Sea of Thieves

Why this game, specifically

Sailing is a steady streaming load; a fight between crews is a spike on top of it. Because it is a shared world, network behaviour also matters more than in a single-player game of the same size. ORION checks the streaming and network sides and leaves the water alone.

What ORION checks

• Storage housekeeping: temporary data, launcher caches and driver shader caches that grow without bound.
• Network configuration: DNS, adapter power settings, congestion provider, and the supported TCP options Windows exposes.
• Graphics configuration: Windows graphics preferences, DirectX shader and pipeline caches, and presentation settings the OS controls.
• Background activity: startup entries, scheduled tasks and always-running apps that take CPU time while a game has it.
• Capture and overlay: Game Bar background recording, broadcasting and clip capture, which run whether or not you use them.

Recommended changes

Broadly appropriate, low expected side effects, and reversible where the badge says so. These are catalog entries, not a script: ORION reads the current value on your PC first and skips anything already set.

• Enable Game Modegame-mode SafeFreeReversibleNo restart

  Turns on Windows Game Mode so the OS prioritizes the active game.

• Enable Auto Game Modegamebar-auto-mode SafeFreeReversibleNo restart

  Lets Windows automatically apply Game Mode when a game is detected.

• Disable Game Bar background recordinggamebar-bg-off SafeFreeReversibleNo restart

  Keeps Game Bar background recording off until you turn it back on.

• Disable Xbox Game DVRgame-dvr-off SafeFreeReversibleNo restart

  Stops Xbox Game DVR from recording in the background while you play.

• Reduce gaming notificationsfocus-assist-gaming SafeFreeReversibleNo restart

  Turns off a common notification surface while leaving Windows security notifications alone.

• Maximize DirectX shader cachedx-shader-cache-max SafeFreeReversibleNo restart

  Maximizes the DirectX shader cache to reduce compilation stutters.

• Block Delivery Optimization uploadsnet-do-upload-limit SafeFreeReversibleNo restart

  Stops Windows from uploading cached updates to other PCs.

• High Performance power planhigh-performance-power SafeFreeReversibleNo restart

  Switches to the built-in High Performance power scheme.

Advanced options

Legitimate changes with real trade-offs: hardware dependence, power draw, or behaviour that varies between systems. ORION shows these separately, records the previous value before writing, and never folds them into a one-click run.

• Use CTCP congestion providernet-congestion-ctcp ModerateFreeNot reversibleNo restart

  Uses Compound TCP for better throughput on fast connections.

• Raise max ephemeral portsnet-max-user-port ModerateEliteReversibleRestart required

  Increases the range of outbound ports Windows can use.

• NVIDIA Prefer maximum performancegpu-nvidia-powermizer-max ModerateEliteReversibleNo restart

  Sets NVIDIA Control Panel power management to Prefer maximum performance via the official driver API.

Trade-offs and limits

• Shader-cache cleanup frees space but forces the next run to rebuild the cache, so the first session after a clean can stutter more, not less.
• Storage and memory options are the ones that most depend on how much RAM and what kind of drive you have. ORION reads both before it recommends anything.
• Vendor power and scheduling options depend on the driver you have installed. ORION checks for the control it is about to write and marks the tweak unsupported when it is not there.

ORION does not publish a frame-rate figure for Sea of Thieves, because we do not have reproducible before-and-after data for your hardware. What the app can do is capture frames on your PC, in your game, before and after a change, and show you that.