What does the MSI game boost do? Does it work? Is it Safe?

If you ever feel like your gaming PC is getting slower over time, there are some great ways to improve the performance of your gaming machine so that it continues to run fast, seamlessly, and brand new over time.

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What is the MSI game boost and what does it do?

Basically, the MSI game boost is a great way to overclock your CPU, RAM, and GPU. What you get is software that pushes your system beyond the average features. It is what we call a lazy man’s way to overclock as it is very easy for people of all skill levels. So just what does the MSI game boost do? Does it work for people? Can we consider it safe? This article will be discussing that and much more.

How to use the MSI game boost

The first thing to do is to turn the dial.
You could also download and use the MSI gaming app. The external clock generator allows you more space to do BCLK adjustments so that your gaming PC reaches the maximum overclock for your gaming setup. The MSI game boost – when turned on—will reduce the power consumption of your gaming PC, so your machine continues to perform seamlessly even under some of the most extreme conditions.

Does the MSI Game Boost work well?

While it performed well on some of our tests, it failed on some others. On a few of our tests, we noticed a very little boost in the CPU core, somewhere around 500MHz or lower. When we disabled the MSI game boost and did a manual overclocking on those machines, we saw something better in improvements.

When the MSI Game Boost doesn’t work

If like in our situation, the MSI game boost doesn’t work in some cases, here are a few things that you could try out.

On your BIOS screen, try to increase the CPU Vid by .01 and increase the multiplier by 2. You can then save and exit.
Try to restart your computer and play a game on your PC to see how stable it is.
You can continue adjusting the CPU Vid until the games start to perform up to par, save the settings, exit BIOS, retry until you hit a sweet spot. We discovered that on some machines, improving this factor has gotten the MSI Game Boost to work.

Other ways to improve your gaming performance

One of the best ways to improve gaming performance and efficiency is to use the M.2 connectors with SSD devices. Most MSI motherboards have the PCI-Express Gen3 x4 that runs as fast as 32GB per second. The M.2 Shield cools and protects your M.2 devices, improving the overall efficiency of the build while decreasing the level of noise, and improving the quality of your streaming.

Another feature is the X-Boost. This simple-to-use feature is designed to detect the storage devices that are connected to your machine. When you activate the X-Boost in your MSI gaming app, your SSDs get auto optimized, so your system remains fast, your in-game performance remains fluid, while data transfer goes faster.

While not a feature of its own, we have seen the improvement that comes when you clean your machine physically. Over time, your PC fans inhale dust and debris, so it gets clogged and you may start experiencing overheating of the machine. This will gradually decrease the quality of your machine’s performance and reduce the hardware’s lifespan.

Just use compressed air to gently, but firmly remove dusts, dirt and clogs out of the most difficult places in your machine, so you don’t have to open the machine, hence risk damaging the machine. What you get out of a physical cleaning of your machine is that its airflow remains constant, hence components like the CPU and GPU stay cool.

Is the MSI Game Boost Safe?

Experienced gamers and gaming machine builders suggest that when you use the MSI game boost way too often, your PC can start to overheat, causing it to function at even a lower level of efficiency. We noticed something when we enabled the MSI game boost on one of our machines. Our Core I5-6600K Vcore was instantly set to 1.4v. So it clearly got too much voltage into the CPU Vcore and that is enough to damage the PC. As a rule of thumb, try to do any kind of OC manually, not automatically using a tool like MSI Gaming Boost and other similar ones.

What Is MSI X Boost and How Can You Use It

The MSI X-Boost is one of the proprietary utility software that MSI develops. MSI develops this software to give users the ability to activate the MSI technology that is in their system’s mainboards.

Activating the MSI technology will help to increase the speed of storage devices. According to MSI, the MSI X Boost feature can increase your flash storage and hard drives’ copy and read rates by 30%.

However, this is only a theoretical claim. In reality, we have observed through real-world tests that you won’t get as much increased speed as MSI claims you can.

In fact, real-world tests barely show a significant difference between the read/write speeds when you activate the MSI X-Boost feature and when you don’t.

How to Use the MSI X-Boost

If you want to use the MSI X-Boost, you have to first understand that the feature has two modes. They are known as the Easy and the Advanced modes.

Easy mode: The Easy mode allows you to select one system performance mode that you want to match with your current system environment.

On the MSI X-Boost interface, there are two sections of information.

The left-hand side contains the “Performance information”. It displays the system performance diagram of the mode you have selected to match your current system environment.

Meanwhile, the right-hand side contains the “Performance mode”. You can simply move your mouse over to any one of the performance modes and click on the “ON” button to enable it.

Advanced mode: The Advance page provides options for you to enable the “USB SPEED UP”, “STORAGE BOOST”, and the “VR BOOST”.

The left side of the Advanced mode page features a device information section. This section displays the information and current transfer rates of USB storage devices.

It also displays the access speeds of USB storage devices.

When you enable the “USB SPEED UP” feature, you will get support for faster data transfer rates on your USB storage devices. Meanwhile, the “STORAGE BOOST” will provide faster access speed to your storage device.

On the other hand, the VR BOOST provides the optimized settings to help boost your system for a better VR experience.

Should I Turn ON MSI Fast Boot?

The decision to turn on MSI fast boot depends on some factors which may eventually go down to personal preference. After all, some people consider it one of the best options on MSI.

Meanwhile, others consider it to be bloatware.

Besides, since most computers using the MSI fast boot can boot up reasonably quickly on their own, it makes you wonder if it is necessary.

If you are unsure about whether to use the MSI fast boot or not, the list of information below can help you decide.

You can’t speed up your computer’s booting process to faster than it already is.
Not everyone will be able to get the full benefits of the MSI fast boot.
The MSI fast boot won’t start until after your computer has finished booting.
You can manually do all the things you need to do in your Task Manager.
The MSI fast boot disables some necessary checks.

How Do I Use MSI Gaming Mode?

The MSI Gaming Mode enables you to optimize your computer system, monitor, and other peripherals so you can get the best gaming experience.

To use the MSI Gaming Mode, you will need to first access MSI Dragon Center on your computer. In the MSI Dragon Center, you will see a left-side navigation menu.

Select “Gaming Mode” in the sub menu to enter the Gaming Mode control panel.

In the Gaming Mode control panel, you will see a “Game Mode” switch and an “Option” setting on the upper right corner of each game icon. Tap on the “Game Mode” switch to apply Gaming Mode to a game.

The Gaming Modes you can apply to a game include “System Performance,” “True Color,” “Touchpad Disabled,” “Mystic Light,” and “Game Highlight.”

If you want to add games to the Gaming Mode:

STEP 1: Click the “Add Game” button.
STEP 2: Then select the game’s .exe file.

If you want to remove games from Gaming Mode:

STEP 1: Click the “Remove Game” icon
STEP 2: Click the “Yes” button on the pop-up menu to confirm your action

Does MSI Game Boost Void Warranty?

Few years ago, the answer to this question would have been a straight “Yes”. This is because according to most manufacturers, overclocking your CPU will automatically void your warranty.

Since MSI Game Boost is a way of overclocking the CPU, it is no exception.

However, recent forum discussions have suggested that using MSI Game Boost won’t automatically void your warranty in most cases. This is because it may not be possible in all cases to see whether someone has overclocked their CPU at any point in time.

How to Overclock with MSI Command Center

Overclocking with the MSI Command Center is a straightforward process.

Just open your MSI Command Center and click on “OC Mode.” Your computer will reboot to complete the overclocking process.

After you overclock your computer the first time, it may not necessarily reboot each time you observe the process.

How to Optimize PC for Gaming – 5 Tips That Works

If you want to optimize your PC for gaming, consider the tips below.

Enable Game Mode on your PC: The Game Mode on your PC is a built-in tool that has been designed to optimize your PC for gaming. It enables you to optimize your computer system, monitor, and other peripherals to get the best gaming experience.

Depending on the PC brand you use, the process of enabling the Game Mode on your PC may differ. For instance, gaming PCs like Alienware and MSI usually come with their proprietary tools for enabling Game Mode.

If you make use of a regular Windows 10 PC, here’s how to activate its Gaming Mode:

STEP 1: Click the “Cog” icon in the “Start menu” to go to “Settings”
STEP 2: Select “Gaming” from the list of options in the Windows setting menu
STEP 3: Select “Game Mode” from the menu on the left side of the new page that opens up
STEP 4: Toggle the “Game Mode” switch on the right side of the Game Mode page

Update your graphics card drivers: Your graphics card is the primary driver of your gaming experience. You need to know that your graphics card won’t work in the best condition if you don’t have the right graphics driver.

Updating your graphics card driver will help boost your FPS. However, if you don’t know how to upgrade your graphics card driver, below is a quick guide.

To update an Nvidia GeForce graphics card:

STEP 1: Go to the GeForce driver website
STEP 2: Select your graphics card and Windows version from the list on the screen
STEP 3: Click the “Start Search” button to search for upgrades.

If there are available upgrades, your PC will source for them, and you can proceed to complete the updating process.

To update an ATI Radeon Graphics card:

STEP 1: Go to the AMD software downloads website
STEP 2: Select your graphics card
STEP 3: You will gain access to the latest official driver that you can download and install

To update an Intel HD Graphics card: You can get updated drivers by going to the Intel Download Center’s graphics page.

Overclock your graphics card: You can push your graphics card beyond its default speed setting by overclocking it. For example, a slight GPU overclock of just 15% can cause enough performance adjustment to boost your gaming experience significantly.
Upgrade your graphics card: In some cases, your graphics card may not have enough capacity to run modern games adequately.

If your PC cannot satisfy your gaming needs, you can consider upgrading your current GPU to a more powerful one.

Upgrade your PC’s RAM: A PC’s RAM is like the fuel that gives it the power to run all current tasks. The more RAM you have, the more your computer will be able to do at once.

If you upgrade your PC’s RAM, you will not only be optimizing it for gaming, but you will also be improving your PC’s general performance.

Whenever you want to add more RAM to the current one you have, make sure t confirm that you are getting the same module. It is not advisable to mix up more than one type of RAM module.

If you want to change all your RAMs, ensure that your motherboard can support the new ones you are getting.

Why Isn’t MSI Game Boost Working? – Possible Issues and Working Fixes

Here are some reasons why your MSI Game Boost may not be working.

You may be running an old version of the MSI Command Center.

Since newer versions of programs usually come with many fixes, it is always necessary to install them. Running an old version of such programs can lead to incompatibility issues.

If you are running an old version of the MSI Command Center, you may be facing similar issues.

Running recent program updates or system drivers can also cause compatibility issues. For example, if you recently updated your MSI Command Center or some of your drivers, you may have to adjust some of your system’s settings to enable compatibility.
It could be that you have not given the MSI gaming app administrator permission and user access.
The tool itself or some of its files may be corrupted files.

Here are some of the things you can do to fix the problem:

Install the latest version of the MSI Command Center: Most times, what you simply need to solve a program’s issues is to download the newest version.

To get the latest version of the MSI Command Center:

STEP 1: Uninstall the MSI Command Center that you are currently running. You can uninstall the app by going to your Control Panel or the remove app option.
STEP 2: Go to the MSI support website
STEP 3: Input your computer information. After doing that, the MSI website will search for the latest tools and drivers for you to download.
STEP 4: Download the latest MSI Command Center app and install it.

Run the MSI Gaming app as administrator: Your MSI Game Boost may not be working because of permission problems. According to many users, they have been able to fix issues with the MSI Game Boost by running MSI as administrator.

If you don’t know how to fix your MSI Game Boost issue by running the app as an administrator, follow the guide below:

STEP 1: Look for the MSI gaming app icon. Try searching for it in the “Start Menu.”
STEP 2: Right-click on the MSI gaming icon and select “Properties”
STEP 3: Look for the “Compatibility” tab in the “Properties”
STEP 4: In the “Compatibility” tab, click on the “Run This Program As An Administrator” option.
STEP 5: Click on “Apply” and then click on “OK”
STEP 6: You may get a pop-up screen. Click on “Yes” or “Continue” to complete the process.

Uninstall and update your MSI service driver software: You may have to update your MSI service driver if you want to fix the issues you have with your MSI Game Boost.

Simply go to the Display Adapters options to locate your MSI service driver software. You may also be able to find it around your graphics card driver.

Follow the process below to update your MSI service driver software.

STEP 1: Launch the “Run” application by pressing the Windows + R key.
STEP 2: Find the driver that contains MSI and right-click on it.
STEP 3: Click on “Uninstall the driver”
STEP 4: Restart your PC
STEP 5: Go back to the device manager and click “Scan for hardware changes.” This action will help reinstall the driver.
STEP 6: Another thing you could do instead of scanning for hardware changes is to access the driver’s properties and click on “Update Driver.”

About The Author

John Adebimitan

John Adebimitan is an accomplished tech writer with a passion for unraveling the complexities of the digital world. With a keen eye for detail and a knack for simplifying technical jargon, John has been instrumental in guiding readers through the ever-evolving landscape of technology.

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