If you have a Windows 10 machine that's old or doesn't have much RAM, you're probably fed up by how slow it feels. Fortunately, there are a few small tweaks you can make to the system's Settings to produce a smoother experience.

Namely, you can adjust startup settings to make your machine boot faster and you can also adjust the visual effects settings to make the actual user experience feels smoother.

To tweak visual effects settings:

  1. Open up System Properties on your computer. There are a couple of ways you can do this. Using the Cortana search feature, type in the following: Sysdm.cpl and hit Enter. Or in Windows Explorer, right-click This PC and select Properties from the context menu. In the window that opens up, click Advanced System Settings.
  2. You should see a small popup window with several tabs. Click on the Advanced tab, and under Performance click Settings.
  3. On the Visual Effects tab, select Adjust for best performance. 

All of the animations and visual effects that were previously toggled on will all be turned off in one go. You will definitely see a visual difference in the system's appearance including in icons and fonts.

If your computer's performance doesn't require drastic measures, you could opt for a customized approach, and toggle on only the features you really can't part with. (If you use Microsoft products like Outlook, you'll probably want to keep Smooth edges of screen fonts turned on.)

Do you prefer to sacrifice appearance for speed? What other tips or tricks do you use to speed up your machine? Let us know in the comments.