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Best Ways To Optimize Your PC For Gaming
Gaming has fast become one of the most popular hobbies in the world, especially on PC. In 2021, it was reported that there were about 1.75 billion PC gamers worldwide. If you’re reading this guide, you’re probably one of them!
Having excellent performance as a gamer is paramount to enjoying your experience, and it can give you an edge over your opponents if you play online. So, what is the best way to optimize your PC for gaming? Today, we’ll look at a few strategies you can use to get better performance without spending a cent. Ready to get started? Let’s begin!
If you want to spend a bit, one of the best ways to optimize your PC for gaming would be with an SSD (if you’re still using an HDD). The performance boost is phenomenal.
Enable Game Mode
Windows is one of the most popular operating systems, but that doesn’t mean it’s the most optimized. This can affect your gaming performance. However, funnily enough, Windows recognized this, which is why you can enable a Game Mode option.
This mode automatically disables things that run in the background when the system detects you’re running a game, which can slightly speed up performance. To enable Game Mode:
: How Nvidia's Tech Is Powering the Future of PC Gaming | IGN Live 2024 (IGN)
- Open the start menu and search for “game.”
- Select “Game Mode settings,” which should appear at the top of the search results.
- Click the slider to the right, which is likely off, to turn the feature on.
Close Background Applications
Background applications consume resources while running in the background. They can increase your CPU usage, read/write operations, and take up available RAM allocations. The result? Slower responsiveness and system performance. To close background applications, you can:
- Open the task manager by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Delete, then select task manager or press Ctrl+Shift+Escape.
- Scroll down to background processes in the Processes tab and end processes that aren’t important.
Similarly, you can prevent certain apps from starting with Windows, which can impact performance. To do this:
- Open the start menu and select or search for “Settings.”
- Select “Apps” from the left side menu.
- Then click on “Startup.”
- Toggle the switches next to the apps to disable them from starting up with Windows.
Change To Performance Settings
Windows automatically sets your power settings to “balanced” to give you decent performance without your PC consuming too much energy. This is fine if you have a high-end PC, but you’ll need every performance boost if you have a lower-end PC. The first steps are as follows after navigating to Control Panel\Hardware and Sound\Power Options.:
- Press the Start button and search for “Choose a power plan.”
- Click the drop-down arrow under the heading “Show additional power plans.”
- Select the “High performance” plan.
The next step is eliminating unnecessary animations that can impact your performance. To do this, you can:
- Press the start button and search for “Adjust the performance and appearance of Windows.”
- Select the third option, which is “Adjust for best performance.”
- Click apply, and you’re done.
Keep Your Drivers Up To Date
Drivers are one of the most important things you can do to keep your PC optimized for gaming. When you keep them updated, they:
- Bring optimizations for the latest games and applications
- Ensure compatibility with the newest hardware and software releases
- Address known issues and bugs, which improves performance and stability
You’ll want to download and install GeForce Experience if you have an Nvidia graphics card. If you’re a Radeon user, you need AMD Radeon Software. Both of these applications will allow you to download the latest drivers. Plus, you can turn on automatic downloads if you’re forgetful.
Free Up Space
Not many people know this, but having low disk space does have an impact on the performance of your PC. How, you may ask? Well, here are a few consequences of insufficient disk space:
- You may not have space for software or driver updates, hindering your performance improvement.
- When you run out of available RAM, your system uses a portion of your disk space as virtual memory. If you have low disk space, you’ll have slower performance because virtual memory operations can become inefficient.
- Your system may have trouble reading and writing data if there’s not enough room to store temporary files. This leads to slower file access, reducing performance.
If you have games installed that you don’t play, uninstall them. If you have videos or images saved on your SSD, get an HDD and transfer the files to that.
Choose The Best Refresh Rate
The best refresh rate doesn’t mean the fastest, as this will depend on the specs of your PC. If you have a monitor with a high refresh rate but a PC that isn’t the fastest, setting your refresh rate to match the monitor may not be the best idea.
Similarly, you should choose a refresh rate that your graphics card supports. You can cause hardware damage if you exceed the refresh rate your monitor or graphics card is capable of. The same applies to resolution. For the sake of performance, it’s always better to undercut than go above.
Use An Ethernet Cable
Another way to optimize your PC for gaming is by using an Ethernet cable to connect to your internet instead of a wireless connection. Online gaming requires a solid, stable internet connection. As impressive as Wi-Fi is, the speed can fluctuate and is prone to higher latency.
On the other hand, Ethernet cables allow you to access a stable, low-latency internet connection, which is essential for online gameplay. Plus, Ethernet cables generally have a higher bandwidth, so they can quickly transfer more data.
