The wallpaper of our computer is usually the first thing that we usually customize on the PC. Windows comes standard with a series of free backgrounds that we can configure, or allows us to use a photo of ourselves. Many of us choose to choose a personalized photo, as it tends to be of higher quality and, usually, is related to our tastes and interests. However, we have surely seen how, when establishing the new fund, it does not have as much quality as we expected. That’s because Windows 10 compresses all the funds to run faster.
A simple thing like wallpaper can have a huge impact on PC performance. Keep in mind that, to show the background, it has to be copied to the RAM and the graphics card. If the fund occupies little, or we are using a powerful and new computer, no problem. But if we use a large fund, and our PC is relatively old, it can suffer.
If we give more priority to quality and appearance than to the performance of our PC, this simple change in the Windows registry will allow us to disable image compression and thus take advantage of it at maximum quality.
Disable compression and increase the quality of the Windows background
Microsoft does not offer us an option, in its configuration, from which we can do this. Instead, what we must do is modify the parameter by hand from the Windows registry itself. We remember that modifying the registry does not pose any danger to the operating system, as long as we know what we are doing. Therefore, we recommend that you follow the steps to the letter to avoid problems.
The first thing we will do is open the Windows registry editor by typing ” regedit ” in the Windows 10 search engine.
Once we have the Windows 10 registry editor open, what we must do is go to the following path:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER>Control Panel>Desktop
In this section we will look for the entry ” JPEGImportQuality ” in the list of values already created. In case it is not available, we can create it by right-clicking on a blank space and choosing ” New> DWORD Value (32-bit) “. We give the name “JPEGImportQuality” to this new value. Once created, we double click on this new value, and we give it a value “64”.
Why 64 and not 100? By default, registry DWORD values use a hexadecimal base . Therefore, 64 in hexadecimal corresponds to a similar 100. We can also put a value of 100 hexadecimal, which corresponds to 256 in decimal. This would also give us the highest quality of the background, although it would not be correct. If we want to use the value “100”, then we must set the base as “Decimal”.
Ready. Now we can close the registry editor and restart Windows. When the PC reboots, what we must do is set the wallpaper again. By doing so, it will be saved at 100% quality, eliminating any compression or loss of quality.
Increase compression and PC performance
In the same way that we can take advantage of the previous trick to improve the quality of the Windows background, we can also use it in reverse, that is, to reduce it and improve PC performance . To do this, all you have to do is go to that value in the Windows registry (and, if it does not exist, create it as we have explained) and change the value to the percentage of quality that we want.
At 100% we are facing a fund of the highest quality. As we reduce this value, we will reduce the quality of the fund. For example, if we set a hexadecimal value of “55”, we will obtain a quality of 85%. If we lower it to “32”, then we will have a quality of 50%. And the more we go down, the lower the quality of the fund.
We must be careful, because if we increase the compression of the background too much, it will lose a lot of quality. And the result will be that we will have a very “ugly” desktop. If we really want to save resources, instead of a photo we have to put a fixed color as a background, no images.
Return to the default compression of the Windows background
What happens if we get tired of the maximum quality of the background, or of the lowering that we have applied to it? We have two options. And for both we have to reopen the Windows registry and go to the section that we explained in the previous point.
The first option, and the fastest and easiest, is to delete the “JPEGImportQuality” value that we have created in the previous points. To do this, we just have to select said value, right-click on it and choose the “Delete” option. After restarting the PC, and setting the background again, it will use the Windows compression setting again.
The second option is to manually configure the value that Microsoft applies by default when doing this. Windows 10 applies a compression of 15% (or what is the same, a quality of 85%) of each image that we configure in the background. Therefore, if we open the value “JPEGImportQuality”, and we give it a hexadecimal value “55” , we will obtain the same result as if we eliminate that value. We reboot, we re-establish the background and that’s it.
Is it worth increasing the quality of the fund?
Everything that is “aesthetic” in any operating system is going to consume resources. From the background, and the transparencies, to the effect we see when closing a window. Now, to notice that the wallpaper slows down our PC we need to have a very old computer, with little RAM and a very old graphics. If our PC is already relatively new, putting a fund will have no impact on the PC’s performance . And if we use an SSD, much less. When this could influence the performance of the PC is in the case of having a 4K screen and using a background at this resolution. And it would not be appreciated how little powerful the PC is.
And, unless we are very gourmand, a compression of 15% in a background image in JPEG will have little loss of quality. We are not going to notice.