How to Make Your Computer Game Run Faster

Level of difficulty: Intermediate

PC games are more fun to play when they run smoothly and at full capacity. Sometimes, or even most times however, you may find that the game you installed tends to be choppy and below your graphical expectations. There are steps you can take as a remedy to this problem before you lose interest and stop playing the game altogether.

Materials Needed:
- PC
- higher capacity RAM and video card (optional)
- network connection (optional)
Step 1
Make sure that you meet the recommended system specification required by the developer. The rule is the more powerful the system is, the better the game will run. Most modern games are CPU-intensive. They take up a huge amount of resource from the Video Card and RAM. It would be wise to get the latest and best models when it comes to hardware. Investing in a better gaming rig would ensure that the graphics run smoother and look closer to what the developers have intended and will have audio effects that are more crisp and lifelike, thus providing a more satisfactory interactive experience.
Step 2
Disable unnecessary background tasks. More open programs mean more RAM is used. This could be otherwise used by the game program itself. It is highly recommended that when running a game, you should momentarily disable programs that could take up important system memory. These include antivirus programs, disk defragmenters, messenger services, browsers, etc.
Step 3
Make sure that the hardware drivers are properly installed and updated. Most modern games require that the computer system should have the latest hardware manufacturer drivers installed in order to attain the best gaming experience.
Step 4
Periodically de-fragment your hard drive. Most program loading times could be cut by several moments from just letting the system rearrange the cluttered files on the drive.
Step 5
If you feel that the graphics are slow or look nothing like what you expected it to be, consider tweaking your in-game graphics settings. Most modern games provide this option to the users. You should consider the balance between the quality of the rendered image and the speed of the action and adjust the settings to your desired preferences.
Step 6
If the graphics are still too slow, you may want to adjust the game to work on a lower rendered resolution. Higher-resolution gaming takes a lot more processing power from both the CPU and RAM, so gaming on lower resolution settings should ease the system's burden of producing a larger image and should speed up the motions in the game program.
Step 7
Make sure that your network connections are properly maintained. This is especially true for network gaming. Most delay and disconnections from gaming on a network can be attributed to faulty LAN wiring and poor service from Internet Service Providers.