game.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

I'll sometimes have a turn based game on when the families around so I can dip in and out while chatting. I've left it on tabbed out before and started up a more demanding 3d game by accident. Totally playable, just noticed a small bit of stutter before I realized what I'd done. Ryzen 5600x with 16GB RAM.

 

[mjs warlord]

The easiest way to game maximum resources available for everything is to have a tidy up in your start up menu
( msconfi ) , the only thing i have activated at boot up is my Realtek HD Audio Manager , my av does not need an entry.

 

[mainer]

This thread brings back memories, though. I remember creating several custom DOS boot disks back in the day. You had to customize different ones for whatever each individual game needed. I don't miss those days at all.

I remember those days. There were some great games at that time, but like yourself, I do not miss having to create separate DOS boot discs for different games just to get them to run.

 

[Colif]

Cleaning up startup could help as suggested above, if only to speed up how fast things load at startup but if PC has 16 to 32gb of ram, you won't really notice slow starts. It also speeds up shutdown if you remove startup programs.

Why dual boot 10 & 11? All applications work on both as far as I can tell. None show up in searches of subject. If it works on 10, it works on 11.

If you plan on both, turn this off
Win 10 - https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/4189-turn-off-fast-startup-windows-10-a.html
Windows 11 - https://www.makeuseof.com/windows-11-turn-on-or-off-fast-startup/ (there is a chance its already off in win 11)
it won't help you as I assume you not going to use a hdd to boot either OS off.

If you have 32gb of ram and a new Intel CPU you won't notice background processes. My R5 3600 probably has less threads than your new CPU (whatever it is) but with 32gb of ram and an NVME, I never notice any difference with turning things off or leaving them on. You have so many resources you could just let it all run. No need for a special boot mode.

 

[Brian Boru]

I’ve heard

If you learn anything from us, I hope it's be to be very careful about which information sources you choose to pay attention to.

 

[Colif]

Press Win key, type…
msconfig
…and press Enter.
Click Services tab, tick bottom-left box to hide MS services, then click the 'Disable all' button. You will probably need to reboot after you're finished the task/game.

that is a clean boot, its perhaps a step too far for most people. Its useful for finding troublesome startup programs, but you can close a lot of those using the Startup tab on task manager, and it won't accidentally stop anything you want to have running at start up. Not all startup programs are bad, just Steam (lol) since it auto updates games on startup. There are more than just Steam, I was being silly.

 

[Brian Boru]

perhaps a step too far for most people

Agreed, but OP is looking for a fast way to do this regularly, or a macro—which PowerShell could probably do.

It's easy to reverse the action later, using the "Disabled date" column to preserve any previous disables.

But yeah, not something to try unless you know what you're doing or you're badly stuck.

 

[Colif]

i seen people forget one step, the hide Microsoft services spot, and remove everything, and suddenly windows doesn't work.
I believe you can reverse that using BCDEDIT but still