Read first · no risk
Reading the diagnostics scan
The Pro tier opens with a scan before it changes anything. It reads your rig and prints a plain-text report — no FPS promises, no scare tactics, just facts and the one thing to do about each. This page is the key to that report: every line, what it means, and the exact tweak or setting that addresses it.
Three kinds of line
Each line is tagged. The tag tells you whether to do anything. Most of a healthy report is OK — that is the point. You are hunting for the other two.
- Nothing to do. A fact for context, or a check that passed. Some OK lines still suggest a FrameForge tweak in passing — those are optional, not urgent.
- Worth a look, not an emergency. Long uptime, an aging driver, a lot of startup items, a latency-adding Windows feature. Fix at your convenience.
- Do this. A concrete win is on the table — almost always a BIOS change or a tweak the app can apply. The RAM-below-rated line is the one you most want to see, because the fix is free and large.
OK
WARN
ACTION
The scan only reads
Diagnostics is read-only. It runs
powercfg /query, WMI queries, and registry reads to build the report — it changes nothing on its own. Acting on a line is always your call, either by ticking the named tweak and clicking Apply, or by going into BIOS yourself.frameforge — diagnostics
Every check, and what to do
The reference report below is from the test rig — a Ryzen 5 4500, an RX 580, and 16 GB of RAM. Your numbers will differ; the meanings do not.
diagnostics → meaning → action
| Check | What it reads | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| OS & uptime | Windows build, and how long since the last restart. A machine up for 11 days accumulates leaked memory, stale drivers in RAM, and background cruft. | Reboot. The cheapest fix there is. Restart before a session if uptime is into the days — it clears the lot. No tweak needed. |
| RAM in use | Used vs total, e.g. 7184 / 16329 MB. Context for whether 16 GB is enough for what you run alongside the game. | Usually nothing. If you are routinely near the ceiling with a browser and Discord open, that is a hardware-upgrade hint, not a tweak. |
| RAM speed vs rated ACTION | Running speed against the kit’s rated speed, e.g. 2133 MT/s but rated 3200. Out of the box, Windows runs RAM at a slow JEDEC default. | The biggest free FPS gain. Enable DOCP / EXPO / XMP in BIOS and set RAM to its rated speed. Software cannot do this for you. See the BIOS guide. |
| GPU & driver age WARN | Card name, driver version, and the driver’s date. The scan flags anything older than roughly 120 days. | If it is old, update the driver from AMD or NVIDIA directly — not Windows Update. A clean current driver is the second-biggest free win after RAM speed. |
| Refresh rate ACTION | Current Hz against the highest the display reports, e.g. at 60Hz but supports 144Hz. A surprising number of monitors ship set to 60. | Set it to the max. Settings → System → Display → Advanced display → choose the highest refresh rate. Pure, free smoothness you may have been leaving off. |
| Power plan | The active Windows power scheme. Balanced parks cores and throttles the CPU for power saving you do not want while gaming. | Apply the Ultimate Performance tweak (the power tweak). It activates the high-performance plan and disables core parking and PCIe power-down. |
| Startup items WARN | Count of programs launching at boot, e.g. 18. Each one costs RAM, disk, and boot time. | Trim it in Task Manager → Startup. The Extreme tier’s debloat and procreduce tweak also cut Edge, OneDrive, and the Epic launcher from autostart. |
| C: free space | Free percentage and gigabytes on the system drive, e.g. 34% (162 GB). A nearly full SSD slows down and cannot manage wear well. | Keep at least 10–15% free. The Free tier’s temp-file cleanup helps a little; real space comes from uninstalling, not tweaks. |
| SSD TRIM ACTION | Whether NTFS TRIM is enabled. With it off, an SSD’s write speed degrades over time as it loses track of free blocks. | Run the TRIM tweak (storage_trim). It verifies and enables TRIM and leaves the beneficial scheduled ReTrim alone — disabling that is a myth. |
| GPU MSI mode | Whether the GPU uses Message-Signaled Interrupts. Legacy line-based interrupts can add DPC latency and stutter. | Run the MSI mode tweak (msi). It is often already on; verifying is safe. Needs a reboot to take effect. |
| Pending reboot | Whether Windows is sitting on a reboot it wants — usually after an update. Until you restart, some changes are half-applied. | Reboot before applying tweaks, so you start from a clean, settled state. Then apply, then reboot again if the app asks. |
| Game Mode | Whether Windows Game Mode is on. It tells Windows to favour the foreground game and hold back background work. | If off, the Game Mode tweak (gamemode) flips it on and kills background capture overhead. It is in every tier, including Free. |
| Core Isolation / HVCI WARN | Whether Memory Integrity (HVCI) is on. It is a real security feature — it also runs drivers in a virtualized layer that can add a little input latency. | Your call. Optional, and FrameForge will not touch it for you. To turn it off: Windows Security → Device security → Core isolation → Memory integrity. Weigh latency against the protection you give up. |
What the scan is really telling you
Three of these lines — RAM below rated speed, an old GPU driver, and a monitor below its max refresh rate — are where almost all the “free FPS” actually lives, and not one of them is a registry tweak. The scan exists to find those for you and send you to the BIOS guide or your GPU vendor’s download page. The tweaks the app applies are the rest: real, measured, and reversible.