VBS technology is a security feature that helps protect the operating system from malware, but as we’ve told you on previous occasions can cause Windows 11 to lose performance, and quite noticeably, especially in games. For this reason, in our guide on how to improve Windows 11 performance, we recommend disabling this technology.

Obviously, by disabling VBS we are sacrificing a security layer to improve performance, but is it really worth it? If we are talking about a company or a professional who works with sensitive data, of course it’s worth having it activated, but for a private user it’s not, because it doesn’t make a big difference in the end result, or it’s essential, and we remove an important burden.

You’re probably wondering at this point how much difference does it make to disable VBS in Windows 11and thanks to the very complete analysis done by Tom’s Hardware, we can give you a clear and direct answer. The difference in game performance between enabling and disabling such technology can be up to 11.2% at medium speed and up to 37.7% at minimum speed.

Take a good look at the attached image, it shows the performance data of 15 different games using the GeForce RTX 4090 at different graphics settings and resolutions. With VBS disabled Microsoft Flight Simulator has 168.8 FPS at 1080p and high quality and 151.9 FPS with the same settings and VBS enabled. The drop in performance is 11.2%.

Total War Warhammer 3, under DirectX 11, recorded a minimum frame rate of 113.4 FPS at 1080p at maximum quality with VBS off. With VBS enabled, the minimum FPS was 82.3 FPS, a drop of 37.7%. In other games, the crashes are less pronounced, but in the end we can clearly see it the impact of this technology is greater at minimum FPS than at medium frequencies.

However, it is important to keep in mind that the device used in these tests had a high-end configuration, and that this GeForce RTX 4090 was accompanied by an Intel Core i9-13900K, which means that there is a lot in games. If the same tests were performed with a more modest PC and more limited at the CPU level, the results would be different and I believe that the impact of VBS activation I would end up as a senior.

The conclusion we have to draw from this is simpler and simpler than it seems. If we are going to use our computer to play, it is recommended to turn off VBS, because we will enjoy more performance and not make any significant sacrifices. If our main goal is not to play games and if we will use the PC or laptop professionally, it would be advisable to leave VBS activated, as we mentioned at the beginning of this article. Any doubts you can leave in comments and we will help you to solve them.