Games are supposed to be an escape from the stress of everyday life, not a reason for it. Unfortunately, many games can cause your computer to slow down and lag as you play. The good news is that there are some steps you can take to make sure games run smoothly on your PC! In this blog post, we will discuss 8 tips that will help improve how fast your gaming experience is on your PC.
Motherboard And CPU Issues
The motherboard and CPU are the two most important components of your computer. These are responsible for processing all data in, out, and transferring between devices on your PC. When you have an issue with these pieces, it can cause a serious performance reduction that results in a frustrating lag time when playing games or just having overall system slowness issues. Failure to keep up with updates and upgrades in the motherboard and CPU can cause these issues to develop faster.
You can update your computer’s hardware components to help Windows run games faster. Check out high-quality motherboard brands to see which one might suit you. If you have an old motherboard and CPU, it might not be compatible with the new operating system. This is why updating your computer’s hardware components can help to run games faster on PC.
Check For Crashing And Freezing
A game that keeps crashing or freezing is even more frustrating than one with slow load times. There are some steps you can take to resolve this issue on your own without having to call tech support and spend time trying different solutions, which may not work anyway. Checking for updates should be the first step in troubleshooting any issues like these since new patches and updates come out all the time and may resolve these issues.
Next, make sure your computer’s drivers are up to date since an old driver will not be able to handle a new game without crashing or freezing. You can check for this in device manager by right-clicking on “My Computer” then selecting properties. Select hardware from the list on the left and click the device manager button. Now check for any yellow exclamation points next to devices, which means they are not recognized by Windows. Right-click on them and select update driver software or similar option to automatically search for a properly updated version of that hardware’s drivers.
Close Unnecessary Background Applications
Another problem that can cause your games to run slowly is opening too many applications in the background. While it might be helpful for multitasking purposes, this limits how much memory and processing power are available to Windows during gameplay which will result in slow load times, crashing, or freezing.
You should check the task manager frequently when playing a game so you can identify and close any unnecessary processes. Letting the task manager run in the background takes up processing power, so it is best to use this only when necessary, such as for checking how much memory is taken by certain programs or looking for errors that might be causing a game to crash or freeze frequently.
Many of these tasks you will find are just automatically started by Windows when it is booted up. Some of these unnecessary background applications are browser plug-ins that automatically update themselves, so they will have to be disabled manually through each browser.
Avoid Overclocking
Overclocking can cause a host of problems for games that most gamers don’t have the knowledge or equipment to deal with. You will need serious cooling if you are going to be overclocking your CPU and GPU; not just any fan is sufficient.
Some people might try overclocking simply because they think it means higher speeds which means better performance, but overclocking can actually decrease the lifespan of your components and damage them. For instance, if you overclock a graphics card, it will generate more heat which could fry it or reduce its performance until parts are replaced.
Overclocking is not necessary to make games run faster and has many negative consequences that most gamers do not want to deal with.
Upgrade Your RAM
While upgrading your graphics card is the best way to improve performance in games, another pretty easy upgrade you can make that will have a significant impact on the gameplay experience is adding more RAM.
Upgrading your computer’s memory should be done by purchasing compatible sticks or modules for it and installing them into an open memory slot (or slots) inside of your computer. If you have a desktop, there is usually only one slot for RAM, so it’s best to buy the largest amount of memory your motherboard can handle to get the most speed boost possible.
Clean Up Your Hard Drive
Over time, your hard drive will become filled with temporary files and other useless data, which can cause games to take a long time to load. When this happens, it is best to clean up the drive by deleting these unnecessary files, so there are fewer things Windows has to sort through when looking for necessary ones.
You should use whatever file management program is built into Windows to delete these types of files. There will be a section in the file explorer for this purpose, and you can also use it to sort through your hard drive contents, check file sizes, etc.
You should periodically go through all the applications on your computer that run automatically or open themselves when Windows starts and check to see which ones are not necessary. You will usually find that background processes like virus scanners and system monitors are not necessary to have running all the time.
Use A Dedicated Graphics Card
If you want to make a more significant upgrade that will give your computer’s graphics card a big boost, consider purchasing a new one.
Drivers are the software that allows your components and peripherals to communicate with Windows and other programs on your computer. When these drivers become corrupted or out of date, they can cause various issues, including games not running properly or at all.
You can check for and update your drivers by going to the website of the manufacturer that made your components and downloading any updates available, which you will then be prompted to install after opening them. You should do this periodically so as not to leave it until too late when an important driver becomes outdated.
You can also set your Windows to automatically check for and install updates, but it is recommended that you do this only after running a manual scan yourself to make sure they are not installing anything harmful or unnecessary.
Adjust Visual Effects
You can adjust your computer’s visual effects by opening up its control panel, which will provide you with different settings for this purpose. This is usually done by right-clicking on the desktop and selecting Display Settings or Personalize from a menu that pops up when doing so.
Once opened, there should be an area where you can adjust the settings for your computer’s graphics card, which you should do so until it shows an increase in-game performance.
You may also want to decrease the number of items that are displayed on the screen at once by disabling unneeded visual effects like shadows, reflections, etc. You will probably not notice much difference with this, but it does take up processing power which could be better used elsewhere.
If you are having issues with games not running properly on your PC, these are some of the things that may be causing it and how to fix them. You can also refer back to other posts for more tips on this topic or search online for specific instructions regarding issues related to your computer model if needed.