In 2025, gaming is more immersive and resource-demanding than ever before, with cutting-edge graphics and complex multiplayer environments. As a gamer, protecting your system from malware and threats is a must, but it’s equally important not to compromise your gaming experience. AVG Antivirus is one of the leading antivirus solutions available, but does it impact your gaming performance? In this guide, we’ll explore how AVG affects your gaming, the common performance issues, and tips on how to optimize AVG for a smoother gaming experience.
How AVG Affects Gaming Performance
1. Background Scanning
One of the most significant ways AVG Antivirus can impact your gaming performance is through its background scanning features. AVG regularly scans your files, apps, and websites to detect potential threats. While this is essential for security, background scans can use up CPU and memory resources.
When you’re gaming, especially with resource-intensive titles or multiplayer games, these background processes can lead to noticeable lag or frame rate drops. The antivirus software’s background scanning may conflict with the game’s need for all available system resources, leading to stuttering or reduced performance.
2. Real-Time Protection
AVG’s real-time protection constantly monitors files and activities on your system to ensure no malware or viruses can infect your computer. However, this feature is resource-intensive, especially when playing graphically intense games or during online sessions where data is constantly being downloaded and uploaded.
While real-time protection is crucial for security, it can cause a small delay in file access, which might negatively impact performance during gaming sessions. Players might notice slight input lag or slower load times when real-time protection is running.
3. Internet and Network Connection
In some cases, AVG Antivirus can also affect your internet connection during online gaming. This happens because the antivirus software scans all incoming and outgoing data to detect potential threats. As a result, you may experience ping spikes, network latency, or a higher-than-normal bandwidth usage that can disrupt online multiplayer gaming experiences.
What to Do to Optimize AVG for Gaming
If you’re an avid gamer who uses AVG Antivirus, there are several steps you can take to optimize the software and reduce its impact on your gaming performance. These adjustments will ensure that you stay protected without sacrificing your gaming experience.
1. Enable Gaming Mode
AVG has a Gaming Mode feature that temporarily minimizes its background activity to give you an uninterrupted gaming experience. When enabled, Gaming Mode silences notifications, disables scheduled scans, and minimizes the resource usage of AVG while you’re gaming. This can significantly reduce lag and performance dips.
To enable Gaming Mode on AVG:
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Open the AVG app on your device.
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Navigate to the Settings menu.
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Locate Gaming Mode and switch it on. You can also set it to turn on automatically when any game is launched.
This mode will ensure AVG is running quietly in the background while you focus on your game.
2. Schedule Scans for Off-Hours
To avoid the impact of background scanning during your gaming sessions, schedule AVG to perform its full system scans during times when you’re not gaming, such as late at night or during the day when you’re not at the computer.
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Open AVG and go to the Scan Settings section.
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Choose to run scans at times when you’re not likely to be gaming or using your system.
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Avoid manual scans while gaming to prevent system slowdowns.
By scheduling scans during off-peak hours, you can keep your system safe without sacrificing gaming performance.
3. Disable Real-Time Protection Temporarily
While it’s not always recommended, in certain instances, you may want to temporarily disable AVG’s real-time protection during particularly demanding gaming sessions. This can help free up system resources, especially if you’re playing a graphically intense game that requires all available CPU and RAM.
To disable real-time protection:
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Open AVG and navigate to Settings.
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Go to the General section, and choose Disable Real-Time Protection.
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You can manually re-enable it after your gaming session is over.
Be cautious when disabling real-time protection, as this exposes your system to risks, so it’s best to only do this for short gaming sessions.
4. Exclude Game Files from Scans
If you’re playing specific games that you trust and know are safe, you can set AVG Antivirus to exclude those files from scans. This reduces the impact AVG has on your games without compromising security. By doing this, AVG won’t scan the game files every time you launch them, leading to faster load times and less CPU usage.
To exclude game files from AVG scans:
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Open the AVG app and go to Settings.
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Look for the Exceptions or Exclusions section.
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Add the game’s installation folder or specific executable files to the exclusion list.
This step helps AVG avoid scanning large game files unnecessarily.
5. Optimize Your System
In addition to tweaking AVG’s settings, you can improve your gaming performance by optimizing your system’s resources. This includes ensuring that your device’s RAM and CPU aren’t being overburdened by background processes. Consider the following tips:
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Close unnecessary background applications.
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Ensure your graphics drivers and game software are up to date.
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Defragment your hard drive (if using HDD).
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Clean up system junk and unnecessary files.
These steps ensure your system runs at optimal speed, giving AVG more room to work without hindering your gaming performance.
Conclusion
While AVG Antivirus provides excellent protection for your system, its background processes, such as real-time protection and scanning, can sometimes interfere with your gaming experience. However, with the right optimizations, you can ensure that AVG provides top-notch security without compromising your gaming performance.
By enabling Gaming Mode, scheduling scans for off-hours, and excluding trusted game files from scans, you can significantly reduce the impact AVG has on your gaming experience. Additionally, temporarily disabling real-time protection for short sessions can help free up resources for those demanding gaming moments.
