Myth: bcdedit useplatformclock / disabledynamictick / useplatformtick give free FPS — via Microsoft Learn

MythNeeds adminWindows 11Windows 10

Gaming guides tell you to force HPET or turn off the dynamic tick with bcdedit. Microsoft's own BCDEdit reference says each of these options 'should only be used for debugging'. They aren't performance settings, and on some systems they make timing worse.

What to do instead

See whether you set any: in an elevated terminal run bcdedit /enum {current} and look for useplatformclock, useplatformtick or disabledynamictick.
Remove only the ones you added, for example bcdedit /deletevalue {current} useplatformclock, then restart. (In PowerShell, put quotes around "{current}".)

Microsoft also cautions that some BCDEdit changes can make a computer unbootable, and that you may need to suspend BitLocker before changing boot options.

Sources

BCDEdit /set — by Microsoft Learn

Source reviewed: 2026-11-02
Link checked: 2026-11-02
Tested hands-on: Not by Oddbyte.Me

Oddbyte.Me hasn't tried this on every Windows build, so keep the undo handy.

bcdedithpetuseplatformclockdynamic tickgamingmyth

More in Myths: Skip These

Myth: your Mac needs a 'cleaner' or 'optimizer' app — via The Safe Mac

Myth

Cleaner suites promise a faster Mac by deleting caches, logs and 'junk'. Caches exist to speed things up, so deleting them usually makes things slower until they're rebuilt, and deleting logs makes problems harder to diagnose. A Mac doesn't need routine cleaning.

Myth: turning off Spotlight makes your Mac faster — via Howard Oakley, The Eclectic Light Company

Myth

Old tips say to switch off Spotlight indexing to speed up a Mac. It's a blunt fix that breaks search, and it doesn't work the way people think: switching off the categories in Spotlight settings doesn't actually stop indexing, and Howard Oakley found it can even slow some Finder operations.

Myth: you should run the daily/weekly/monthly maintenance scripts — via Ben Schwan, heise online

MythAdmin

For years, Mac 'maintenance' advice was to run sudo periodic daily weekly monthly, or let a utility app do it. Apple stopped relying on these scripts and removed the periodic command entirely in macOS Sequoia. Housekeeping like log cleanup is handled automatically by other parts of macOS.