How to Turn on Game Mode on Windows 11

Windows 10 and 11 come with a feature called Game mode. When you enable the game mode on Windows, it pauses many background processes, pauses Windows updates and frees up system memory so that you can get the largest slice of the system resources for playing the games. This way you can play PC games smoother and without any annoying disturbances from the operating system.

Game mode can pause the Windows updates for some time when you are busy playing the games. This also prevents Windows from updating any of the device drivers and sending system restart notifications to the user. When you have enabled the game mode it will automatically work only when playing the games, as it detects the games as soon as you launch them.

Here is how you can quickly toggle the Game mode on Windows 10/11:

1. Press Win+I to open Windows settings. Alternatively, you can click on Start and then on the cogwheel icon to open the settings.
2. In the settings window, select the Gaming section from the left side list and then click on the Game Mode.
3. On the game mode screen,  click on the toggle switch labeled Game Mode to turn it on.
4. Now you can close all the windows opened during the process.

There is another way to enable the game mode on Windows 10/11 using the Registry:

1. Press the hotkey Win+R and type regedit and press Enter to open the Registry Editor.
2. In the Registry Editor, navigate to the following key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\GameBar.
3. Right-click on the right-side pane and choose to create a DWORD 32-bit key named AllowAutoGameMode.
4. Change the value of AllowAutoGameMode to 1.
5. Now you can close the Registry Editor.

If you want to toggle off the Game Mode using the registry method, then you can change the value of AllowAutoGameMode to 0 or delete this Dword 32-bit key altogether.