Razer Cortex

Razer Cortex is a free game booster for PCs and laptops from Razer, combining system optimisation before and during play with a game launcher and library alongside Razer's hardware and software range.

What a game booster actually does is worth stating plainly, because the category has a reputation for overpromising. It suspends background processes, clears standby memory and adjusts system settings while a game runs, which on a machine with plenty of headroom changes very little and on a constrained laptop with browser tabs and background applications can be the difference between playable and not.

Being free is central to what Cortex is for, since it exists to keep players inside Razer's software ecosystem alongside the peripherals and the account, rather than to earn revenue itself, which is a more durable arrangement than a paid optimiser has to justify.

The launcher consolidating games across stores is arguably more useful day to day than the boosting, because a player with titles spread across several storefronts otherwise has several launchers running, each consuming exactly the resources the booster is trying to reclaim. An FPS counter and performance overlay make the effect measurable rather than a matter of impression, which is the fairest way to judge whether any of this helps on a given machine. Cortex is free to download.