All computers eventually start to creak in their old age, but with a few quick tweaks and techniques, you can prolong their life for years – especially if youre willing to lose a bit of modern glitz to play the games that work them the hardest.
Heres our guide to enjoying the best entertainment, without necessarily spending a fortune on new hardware.
1. Clean PCLike all applications, games benefit from a clean system. Before you even think about buying new hardware, do some spring cleaning.
Even Windows 7 benefits from a slash-and-burn reinstall every few months to get rid of the cobwebs, memory-resident apps and other shackles that so easily accumulate over time. If games are running slower than they used to, its a very good first step to take.
2. Install more memoryAny major component of your PC can be a drag on your system if it isnt powerful enough. Memory is one of the cheapest to upgrade, and the easiest – you simply pop in new sticks and youre done.
If you have 4GB RAM and a 64-bit version of Windows installed, you should be good for anything on the market. If youre not sure what you should buy, you can visit www.crucial.com and run its System Scanner tool. This will tell you both what memory to buy, and how much you need.
3. Change video cardIf you didnt buy a dedicated gaming PC, or your PC is a couple of years old, the graphics card in it is likely to be mediocre to terrible. Any 3D game relies on having a powerful graphics card to crunch the numbers, but buying one isnt necessarily as easy as just plugging one in.
Graphics cards can be incredibly big, and your case needs both the space and the cooling to handle that. They also need to be connected to your PCs power supply, and if thats not powerful enough, the card wont work even after you fit it.
Be sure to check all the specifications before ordering. Given a choice between ATI and Nvidia cards, we currently recommend Nvidia.
4. Update your driversIts easy to forget, but the best video card in the world will struggle without the most up-to-date drivers.
If you have trouble with a game, updating the drivers should always be the first step – itll expect you to have everything ready for it. This can be a pain, but a necessary one.
5. Boost CPUIf you dont have a decent video card, theres little that any CPU will do for you on its own. However, it still plays a key role in determining how fast your system performs.
Dual-core is fine for the overwhelming majority of modern games, but quad-core is obviously better if you can afford it. You dont realistically need anything more than that at the moment, though.
6. Forget about overclockingIt may sound like heresy, but overclocking your CPU is unlikely to make any real appreciable difference to most games – a difference, yes, but generally one that will be measured in a few extra frames.
If you plan to try it anyway, make sure your cooling can stretch that far. Generally, though, overclocking has become something you do because you enjoy overclocking, and it can safely be avoided if youre not comfortable getting your hands that dirty.
7. Clean upOn the other hand, if you dont mind a little dirt, this is a great time to check the state of your case. If its full of dust and the airways are blocked, it wont be getting cooled properly, which can seriously affect the performance of your components.
To clean it out, switch the power off and use a can of compressed air to clear away the dust. This is especially important if your PC is on the floor.
8. Consider solid state drivesWith all the pieces in place, its time to look at your hard drive. This is the perfect time to look at a solid state drive for both Windows and your game files. Theyre smaller than regular drives, but the performance more than makes up for that.
We recommend having two drives, the second one a nice, big, traditional terabyte model to hold things like videos and photos, leaving the main drive entirely for the applications it does so well. Youll want a large one though – modern games are incredibly big, and theyre only going to get larger as the graphics improve.
9. Cut backIf your games are still running slowly, its time to start switching things off . Be aware that when you do this, youre going to notice the effect of it much more.
A lack of something like anti-aliasing is incredibly obvious when youre intentionally staring at a jaggy object. When the bullets are flying, youre unlikely to notice as much. As a case in point, many console games dont bother with it at all.
10. Check PCs v-sync settingsNow for the mysterious v-sync. This is vertical-synchronisation, and when its switched off , you can encounter problems if your graphics card is churning out data faster than the monitor can display it.
This gives an effect called tearing, which can make it look as though the game is stuttering or lagging when its actually performing above and beyond. Leave v-sync alone.
11. Turn off filteringAnisotropic filtering is similar. It looks good, but its the kind of looking good that you dont really notice in the middle of a game. It does slow down rendering, though. Switch it off for an immediate performance boost.
12. Remove reflectionsReal-time reflections are one of the most intensive graphical effects around, but you wont lose much by switching them off. Were all so used to water being just a coloured plane that youre more likely to notice an effective reflection for being good than to chafe at its absence.
13. Tone down shadowsShadows are a fundamental part of many games atmospheres, and its a shame to lose them. Instead, you normally get to tone them down to something easier for the game to render – for instance, switching off soft edges, or replacing the carefully rendered shadow with something simpler, like a blended circle.
14. Turn down your effectsBefore you start switching things off, try turning them down. We dont actually recommend losing all anti-aliasing if you can avoid it, but you probably dont need it at 8x power. Try dropping down to just 2x and seeing if that makes any difference.
15. Tinker with your graphics card settingsIf the game itself doesnt give you any options that you can tweak to improve its performance, your graphics card might.
The ATI Catalyst Control Center, for instance, offers an option called Overdrive, which lets you do basic graphics card overclocking on the fly, without you having to open up your computers case.
16. Tweak the resolutionThis is the easiest thing to turn down if you need a performance boost, but also one of the most problematic. LCD screens are designed to work with a specific resolution, and setting it lower will make your game smeary. If you do crank it down, dont go too far.
17. Turn it downOther options vary from game to game, but the standard advice is easy – if it can be lowered, try lowering it.
Games aim for a mid-range system by default. Turning down texture quality is a great way of speeding up games with lots of close-up action.
18. Shut down other appsBefore launching your game, press [CTRL]+[ALT]+[DELETE] to bring up the Task Manager and shut down any memory-hungry applications. Web browsers, mail clients and office apps are a particular drain. Leave your antivirus and firewall applications, though!
19. Software solutionsTheres a diverse range of applications out there that claim to be able to speed up your PC, but most of them can safely be ignored. If you have the basics covered, your performance will be fine. If you dont, software tweaks wont make much difference.
20. Check for malwareMalware could be getting in your way, without being as obvious as the viruses of old. You should be running antivirus software, but if nothing else, get something like Windows Security Essentials.
21. Online issuesIn online games, the best PC in the world will struggle if it doesnt have a good network connection. If youre wireless, make sure the signal strength is solid, or look into upgrading your router/receiver. If you still have Wireless G (or worse, B), its time for Wireless N.
22. Wire it upLook into getting a wired internet connection. Depending on how your houses electricity is wired up, you may be able to use a pair of HomePlugs to create a wired network using the power lines, getting faster performance and removing wireless interference issues.
23. Check PCs pingWhen online, the easiest way to check your performance is to look at your ping. The lower it is, the better. Under 100 is essential for fast action games. If its higher than that, you need to play on better/closer servers, or check what else you have running.
24. Get a gaming routerLook for a dedicated gaming router, or one capable of prioritising certain types of traffic. This will give the lions share of the connection to any games, where every packet counts, while letting more laid-back applications do their jobs as well.
25. Choose games carefullyIf you cant get games running smoothly, look for titles that are more friendly. Casual games have low system specs and can still look and play well. Check out PopCaps range or the indie Diablo clone Torchlight.
Article by : http://www.techradar.com
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