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PC Gaming Tips

Nachbar · 2010-04-07T11:53:57+00:00

This is a general guide for people with low to mid-range computers who are trying to get the most performance that they can to play the games that they love. Even if you have a beefy system these tips can still help you out and the advanced tips at the bottom can show you how to make your games look even better. I'm just going to assume that everyone is gaming on Windows and if you are using Wine or something similar you probably already know better. Any programs I recommend are free to use. If you have a tip of your own to share please do so and if I find it worthy I will add it to my own. I welcome any and all criticism in order to make a more perfect guide. I'm trying not to be too technical with this guide but if you do not understand any term or acronym that I use try typing it in Google. 2.) Optimize your system. Unless you have a beefy system compared to what game you are playing, your probably running the game with your processor and RAM at or near max capacity. Killing background processes frees up precious clock cycles and MBs of RAM so your game can take advantage of everything it can get. Also some antivirus programs will scan all files sent to memory which will cripple your game if its constantly loading a lot of textures. You should be able to disable the real-time protection they offer while you play your game in its settings somewhere so as to not bog you down. I would also consider uninstalling or disabling unnecessary programs from starting up altogether by using the Microsoft configuration utility. If you are unsure of whether you should disable a service or program, Google it. You can alternatively "clean boot" into windows as explained by this Microsoft article as a last resort. I also suggest installing and running CCleaner to clean up your temporary files and tidy up your registry. You should also defragment your hard drive using the built-in defragmenter or by using UltraDefrag. And with UltraDefrag, I suggest you run the boot time scan to defrag your pagefile and registry also. Also its a good idea to scan for malware if you notice your computer is just running sluggish all around. I suggest running a scan with the free version of Malwarebytes. Spybot and Ad-Aware are good alternatives. Another good idea is to disable the graphics-intensive features of the windows UI. To do so right-click either the computer icon on the desktop or computer from the start menu and select properties. Select advanced system settings and go to the advanced tab and choose the settings bubble in performance. From there you can customize it yourself or simply hit the radial button for best performance. Click apply and notice the change and the increased responsiveness. 4.) Upgrade. If you got a game and really want to play it but aren't satisfied with how it turned out after optimizing your system and tweaking the game then this is the only option you are left with. If your computer is less than 5 years old then you can probably easily and cheaply upgrade it to play your games. If its older than that you are probably better off just buying or building a new computer. If you have a laptop, the only thing you can really do is either buy more RAM or buy a new laptop. The systemrequirementslab website has a good recommended hardware list for specific games if you choose to go this route. Memory is probably the easiest thing you can upgrade and sites like memory.com, Crucial, and Kingston have tools that tell you what memory you have and help you find upgrades for it on the internet. Memory holds all your data for instantaneous access and if you don't have enough for your game your hard drive will act as "virtual memory" but that is up to 1000 times slower thus crippling your performance. For modern games, you'll probably want to have a minimum of 2 gigs of RAM and if you are running Vista or 7 you'll want 3 or more. You can find tutorials on how to upgrade your memory here. The next thing you can do is upgrade your video card. All graphics cards today run on the PCI-Express bus and if your motherboard is lacking this bus then I would suggest getting a computer with one. As for choosing a good card, that would depend mostly on your budget. Luckily websites like Tom's Hardware writes articles on this kind of stuff monthly in an article called Best Graphics Cards For The Money and even provides links of places where you can buy them. I would also look at the last page of the current months article at the hierarchy chart and try to get one as close to the top as possible depending on your budget. You can find tutorials on how to upgrade your video card here. You can also upgrade your processor. If you have a slow single-core processor you can more than double your speed by getting a faster dual-core or quadruple your speed with a quad-core. This is a lot more technical than upgrading RAM and your video card but this can be done with the proper research. Though if your using an outdated socket it may be hard to find processors for it. And if you absolutely must have a faster processor you'll probably end up having to upgrade the motherboard too (which in turn has the possibility of using a different type of RAM which you will need to buy as well). The first thing you need to do is find out what make and model motherboard you have. Its usually printed in bold letters on it and if you have trouble finding it you can try to find it on the internet by searching your computer's make a model. Now that you've found that out you will want to search the documentation for what socket the processor uses. Now that you figured that out, shop around sites like Newegg for that socket type and find one in your budget range. Be warned, some processors require you to upgrade your firmware which can be done by visiting the motherboard's manufacturers' website. You can find tutorials on how to upgrade your processor here. For the people with gaming rigs: Overclocking your motherboard as presented by your one and only. There is just so much shit you need to know to overclock and so much time spent simply testing each configuration that you basically don't even want to attempt this unless you are willing to spend an entire weekend on it and are comfortable with possibly fragging your motherboard and anything connected to it. Better cooling for your system is a must and water cooling is preferred. Also having a good PSU is a good idea as well. I assume no liability if you do end up fragging your computer. http://www.overclockers.com/ is a good place for learning how to do any overclocking and I highly suggest you check out the forums. http://www.geekstogo.com/forum/How-to-overclock-t11177.html is an extremely awesome guide on how to overclock and you should read it. Anyways here is my rundown on overclocking your motherboard: Each motherboard is different and overclocking an AMD is different from overclocking an Intel, though the principle is the same. Basically the bus speed x the divider on the processor = processor speed. RAM also has a divider as well which is more variable than the processor's so you can customize it more. By default your divider should be set to its highest so all you can change is the bus speed. But by doing that you also raise the speed of every component in the computer, like RAM. Because RAM and your processor are generally the only things you'll want to overclock, you find the max speed of both that your computer will handle before errors start appearing/your computer overheats. Also if you raise the bus speed your HT will go over its limit and you will have errors also. For figuring out the max speed of the processor, you take the RAM and HT out of the equation by putting the RAMs divider as low as possible and the HT 1 notch lower than the default then you raise the bus speed while keeping the CPU's divider as high as it can go. Only go up in like increments of 10 and after each increment use prime95's benchmark for a few hours and see if you get any erros. As your doing this use a temperature monitoring tool like speedfan and monitor your temps. If no errors then go up another increment of 10. Keep repeating til you get errors then try raising the voltage on the processor slightly and try again (Be warned, if you raise the voltage too much your processor will fry. Be careful). Keep this up until you hit your max where you can't get any faster without your processor turning into a frying pan. (80+ C) Do the same to the RAM but the opposite with the dividers, (low CPU, high RAM, ) and instead use a tool called memtest86+ to check for errors. Higher quality RAM with higher speeds help a lot as you don't have to use a lower divider to get your CPU higher, thus keeping a 1:1 ratio which is highly preferred. Once you have those numbers its a matter of figuring out the best combination without going over the limit. Also you have to watch out for your hypertransport multi and can't have that going over its limit which with a socket939 board is 1000 (bus x multi here as well). This is only my knowledge with overclocking an old socket 939 AMD board so some things will be different for you. You can also use a number of other programs to test your CPU/RAM and monitor your temps as well. I haven't even had the slightest notion to want to overclock my graphics card as the thing runs hot as hell as it is but the overclockers.com site should have info on how to do that as well. I know with NVidia cards you are going to end up using RivaTuner to overclock it and another program to monitor for any artifacts (think of these as graphical errors). Its definitely not as complex as the motherboard but you will still end up spending hours on end testing each configuration and seeing how it performs.

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Nachbar

15 years ago

I updated it a bit under optimizing your system to include scanning for malware and disabling some of the graphics-intensive GUI features.

bobdane1

15 years ago

Handy guide, nice!!

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