Does antivirus lower FPS is one of the most debated questions in gaming communities. The fear is real and understandable: you have a background process running at all times, scanning files, monitoring network traffic, and consuming CPU and RAM that your game also needs. It seems logical that it would hurt performance.
The honest answer is more nuanced than a simple yes or no. A well-configured antivirus on a modern gaming PC causes no noticeable FPS impact. The problems come from scheduled full scans running during gameplay and real-time scanning of your games folder.
The distinction matters: it is not the antivirus itself that drops FPS in most cases. It is the antivirus doing the wrong thing at the wrong time. Understanding exactly when and why performance drops happen, and how to prevent them, is what separates gamers who fight their security software from those who run both without conflict.
Does Antivirus Actually Lower FPS? What the Data Shows
Independent tests from AV-Comparatives’ Performance Test consistently show that the performance impact of top antivirus products during gaming is 1 to 3% on average FPS, which is statistically within the margin of error on a modern gaming PC. The outliers are products running active full scans simultaneously, where the impact jumps to 15 to 25%. The conclusion: it is not the antivirus itself, it is poorly timed scans.
Research on the impact of antivirus on gameplay tested a gaming PC with five resource-intensive games, examining the impact of three security solutions across multiple scenarios. The tests revealed no impact on the gaming process, with all recorded deviations falling within the measurement error.
This does not mean every antivirus behaves equally. The gap between products matters, especially on lower-end and mid-range systems. In 2026, independent labs still measure noticeable differences between products, especially on budget laptops, older desktops, or machines with limited RAM.
When Antivirus Does Slow Your PC Down
Most complaints about losing FPS come from scheduled scans or silent background tasks such as definition updates, optimization, and telemetry uploads colliding with what you are doing. If your PC only feels slow sometimes and not always, it is probably not that the antivirus is heavy. It is the antivirus doing a heavy job at the wrong time.
The three specific situations where antivirus hurts gaming performance:
- Scheduled full scan kicks in during a session: A full disk scan consumes significant CPU and I/O resources. If it starts automatically mid-match, FPS drops of 15 to 25% are measurable.
- Real-time scanning of your games folder: Every file your game opens triggers a scan check. For games with heavy streaming like open-world titles, this produces micro-stutters as the scanner processes texture and asset files.
- Definition update downloading during gameplay: The antivirus pulls files from its servers, competes with your game for bandwidth, and spins up the CPU to install the update silently.
How to Eliminate Antivirus FPS Impact Immediately
You do not need to uninstall your antivirus or turn it off while gaming. Three configuration changes eliminate virtually all antivirus-related FPS drops:
- Enable Gaming Mode, Silent Mode, or Do Not Disturb in your antivirus settings. This defers scans and suppresses notifications automatically when it detects a full-screen application. It activates when your game starts and deactivates when you exit.
- Add your games directory as a scan exclusion. Open your antivirus settings, find the exclusions or exceptions section, and add your games installation folder (commonly C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps or wherever you install games). This tells the scanner to skip those files during real-time checks, eliminating the stutter from game asset scanning.
- Reschedule full scans to off-hours. Set your scheduled scan to a time you are truly away from the PC, such as weekday mornings, rather than leaving it on an automatic weekly timer that might fire mid-session.
What Is the Best Antivirus for Gaming PC?
The best antivirus software for gaming PC setups has to do two jobs at once: provide strong protection with low system impact, quiet background scans, and a real gaming mode that stays out of the way.
Here are the top options for gamers in 2026, ranked by their performance profile during gameplay.
Bitdefender: Lowest FPS Impact Overall
Bitdefender has the lowest CPU usage among tested antivirus products and does not impact FPS or cause lag during tests with Valorant and Elden Ring. Behind the scenes, Bitdefender uses cloud-based virus scanning, which reduces the load on your device as scans draw on cloud computing power instead of your local machine.
Bitdefender’s Game Profile mode is a major benefit for gamers. It lets you optimize settings for which apps are prioritized when gaming. It postpones tasks unrelated to gaming and can even postpone system updates. Best of all, Game Profile is automatically activated when you launch a game.
Bitdefender’s cloud-scanning approach is particularly important: by offloading the heavy analysis to remote servers, it keeps local CPU usage minimal even during active threat detection. This is one of the reasons it consistently scores the lowest in gaming FPS impact tests.
FPS impact: 0 to 2% with Game Profile enabled.
TotalAV: Best All-Round Value for Gamers
TotalAV is the best antivirus for PC gaming according to test results, with low CPU usage, a high malware detection rate, and system tune-up tools that optimize your gaming rig. It does not slow down your system even without a dedicated gaming mode specifically labeled as such in its interface.
TotalAV offers a free version, though the free tier lacks real-time protection and system cleanup tools. For gamers who want the full performance and protection package, the paid plan is the relevant option.
Norton 360 for Gamers: Best Gaming-Specific Features
Norton 360 for Gamers silences all but critical security notifications, letting you focus on gaming. It can also track whether your gamer tag is included in online breaches.
Norton’s Game Optimizer is a big reason it stands out. Instead of just muting alerts, Norton also tries to reduce interference from background tasks so your system can focus on the game. That will not magically boost weak hardware, but it can help keep things cleaner during play.
Norton 360 for Gamers is the most feature-complete option for players who want antivirus, gamer-specific identity protection, and a VPN in a single package.
Malwarebytes Premium: Lightest Background Footprint
Malwarebytes Premium has under 1% FPS impact due to minimal background activity by design.
Malwarebytes works differently from traditional antivirus programs. It does not run continuous real-time scanning of every file access in the same resource-intensive way. Instead, it focuses on behavior-based detection and runs scans on demand or on a schedule you control. This makes it one of the most gaming-friendly options available, though it works best as a complement to Windows Defender rather than a full replacement on its own.
ESET NOD32: Lightweight and Reliable
ESET NOD32 has a 1 to 2% FPS impact with a light footprint.
ESET is known for extremely low resource consumption. It is a strong choice for players on mid-range systems who want reliable real-time protection without the feature bloat of full security suites. NOD32 is antivirus only, without VPN or system optimization extras, which keeps it lean.
Windows Defender: The Free Baseline
Windows Defender has a 2 to 5% average impact in benchmarks, slightly higher than dedicated gaming antivirus products because it lacks an automatic gaming mode. You can mitigate this by adding your games folder as an exclusion in Windows Security, Virus and Threat Protection, Exclusions.
Windows Defender is free, built into every Windows 10 and 11 installation, and genuinely capable as a baseline. Its main limitation for gamers is the absence of an automatic gaming mode that pauses scans during full-screen applications. Adding game folder exclusions and scheduling scans manually closes most of that gap.
Antivirus for Gaming PC Comparison Table
| Antivirus | FPS Impact | Gaming Mode | Cloud Scanning | Best For |
| Bitdefender | 0 to 2% | Yes (automatic) | Yes | Lowest impact, cloud-first |
| TotalAV | Under 2% | Implicit (low CPU by design) | Partial | Value, tune-up tools |
| Norton 360 for Gamers | 2 to 4% | Yes (Game Optimizer) | No | Full feature suite |
| Malwarebytes Premium | Under 1% | Yes | No | Ultra-light complement |
| ESET NOD32 | 1 to 2% | Yes | No | Lean, no bloat |
| Windows Defender | 2 to 5% | No (manual workaround) | No | Free baseline |
| McAfee | 5 to 10% | Limited | No | Not recommended for gaming |
| AVG / Avast Free | 3 to 6% | Yes (paid version) | Partial | Casual users only |
Does Antivirus Lower FPS on Low-End Gaming PCs?
The impact of antivirus on FPS scales with hardware quality. On older CPUs like Intel Celeron or Atom processors, antivirus software will have a more than noticeable impact. The processor’s quality makes a significant difference. A newer generation processor with more built-in cache memory handles both the antivirus and the game with minimal to unnoticeable conflict. A low-end processor will struggle.
The antivirus should not affect FPS if you are playing demanding games with an i7 processor or average games with at least an i5 processor with at least 8GB of RAM and an SSD hard drive.
For genuinely low-end systems (processors older than 5th generation Intel Core or pre-Ryzen 3000 AMD), antivirus impact becomes more significant and the following steps matter more:
- Use Malwarebytes Premium as a complement to Windows Defender rather than a heavy full suite
- Add your entire games directory as a scan exclusion
- Schedule full scans for off-hours and disable automatic scan triggers
- Choose antivirus with cloud-based scanning so the heavy processing happens on remote servers instead of your CPU
- Disable all non-essential antivirus features like VPN, password manager, and system optimization tools that run as background processes
Should You Turn Off Antivirus While Gaming?
No. You can always disable the antivirus while gaming. However, if you care about your protection, you should not do it. That is exactly what hackers are waiting for you to do.
Gaming PCs are high-value targets for malware because they often contain payment information from game purchases, personal accounts, and sometimes cryptocurrency wallets. The risk window created by disabling protection during a gaming session is exactly the kind of vulnerability that credential-stealing malware exploits.
The correct approach is configuration, not disabling. Enable gaming mode, add game folder exclusions, reschedule scans, and choose a lightweight product. Done correctly, the protection continues running with no measurable FPS impact.
Pro Tips: Antivirus and Gaming PC Performance
- Add your entire Steam or Epic library folder as an exclusion, not just individual game folders: As new games install and update, their files change. A blanket exclusion of the main library folder covers every game automatically rather than requiring per-game configuration.
- Check Task Manager during an FPS drop before blaming the antivirus: Open Task Manager (Ctrl + Shift + Esc) and sort by CPU usage. If your antivirus process is at the top during a drop, the scanner triggered. If something else is at the top, the antivirus is not the cause.
- Schedule scans for Tuesday and Wednesday mornings: These days typically have the lowest gaming activity, and scheduling on a weekday morning avoids the weekend sessions when most players game heavily.
- Verify your gaming mode is actually working: Some antivirus products have a gaming mode option that only silences notifications without pausing scans. Check the product’s documentation to confirm whether gaming mode defers scans entirely or just hides pop-ups.
Common Mistakes Gamers Make with Antivirus
- Disabling antivirus while gaming for maximum FPS: The actual FPS difference between a well-configured antivirus and no antivirus is 1 to 3% on modern hardware. That is not worth the security risk. Fix: Configure gaming mode and exclusions properly. The performance difference after proper configuration is indistinguishable from running without protection.
- Running an antivirus without gaming mode on a scheduled scan: If gaming mode is off and a full scan fires at 7pm during peak gaming hours, the performance impact can reach 15 to 25%. Fix: Enable gaming mode as the first configuration step after installing any antivirus. Then separately reschedule the full scan to off-hours as a backup measure.
- Adding only the game executable as a scan exclusion: Excluding just the .exe file still leaves all the game’s asset files and folders subject to real-time scanning, which produces stutter during texture streaming. Fix: Exclude the entire game’s installation directory, not just the executable.
- Using a heavyweight antivirus suite on a low-end PC: Running Norton 360, McAfee Total Protection, or Kaspersky on an 8GB RAM system with an older CPU significantly increases baseline CPU usage before the game even launches. Fix: Use Malwarebytes Premium paired with Windows Defender on lower-end systems. The combination provides strong protection with a fraction of the resource footprint of a full suite.
Game Better with ExitLag While Your Antivirus Stays Active
Antivirus handles the security side of your gaming setup. ExitLag handles the connection side. Both can run simultaneously without conflict, and together they address two separate categories of gaming performance that neither covers on its own.
ExitLag is a connection optimizer used by over 30 million players across 4,000+ game titles. It analyzes multiple network routes in real time and selects the fastest, most stable path between your device and the game server, without routing any traffic through its infrastructure that your antivirus would flag as a threat.
Features that complement a well-configured gaming antivirus:
- Real-Time Optimization: Continuously selects the lowest-latency route to game servers, reducing the connection delay that high FPS cannot fix.
- Traffic Shaper: Prioritizes game traffic over background applications so antivirus definition updates and cloud scanning do not compete with your game data for bandwidth.
- Multipath Technology: Routes game data through multiple simultaneous paths, ensuring connection stability even when antivirus scans temporarily increase local CPU load.
- PC Boost: Clears background RAM and reduces competing processes, complementing the resource savings from a properly configured lightweight antivirus.
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