After weeks of testing across shooters, RPGs, and racers, I found three PS5 settings that consistently made games feel faster, smoother, and more responsive. None require extra hardware, and together they deliver a bigger upgrade than most people expect—especially if you own a modern TV that supports high refresh rates.
The headline gains come from prioritizing performance in Game Presets, turning on 120Hz plus VRR, and stopping automatic background captures. The result: steadier frame pacing, noticeably lower input lag, and fewer random hitches when trophies pop or the action spikes.
Set Game Presets To Performance Mode For Higher FPS
This is the switch that most PS5 owners miss, and it’s the fastest path to higher frame rates. Go to Settings > Saved Data and Game/App Settings > Game Presets > Performance Mode or Resolution Mode, then choose Performance Mode. From now on, supporting games will default to their high-FPS mode instead of their highest-resolution mode.
For titles like God of War Ragnarök, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, and Call of Duty, that typically means targeting 60 frames per second instead of 30 or a 40 FPS “quality” mode. In practical terms, you’re cutting frame time from roughly 33.3 ms to 16.7 ms, which directly reduces perceived latency and motion blur.
Digital Foundry’s analyses repeatedly show that performance modes stabilize input response and frame pacing far better than resolution modes during combat or traversal. If you value snappy controls over pixel peeping, this one change can transform how the PS5 feels—especially in fast shooters or demanding open-worlds.
Enable 120Hz Output And VRR For Smoother Gameplay
Next, unlock the console’s high refresh features. Head to Settings > Screen and Video > Video Output. Set 120Hz Output to Automatic. Set VRR to Automatic and enable Apply to Unsupported Games. If your TV supports it, also ensure ALLM (Auto Low Latency Mode) is set to Automatic. HDMI 2.1 displays are ideal, but Sony’s firmware also added 1440p and VRR support for many monitors.
Why it works: 120Hz halves the sampling interval compared with 60Hz, and many TVs cut input lag dramatically at 120Hz. Testing from RTINGS and DisplayLag shows input lag often falls by 30–50% when you move from 60Hz to 120Hz modes. Even when a game runs at 60 FPS, outputting at 120Hz can reduce latency and smooth motion due to finer frame delivery.
VRR (variable refresh rate) is the stutter killer. It syncs your display’s refresh to the game’s fluctuating frame rate, greatly reducing tearing and judder. On titles with uneven performance—think big battles in Elden Ring or large multiplayer skirmishes—VRR can keep animation feeling coherent when the frame rate dips.
For games with 120 FPS modes, like Fortnite, Rocket League, and many recent shooters, the difference in responsiveness is immediate. For everything else, VRR plus 120Hz still improves consistency, while ALLM ensures your TV automatically switches into its lowest-latency “Game” profile.
Disable Automatic Trophy Videos And Big Captures
This last change targets micro-stutter and storage thrash. By default, the PS5 records a short video every time you earn a trophy. That background capture can trigger small hitches right when the system spikes activity. To turn it off, go to Settings > Captures and Broadcasts > Trophies and switch Save Trophy Videos to Off. While you’re there, set screenshots to the most efficient format or disable them, and in Captures set clip resolution and length conservatively.
Community testing and developer commentary have long noted that on-the-fly video encoding competes for resources and pounds the SSD with extra writes. Each clip can be tens of megabytes, and over weeks of play these add up to gigabytes of unnecessary storage, which can also slow content management. Turning off auto-capture removes a hidden source of hiccups and keeps free space healthier for game patches and shader caches.
If you record gameplay regularly, map the Create button to manual clips only. You still get the highlights you want, without the invisible overhead you don’t.
What To Expect After These Tweaks On Your PS5
With Performance Mode active, 120Hz and VRR enabled, and background captures disabled, the PS5 feels tangibly quicker. Cursor movement and camera pans respond with less lag, heavy scenes stutter less, and multiplayer gunfights feel more immediate. On a capable TV, the input-lag reduction alone is the kind of improvement you can feel within minutes.
These changes don’t rewrite a game’s internal rendering, but they align the console, display, and storage behavior around one goal—responsiveness. For most players, that’s a bigger upgrade than chasing pure resolution, and it costs nothing but a few minutes in Settings.
