Disabling Memory Integrity and VBS: the real performance gain and the real security cost
SHORT ANSWER
Disabling virtualisation-based security sets EnableVirtualizationBasedSecurity to 0 under SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\DeviceGuard, and Enabled to 0 under the HypervisorEnforcedCodeIntegrity scenario key. It typically returns 2-8%, more on older CPUs. It also removes hypervisor-enforced protection against a real class of attack that uses vulnerable signed drivers to reach the kernel. This is a genuine trade, not a free win.
Exactly what it changes
Read straight from the application source. If a tool will not show you this, it is asking for trust it has not earned.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\DeviceGuard
EnableVirtualizationBasedSecurity = 0
Stops Windows starting the security hypervisor at boot.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\DeviceGuard\Scenarios\HypervisorEnforcedCodeIntegrity
Enabled = 0
Disables Memory Integrity, the code-integrity check that runs inside that hypervisor.
What it does
Memory Integrity runs Windows' driver code-integrity checks inside a hypervisor-isolated environment, so that even kernel-level code cannot tamper with them. Everything your machine does then runs one layer removed from the hardware.
That isolation has a measurable cost, which is why disabling it shows up in benchmarks.
When it helps
- Typically 2-8% depending on CPU generation, with older chips gaining more.
- Can reduce frame-time variance in CPU-bound games.
- Resolves conflicts with a few older utilities that refuse to run alongside it.
When it hurts
- You lose protection against the vulnerable-signed-driver attack class, which is actively used in the wild and is how several game-adjacent malware families gain kernel access.
- Some anti-cheat systems now prefer or require it enabled, and that direction of travel is one-way.
- If the machine handles banking, work accounts or anything you would mind losing, this is a poor trade for single-digit FPS.
How to undo it
Set both values back to 1 and reboot, or turn Core Isolation > Memory Integrity back on in Windows Security. Frozen Tweaks keeps this behind an explicit opt-in and never includes it in a default profile.
Verdict
Only if the machine is genuinely gaming-only. We list it because pretending the gain does not exist would be dishonest, and we gate it because pretending the cost does not exist would be worse.
Related guides
Everything else we change is listed too
All 127 optimizations are published in full, with what each one does and which are free. You can apply any of them by hand using pages like this one — the tool exists to do it in one click and put it back after every Windows update.