The laptop market has exploded in recent years, driven in part by the increasing consumer demand for slim, high-performance gaming laptops. Unfortunately, despite all the advancements made in their hardware, the battery life of gaming laptops seems to have plateaued. While the performance of gaming laptops seems to be getting better every year, their batteries often feel like they’re getting worse, not better. So, let’s break down the reasons why your gaming laptop’s battery can’t keep up with your gaming needs.

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Let’s face it: Modern games are designed for high-end gaming desktops and consoles, not for laptops running on battery power. Game developers focus on making their games look as good as possible and optimizing them for systems that are plugged in and have access to dedicated power sources. Gaming laptops, however, cannot meet these expectations when running on battery power.

If you had to play an older game on your gaming laptop, you would probably be able to play for quite a few hours without your battery dying. But with games that have come out in the last few years, your laptop will struggle to play for more than an hour or two before you need to reach for the power cable. While gaming laptops have evolved and now use more powerful hardware to run these games, the processes themselves have become too demanding for modern gaming laptops to handle continually without a dedicated power source.