Just Bought a PS5 ? These Settings Will Improve Performance, Storage, and Battery Life

Digital Magazine – Unboxing a PlayStation 5 feels like stepping into a new generation of gaming. Faster load times, sharper visuals, and Sony’s ambitious DualSense controller promise a premium experience right out of the box. Still, many first time users assume the default settings are already optimized. In reality, several of them leave performance, storage space, and battery life on the table.

Spending a few minutes adjusting key options before starting your first game can noticeably improve how the PS5 feels day to day. From smoother visuals to smarter power management, these settings help the console work better for you rather than against you. Here are the most important adjustments worth making early on.

Skip the Profile Screen With Automatic Login

If you are the only person using your PS5, there is little reason to select a profile every time the console boots up. Enabling automatic login sends you straight to the home screen, shaving off a small but meaningful delay each time you power on.

This option is especially helpful for players who jump into short gaming sessions. While households with multiple users may prefer manual selection, solo players benefit from a faster and more seamless startup.

Get More Play Time From the DualSense Controller

The DualSense controller delivers impressive haptic feedback and adaptive triggers, but those features come at a cost to battery life. Sony’s default settings prioritize immersion, not longevity.

Lowering the controller light brightness and reducing vibration and trigger intensity can significantly extend play sessions between charges. Setting the controller to power down automatically when idle is another easy win, especially when using the PS5 for streaming movies or shows. These changes preserve core functionality while reducing unnecessary power drain.

Use Game Presets to Save Time Across Titles

One of the PS5’s most overlooked features is Game Presets. Instead of manually adjusting difficulty, subtitles, or performance settings in every game, you can define your preferences once and let compatible titles follow those rules automatically.

Players who consistently favor performance mode over resolution, or who always enable subtitles, will appreciate how much setup time this saves. While not every game supports presets, more developers are adopting them, making this feature increasingly useful.

Match the PS5’s Visual Output to Your TV

Modern gaming TVs offer advanced features like Variable Refresh Rate, Auto Low Latency Mode, and 120Hz refresh rates, but the PS5 does not always enable them by default.

Ensuring these options are set to automatic allows the console and TV to communicate properly, reducing screen tearing and input lag. HDR should also be calibrated rather than left untouched, as proper tuning improves contrast and highlights without washing out colors. For players with HDMI 2.1 compatible displays, these adjustments unlock the PS5’s full visual potential.

Enable Remote Play for Gaming Beyond the TV

Remote Play is more than a novelty feature. It allows you to access your PS5 from a phone, laptop, another PlayStation, or the PlayStation Portal, even when you are away from home.

Turning on Remote Play and allowing the console to stay connected to the internet in rest mode ensures your PS5 can wake remotely when needed. For players who share a TV or travel frequently, this feature adds real flexibility without sacrificing access to their game library.

Tighten Privacy and Data Collection Settings

Out of the box, the PS5 collects various data points and shares more profile information than some users realize. Sony does provide tools to control this, but they are buried in the settings menu.

Reviewing privacy options lets you decide who can see your activity, friends list, and personal details. Reducing data sharing and disabling voice data collection offers extra peace of mind, particularly for users concerned about online privacy.

Stop Trophy Videos From Eating Your Storage

By default, the PS5 records a short video every time you earn a trophy. While this can be fun at first, these clips quietly pile up and consume valuable storage space.

Disabling trophy video recording prevents this automatic clutter and helps keep your internal storage focused on games rather than forgotten clips. For players with large libraries, this single change can reclaim several gigabytes over time.

A Smarter Start to the PS5 Experience

The PlayStation 5 is powerful straight out of the box, but a few thoughtful adjustments make it noticeably better. Optimizing login behavior, controller settings, visuals, privacy, and storage ensures the console fits your habits rather than forcing you to adapt to default choices.

Taking care of these settings early helps avoid small frustrations later, letting you focus on what the PS5 does best: delivering fast, immersive gaming experiences from the very first session.