Which services can you safely disable to improve PC gaming?

Windows has many services running in the background that waste resources better spent on games.

By Roger Fingas Oct. 24, 2026 9:00 am EST Nwz/Shutterstock Add Engadget on Google: Google Discover

While PC gaming has always been an expensive hobby, it's been extra-crunched for years now. A while ago, the demand for crypto mining hardware started creating GPU shortages. Then AI processing started squeezing the GPU market even further, and more recently, memory prices have shot through the roof because of data center usage. As a result, making any upgrades to your PC or building a whole new one is an increasingly difficult investment.