How to Reduce Input Lag on PC: 9 Fixes That Actually Work

Short answer: most input lag comes from a low or unsteady frame rate and from display settings. Fix those first; the small tweaks at the end only matter once the big ones are done.

#1. Confirm your refresh rate

Open Windows display settings, then Advanced display, and pick the highest refresh rate. Monitors and laptops often ship at 60 Hz even when they support 144 Hz or more. This is the biggest free fix on this list.

#2. Use Fullscreen mode

Exclusive Fullscreen usually has the lowest delay. Borderless or windowed modes go through extra Windows compositing in some games.

#3. Turn on Reflex or Anti-Lag

NVIDIA Reflex and AMD Anti-Lag shorten the queue of frames waiting for your GPU. Turn them on in every game that offers them.

#4. Cap your frame rate

A steady 160 FPS feels better than a frame rate jumping between 140 and 300. Cap in-game when possible.

#5. Handle sync properly

• Adaptive sync screen: turn on G-Sync or FreeSync and cap FPS 3 to 5 under the refresh rate.
• No adaptive sync: leave V-Sync off and accept some tearing for the lowest delay.

#6. Lower the settings that cost the most

Shadows, volumetric effects and high anti-aliasing cost the most frames. Lowering them raises FPS, which directly lowers delay.

#7. Mouse polling rate

Set your mouse to 1000 Hz in its software. Use a wired connection or a modern 2.4 GHz wireless dongle, not Bluetooth.

#8. Windows Game Mode and power plan

Turn on Game Mode and use the Balanced or High performance power plan. On laptops, plug in while gaming: many lower their clock speed on battery.

#9. Close what you do not need

Browsers with video, RGB software and overlays all take CPU time. Close them during ranked matches.

#How to measure the difference

The easiest check is the in-game latency or performance overlay that many shooters include, or the NVIDIA overlay that shows system latency. Change one setting at a time and compare.