I turned off HAGS and gained back a gigabyte of VRAM with almost no FPS loss

Hardware-Accelerated GPU Scheduling (HAGS) reserves a portion of VRAM for scheduling tasks, which is negligible on high-end GPUs but can cost nearly 1GB on older 6GB or 8GB cards. Testing on an RTX 2070 Super with 8GB VRAM showed that disabling HAGS reclaimed that reserved memory, allowing higher texture settings in demanding games like Stellar Blade at 4K, with only a 3–5 FPS average loss. The key caveat: frame generation (DLSS, FSR) requires HAGS to be enabled, so this trade-off only makes sense on GPUs that don't support frame generation. Regular AI upscaling (DLSS, FSR quality modes) works fine without HAGS. The recommendation is situational — keep HAGS on for modern GPUs with ample VRAM or if using frame generation, but consider disabling it on VRAM-constrained older cards.