What Potato Mode actually does
Potato PC mode is GDLauncher's reduced-motion setting. Under the hood it's a single boolean (called reducedMotion internally) that adds a CSS class to the root of the UI; styles attached to that class disable animations and transitions everywhere in the launcher.
Concretely: button hover effects, panel slide-ins, opacity fades, the spinning download progress indicators, and the splash animations all stop animating. The UI becomes snappy and static.
What it doesn't do
Potato Mode is launcher-side only. It doesn't change anything about Minecraft itself: not the render distance, not the FPS, not the mods that load, not how much RAM gets allocated. The toggle is purely about the launcher's chrome.
If your Minecraft is the problem (low FPS in-game, stuttering), Potato Mode won't help; you'll want to look at performance mods, RAM allocation, or Minecraft's own video settings.
When it's worth turning on
- Older hardware where Electron itself struggles. Discord, Slack, and similar Electron apps feel sluggish? The launcher will too. Potato Mode helps.
- Battery savings on laptops. Animations consume GPU. Static UI consumes nearly none.
- Accessibility, reduced motion preference. Some people get motion sickness or distraction from UI animations.
Does it follow my OS reduced-motion setting?
Currently it's a separate toggle. macOS, Windows, and most Linux desktops have a system-wide "reduce motion" accessibility setting, GDLauncher doesn't read that yet. If you want motion off, flip the launcher's toggle yourself.
Reverting
Flip the same toggle off. Animations return immediately, no restart needed.