How To Disable Visual Effects in Windows 11 (Boost Speed)

Visual Effects in Windows 11 and their uses

• Animate Controls and elements inside Windows – These are the animations inside the file or folder, which include fade effect, pulsating effect, taskbar animations, and start menu slide-up animation.
• Animate Windows when minimizing and maximizing – When you press the restore button on the top-right side of the window, you will notice some animation taking place while the window is being minimized or maximized.
• Animations in taskbar – These are micro-animations and micro-interactions taking place inside the taskbar while hovering and pressing the icons.
• Enable Peek – This feature allows you to get a preview of the windows on your taskbar, making it easier to filter through the numerous windows you use on a regular basis.
• Fade or Slide Menus into view – This includes fading and sliding effects taking place inside the whole Windows.
• Fade or slide ToolTips into view – When you hover your cursor over a file, folder, or app in Windows, the name of the object appears and a tiny sliding effect appears to reveal the file name.
• Fade out menu items after clicking – It’s pretty self-explanatory, when you click the menu items, you will notice a fade-out effect.
• Save Taskbar Thumbnail Previews – When you hover over an icon on the taskbar of opened items, it will show an instant thumbnail preview of the opened tab.
• Show Shadows under Mouse Pointer – These are the shadows visible under the cursor.
• Show Shadows under Windows – These involve the shadows under an opened in-view window.
• Show Thumbnails instead of icons – When you look at an image in Windows, you’ll see a thumbnail instead of the Image File App.
• Show Translucent selection rectangle – It’s the box that appears when you press and hold the left mouse button, then moves it over items to choose them when you let go of the button.
• Show window contents while dragging – When you drag the Window, you’ll see that the content is also dragged. If this option is disabled, you will see an outline being moved.
• Slide-open combo boxes – The combo box is similar to a drop-down box on Windows. When you click the down arrow in the address bar, you will notice a sliding animation.
• Smooth edges of screen fonts – When this feature is enabled, you will see smoother edges of Fonts, by default, Microsoft Windows uses Segoe UI Variable font.
• Smooth-scroll list boxes – When smooth scrolling is turned on, a row is scrolled completely, and partial scrolling, if turned off.
• Use drop shadows for icon labels on the desktop – Under the Icon Label (that is the text below an icon), you will observe shadows behind the text.

---

Pros of Disabling Visual Effects

Performance Impacts

The Visual Effects in Windows make use of graphic card and CPU to render the graphics including shadows, transparency effects (also called Glassmorphism effect), smooth edges, etc. So disabling the visuals will lower the GPU usage and increase the device’s performance, especially while rendering in low-end GPU. For a computer, an images and other visuals are just matrices and the GPU is way faster than the CPU in performing operations on matrices.

But, in Microsoft’s Q&A session, they stated that enabling or disabling Visual Effects in Windows 11 will not impact performance. As per Microsoft, Mica transparency (which is a part of the Microsoft Fluent Design System) was specifically designed for better performance as compared to the old Acrylic design. Also, the effects such as rounded corners are optimized for rendering performance.

It’s a bit contradictory statement by Microsoft because the “Adjust for best performance” option is still available when we access the performance options panel. If visuals don’t affect performance, then there should be no need for this option.

Reduced Cognitive Load

Some users might feel cognitive overload and distractions due to excessive visual effects in Windows 11. There can be plenty of reasons for cognitive overload in Windows (varying from person to person) including Too many options provided to the user (Hick’s Law), Ambiguous UI, Complex navigation, etc.

---

Next Steps

We’ve covered how to disable visual effects in Windows 11.

Visual Effects should be off if you prioritize speed and performance on your Windows 11. You should not disable it if you are concerned about appearance. Additionally, you may turn off Windows’ transparency effects by enabling the “Battery Saving” mode at the expense of your device’s performance. Finally, it’s entirely up to your preferences.

Further, increase your PC performance by following the related articles below.

---

Related Articles

How To Check Video RAM in Windows 11

Video RAM (also, called video memory) is responsible for rendering 3D objects in games, 3D Modelling, and other graphics-intensive tasks. Check whether your device possesses sufficient Video Memory for rendering graphics based on your requirements.

Check DirectX Version in Windows

The DirectX version plays a major role in the computer’s performance. Check whether or not your device possesses the latest DirectX version.

Allocate More RAM To Specific Apps in Windows

If you are facing performance issues with particular apps, try to allocate more RAM for a specific program to increase performance.

Change DNS Server in Windows for Faster Internet

Improve your computer’s internet speed by configuring the DNS server in Windows depending on your location.

Take a Minute to Share This Article.