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How to Speed Up Your PC for Gaming

Updated on February 18, 2013
Speed up PC gaming performance
Speed up PC gaming performance | Source

How to optimize your computer for gaming

If you're a gamer, then you know that there is nothing more frustrating than a lagging game. When you are in the middle of playing, the last thing you want is for your game to freeze and cause you to lose points or even fail. This is especially true for MMOGs where speed and performance are essential. So, let's see what you can do to speed up PC for gaming and optimize gaming performance.

1. Update everything

The first thing you need to do to get rid of PC lags when gaming is to update literally everything. This includes your operating system, your game client, and your graphics card driver. Remember that your game is just another piece of software, so there are bound to be updates, patches and fixes. This is especially true for newer games that might still have various bugs.

As for your graphics card driver, it's essential to keep it up to date. If you are a gamer, chances are you use either nVidia or ATI video card. Both these manufacturers issue frequent driver updates to keep their video cards working well. Just go to your graphics card manufacturer's website and download the latest driver for your particular model.

2. Get rid of the junk

Getting rid of PC clutter is another thing you should do. The more clutter there is, the more gaming lags there will be. Your computer needs to be in absolutely top shape to run performance-heavy games, so it's really important to get rid of everything that might slow down computer performance.

The first step is deleting temporary files and clearing browser cache. Temporary files can accumulate for years and it won't be surprising if you have a couple of gigabytes of junk files. So, don't forget to use Windows built-in Disk Cleanup utility (Start - Programs - Accessories - System Tools) or any other disk cleaner. I recommend CCleaner or the disk cleaner included in BoostSpeed.

3. Clean up your startup list

When you boot your computer, a whole bunch of software loads together with Windows. While it's convenient to have some programs load automatically, the performance of your system is affected. Basically, the more programs launch on startup, the longer it takes for your system to fully load. In addition to that, programs that run in the background consume system resources that you could use for gaming. That's why it's good to have a lean startup list and as few programs running in the background as possible. You can manage your startup items with the help of MSCONFIG or any other startup manager.

4. Optimize hard drive performance

If your hard drive is slow, your gaming will be slow. That's because the hard drive is by far the slowest part of your computer. If it takes a long time to open files, you will experience game lags and even freezes. To speed up your PC for gaming, you need to optimize hard drive performance. The best way to do that is defragment your hard drive. Defragmenting will put the loose fragments of files together and thus speed up hard drive performance. You can use the built-in Windows defragmenter (Start - Programs - Accessories - System Tools) or any of the free defragmenters. But if you want to fully optimize the performance of your hard drive for gaming, it's best to use professional HDD and SSD optimization software like Auslogics Disk Defrag Pro.

5. Delete duplicate files

If you want your games to run really fast, it's important to have as much free disk space as possible. Deleting duplicate files will help you with that. The best bit is that you won't be removing any files or folders that you may need - all you will be deleting are useless duplicates. There are lots of great duplicate file finders out there, but I recommend Easy Duplicate Finder. It's versatile, feature-rich and really easy to use.

6. Add more RAM

And last but not least, you need to make sure that you have enough RAM installed on your computer. If your PC is short on memory, your games will lag and freeze no matter what you do. So, if you want to optimize your PC for gaming, don't hesitate to install the maximum amount of RAM your computer can handle. If you are not sure how much that is, consult your motherboard's manual or check it on the manufacturer's website.

© 2012 Snurre

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