Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling is a Windows setting under Settings > System > Display > Graphics, and the toggle shows up only when your GPU and graphics driver both support it. Whether it raises your frame rate is not settled by the official documents: Microsoft says only that the transition should be transparent and users should not notice significant changes, and NVIDIA says it can potentially improve performance, so the honest answer is to try it and compare in your own games. This guide was checked against the official documents on September 30, 2026, and covers what the feature is, its requirements, where the switch lives and what to check if it is missing. If your real goal is lower delay in games, how to reduce input lag in games covers other settings separately.
Bottom line: compare it yourself, there is no official winner
The Microsoft DirectX Developer Blog (June 30, 2020) describes the feature as enabling more efficient GPU scheduling between applications, says the transition should be transparent, and says Microsoft does not expect performance regressions. The January 19, 2023 post describes it as letting Windows offload most of the GPU scheduling to dedicated hardware on the GPU, which reduces the load on the CPU. NVIDIA's June 24, 2020 announcement says it can potentially improve performance and reduce latency by letting the video card manage its own memory, which is a possibility rather than a promise. Neither document says that turning it on makes games clearly faster or that turning it off is better, so this article does not pick a side either. A practical approach is to check the current state first, change one thing at a time, compare the same scene in a game you play often, and revert if it feels worse. If your actual problem is frame drops while recording, do not expect this one toggle to solve it; narrowing down the cause step by step with fixing FPS drops while recording games is safer.
How to check, turn it on and turn it off
- 1Check your Windows version and driver model — The feature arrived with the Windows 10 May 2020 Update (version 2004), so older versions are out of scope. Type dxdiag in the Start menu, open the Display tab, and look at Driver Model in the Drivers section for WDDM 2.7 or higher. Even with WDDM 2.7 or higher, the toggle does not appear if the GPU hardware does not support the feature.
- 2Open the Graphics settings — On Windows 11, go to Settings > System > Display > Graphics (checked on September 30, 2026). The 2020 post pointed to the Advanced Graphics Settings page under Graphics Settings. The redesigned page described on January 19, 2023 has three areas, System-wide settings, Advanced graphics settings and Custom settings for applications, and this feature is found under Advanced graphics settings. Menu wording can differ between Windows versions.
- 3Find the Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling toggle — Look for Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling in the Advanced graphics settings area. The same area also holds the default high-performance GPU choice and variable refresh rate options, but this guide covers only this one toggle. If it is not there, the setting is shown only when the GPU and the required display driver support it, so continue to the checklist below.
- 4Turn it on or off and restart if needed — Flip the toggle. NVIDIA's 2020 instructions say to restart the system after enabling the feature. Microsoft's post does not mention a restart, so treat a reboot as something to try if the change does not seem to apply. Note the current state before you change it so that reverting is easy.
- 5Compare in your own game and revert if needed — Test the same location with the same graphics options in a game you play often, with the setting on and off. Microsoft says it does not expect regressions but asks users to file feedback if they see one. Change only this setting at a time, so you can tell what caused any difference.
Requirements confirmed in official documents
| Item | What the official documents say | Where to check |
|---|---|---|
| Introduction | Introduced as an option with the Windows 10 May 2020 Update (version 2004), and at that time it was an opt-in feature that was off by default. | Microsoft DirectX Developer Blog, June 30, 2020 |
| Requirements | A recent GPU with the necessary hardware, plus a WDDM 2.7 driver that exposes support. | dxdiag > Display tab > Drivers > Driver Model |
| Toggle visibility | The toggle appears only when both the GPU and the driver support it; otherwise it is not shown at all. | Settings > System > Display > Graphics |
| NVIDIA | GeForce and TITAN GPUs with Game Ready driver 451.48 WHQL or later, as announced in June 2020 when the feature launched. | NVIDIA GeForce News, June 24, 2020 |
| Intel | Arc B-Series supports it on Windows 11 22H2 or later; Arc A-Series is not currently supported (document last reviewed July 24, 2025). | Intel support article |
| AMD | This article does not list AMD support details. Check the release notes of your AMD driver to see whether your GPU is supported. | AMD driver release notes |
| Current default | Support and the default state are decided by the GPU and driver, so they can differ between PCs. Check the current state in Settings. | Microsoft DirectX Developer Blog, June 30, 2020 |
Checklist when the toggle is missing or behaves oddly
- I confirmed that Windows is the 10 May 2020 Update (version 2004) or later.
- I confirmed in dxdiag that Driver Model is WDDM 2.7 or higher.
- I updated the graphics driver to the latest official version from the GPU maker, because the toggle is shown only with a supported GPU and driver.
- For Intel Arc, I checked that A-Series is not supported and that B-Series needs Windows 11 22H2 or later according to the Intel document.
- I did not confuse it with Optimizations for windowed games, a separate setting that Microsoft describes as turned on under Default settings in Settings > System > Display > Graphics and aimed at DirectX 10/11 games in windowed or borderless mode.
- If something got worse after enabling it, I reverted to the previous state and sent feedback to Microsoft.
Where this meets game recording
The official Microsoft and NVIDIA documents checked for this article do not say whether this toggle changes recording quality or recording performance, so this article makes no claim either way. Drawing the game and encoding the video both use the GPU, so when frames wobble it helps to look at the encoding load as well as scheduling settings. DOR is a free Windows desktop recording app. On a PC with an NVIDIA graphics card, NVENC hardware encoding is its default way of recording, and it captures game audio together with your microphone. On PC, Rainbow Six Siege is a game where DOR detects the supported game and records the full match to mp4 automatically, but it is not one of the games with automatic highlight clips for kills. For ways to lower the GPU load of recording itself, see how to reduce GPU load while recording.
Official sources (checked September 30, 2026)
This article was checked against the following official documents on September 30, 2026: the Microsoft DirectX Developer Blog post on Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling (June 30, 2020), the NVIDIA GeForce News announcement of the DirectX 12 Ultimate Game Ready driver (June 24, 2020) and the Intel support article on HAGS with Intel Arc graphics (last reviewed July 24, 2025). The redesigned Graphics page comes from the DirectX Developer Blog post of January 19, 2023, the dxdiag steps from its July 2017 post, and the windowed-game setting from a Microsoft Support article. Menu wording and default states can change with updates, so trust your own screen if it differs.
