Keep Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling On or Off? [2024]

Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling was a new feature introduced in Windows 10 2004 that supersedes the default WDDM GPU Scheduler. This new setting enables the GPU to schedule its own tasks. With updates over the years, HAGS (Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling) offers improved gaming performance and reduced latency. But should you turn it on?

How Does GPU Scheduling Work?

Traditionally, the CPU is responsible for managing the GPU’s memory and its task schedule. If you’re playing a game, the application sends a lot of resource-intensive rendering textures and whatnot to the GPU. The CPU manages the order in which these tasks are handled through the Windows Display Driver Model or WDDM.

WDDM, at its core, always required a high-priority thread (Logical Core) on the CPU that handled this scheduling. You can see the obvious drawback here. For every new task, the CPU has to communicate with the GPU, introducing latency. Moreover, this scheduling puts extra strain on your CPU and it may be unable to keep up with the GPU’s demand.

Another flaw of CPU scheduling is that the CPU always schedules tasks in advance for the GPU, this is called buffering. If the GPU is rendering frame N on your screen and you move your mouse, this action will first be processed by the CPU in frame N+1 and then displayed.

It is also important to mention that CPU scheduling tries to achieve a balance between input lag and CPU load. If fewer but larger chunks of tasks are sent, this can reduce the burden on the CPU but create latency. If frequent but smaller batches of tasks are sent, it can help alleviate latency issues but increase complexity and necessitate higher CPU clock speeds.

↪ Meet HAGS

With the Windows 10 May 2020 (2004) update, Microsoft introduced a new GPU scheduler to counteract these shortcomings. We’ve discussed most of what it does in the above section, however, HAGS sets the foundation for many new technologies to come. For example, NVIDIA’s Frame Generation technology requires HAGS to function.

Hardware-accelerated GPU Scheduling offloads most of the GPU’s tasks and memory management to a dedicated processor on the GPU. This eliminates the intermediary (CPU) and mitigates most of the input latency issues introduced by traditional methods.

All said and done, does HAGS actually increase performance? Theoretically and technically, it should. Microsoft claims that HAGS will not cause performance regressions, whereas NVIDIA and AMD both claim that this feature could improve performance and latency.

We’ve seen and will cover many instances where HAGS can lead to a significant performance boost, free of cost. However, in some other cases, HAGS can produce instability and crashes. We’ll discuss them in a later section.

READ MORE: Should you Enable Hardware-Accelerated GPU Scheduling?

How to Turn On Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling

First things first, does your GPU support HAGS? Let’s see the supported GPUs and architectures from all 3 major GPU manufacturers.

• NVIDIA: GTX 10 or Higher with the GeForce 450 Driver
• AMD: RX 7700 and Above (On Windows 11 Only)
• Intel: Not Supported Yet

Here’s how you can turn on Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling if your system and driver support it:

1. Press the shortcut Win + I on your keyboard as shown in the image.
   
   
   
2. Once the Settings tab opens, in the Search Bar type “Graphics” and select the option that says “Graphics settings.
   
   
   
3. Once the Graphics page opens, click on the highlighted option saying “Change default graphics settings“.
   
   
   
4. Turn on the “Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling” option as shown.
   
   
   
5. It is recommended that you restart your PC to ensure everything works properly.

READ MORE: Is your Windows Continuously Restarting? Try these Fixes ➜

Should You Turn HAGS On?

While only NVIDIA realistically supports (and AMD to some extent) HAGS, let’s discuss whether you should use this feature. We’ll go across various benchmarks, synthetic and gaming to see if HAGS makes a difference.

Generally, a small performance loss/gain should be negligible and will be in the margin of error. What we want to look for is outliers and check if the performance tanks in specific scenarios.

Lucky for us, Puget Systems conducted a large number of synthetic tests a while back. We’ll be using their numbers as a reference to see if HAGS is really worth all the hype.

1. Synthetic Testing

Again, the credit goes to Puget Systems for spending valuable time conducting these tests. From the results, we find that HAGS has very little impact on synthetic benchmarks. So if you’re looking to impress your friends with a higher score then HAGS won’t do the trick.

Starting with Photoshop, the largest difference was with the AMD Threadripper PRO 5995WX and the RTX 4080 system where a configuration without HAGS leads to 8% better performance.

In After Effects, there is a consistent lead when HAGS is turned on, with the largest performance gap at 10%. Moving over to Unreal Engine 5.2, most results are within the margin of error, so no conclusive decision can be made in this case.

Blender in CPU mode sees much of the same fate with little to no contribution in performance after toggling HAGS on. Moving over to Blender with Optix, here HAGS once again shows an almost invariable lead extending up to 7% with systems having extra GPU headroom.

HAGS has both upsides and downsides, at least in synthetic where at one extreme we gain 10% extra performance but lose 5% at the other. Let’s move over to gaming next, where one would expect some actual differences.

2. Gaming

Let’s rip off the band-aid, HAGS is a mixed bag and we’ve seen cases where different architectures caused HAGS to result in a +15% and a -15% performance delta in the same game. It is that much variable. While most games won’t show a massive uplift in the average FPS, we want to keep an eye out for the 0.1% and 1% lows as those numbers determine how stuttery or smooth your gaming experience will be.

↪ NVIDIA

The first set of benchmarks features NVIDIA’s RTX 4090 paired with a Ryzen 7 5800X (Credit:
DannyzReviews). Users are free to go over all the benchmarks, but we found most to be within the margin of error, however, the ones shown in the images below showcase a substantial improvement in the experience and fluidity of the game, with HAGS turned on.

The RTX 4090 at stock in Far Cry 6 dipped as low as 62 FPS, almost dabbling into the “unplayable” territory. On turning HAGS on, the 1% lows improved to 82 FPS. In Gears 5, the average FPS improved from 107 FPS -> 118 FPS and the 1% lows also jumped from 62 FPS to 90 FPS. Mixed with ReBar, HAGS offers an almost free-of-cost improvement in your performance.

READ MORE: How to Fix Low FPS and Performance Issues in Dead Space Remake? ➜

↪ AMD

On the AMD side of things, Ancient Gameplays conducted various benchmarks a few months ago with the RX 7700 XT + Ryzen 5 7600X and the RX 7900 XTX + Ryzen 7 7700X. To our surprise, there is an endless tug of war between HAGS on and HAGS off. This can be attributed to the hardware differences between RDNA3 and Ada Lovelace. Anyhow, let’s go over the final results.

The slower Ryzen 5 7600X + RX 7700 XT setup managed to deliver worse performance with HAGS on. At 1080p and 4K, not only was the average FPS slightly lower, but the 1% lows didn’t see any increase as well. Would you consider a 1-2% decrement within the margin of error? The difference isn’t much, but the headline is that this setup didn’t see any notable improvements.

Moving over to the Ryzen 7 7700X + RX 7900 XTX, the opposite is seen here as this configuration delivers better 1% lows at 4K and 1440p, whereas 1080p is a marginal regression.

↪ Edge Case Testing

Interestingly, in CPU-bound scenarios, HAGS almost becomes a necessity. YouTuber 5700X BAE often conducts tests in CS:GO 2 and Valorant using different new technologies. With the June 2024 patch in CS:GO the RTX 3060 12GB and Ryzen 7 5700X deliver consistently better averages and lows with HAGS on. Additionally, HAGS also flattens out the frametime graph as shown in the video.

Valorant has more of the same impact as HAGS, wherein the 1% lows improve by almost 100 FPS. Likewise, the framerate also jumps from 500 FPS -> 600 FPS in some scenarios. So yes, in some edge-case scenarios, turning HAGS on is a no-brainer. It is best to try your games with and without this setting, do a bit of testing and see if you find any noticeable differences.

READ MORE: How To Convert CSGO Sens to Valorant Sensitivity? [2024]➜

Conclusion

From what we’ve seen thus far, turning HAGS on does you more good than harm. Sure, you may lose 1-2% performance, but that’s within margin of error. In the best-case scenario, your game will run much smoother and the worst that could happen is that it may crash, especially if it is an older title.

HAGS lays down the foundation for future technologies to come, like DLSS Frame Generation and whatnot. It does not guarantee a free FPS increase but there’s really no harm in turning it on. If you find that your game is stuttering for no reason, maybe HAGS could be the fix you need. If your game is crashing without any reason, try turning off HAGS.

It is also a well-known fact that HAGS in Windows 11 performs much better than in Windows 10. It is also believed that the architecture of your GPU plays a slight role in how HAGS performs. Ampere (RTX 30) has an inferior implementation of hardware scheduling than Ada Lovelace (RTX 40) as per some.

Just like how you need to try on a new shirt to see if it fits your size, it’s best if you try HAGS yourself to see if it suits your needs.