Gaming for some individuals is more than a recreational hobby, it’s a way of life. They prove this by participating in tournaments or entering gaming competitions, all because they a have deep love and passion for gaming.
Gamers don’t ask for much really, just seamless gameplay with no disturbances or obstructions. However, it’s not always possible to have the best gameplay, and this my friends, can be very upsetting when all you wanna to do is smash. In other words, having a good gaming rig that runs smoothly can mean the difference between winning and losing. Below we’ve come up with a short but handy list on how to improve your gaming experience whether you like to play mmorpg’s, action games, or even top educational games.
Here are five ways on how to improve your gaming experience.
5. Keep your rig clean
For you to enjoy gaming on your rig and enhance the experience, it may require some physical labor. Although this maintenance labor is not intensive, it should be done frequently to keep your gaming experience at its par level. You need to make sure that your rig doesn’t have any dust, debris, or any type of dirt.
When dust clogs the cooling system, your computer can overheat, which could result in your rig slowing down. This can affect the central processing unit (CPU), Graphics Card (GPU) and other integral components that make your computer work. In short, overheating is bad, mkay.
If your PC rig is slowing down, or even shutting down, for no apparent reason it might be time to whip open the case, and grab a can of compressed air. It’s safe to use and won’t short circuit your computer’s components as it dries within seconds. Word of caution though, the can gets increasingly colder as you use it. So be quick about it.
If you have a gaming laptop, and don’t want to void your warranty, try spraying the compressed air on the keyboard, the screen, and into the cooling vents. If that doesn’t work there is always the Geek Squad at Best Buy.
4. Update your drivers
To keep on playing like you always do, you will need maintain the software side of your PC or laptop as well. This means making your sure you driver software for your GPU, or Sound card, are always up to date, most of the time new drivers are released to support new titles coming out. Keeping drivers up to date isn’t as hard as it sounds and the method is quite universal for most products, Mac OS, Linux, or Windows.
In some cases you’ll get lucky and Windows Update will automatically download the graphics card drivers for you. If you have an Nvidia or AMD card you can go into the GPU software that came with and find the setting to turn on automatic updates. The Nvidia GeForce Experience or AMD Gaming Evolved software both can be set to auto-update, this will ensure that you always have the latest drivers for the latest game releases.
Playing games can be addictive, though, so ensure that you’re not playing at the expense of school or college coursework. You should try to balance your studies with gaming. If you simply can’t cope, there are services like essay help in Canada that can help you write better college essays and still find time to game.
3. Update DirectX
To ensure optimum gameplay when you use a Windows-powered rig (Windows 10 especially), you also need to ensure that you have the latest DirectX software downloaded. Having the latest DirectX is very important for your games to have perfect visuals. Some games may not even run if you don’t have the latest DirectX software (most newer games will notify you to update your DirectX, or even do it for you during install).
To ensure you have the latest version, follow these prompts. Press WIN+R and then press on the Run menu and then type “dxdiag”. Once your DirectX Diagnostic tool has loaded, click on the Render tab and look for Direct3D DDI. It should show you the version number of your DirectX, check if it is the latest. If not, update it to the latest version.
2. Optimize your graphics card
Optimizing your graphics card may be a bit risky for beginners as this process includes overclocking your GPU. Saying that, you can get the tools you need to do this from AMD or Nivida‘s websites, its also pretty common for the tools to come pre-packaged on a CD in the GPU box. If you bought your PC in a store, the overclocking tools may even be pre-installed. Use caution overclocking on a laptop, as it could overheat the GPU.
There is a chance on a PC rig that you’ll overheat your GPU, you’ll know because your computer will just shut off randomly or the screen will flash and go blue. This may be a situation where the overclocking wasn’t the problem, you may need to invest in a better cooling system for your GPU. If all goes well, overclocking your GPU might give your PC a whole new lease on life, it should run games better and faster, and improve your overall gaming experience.
1. Adjust your rigs power settings
Overclocking your rig has the potential to siphon a lot of power from your PSU (power supply unit), so you may need to adjust your computer’s power settings to accommodate it. This may be more necessary on a laptop, as you might run it on battery often and away from an outlet. PC’s won’t have this issue as much as long as you have a power supply unit with enough wattage.
Using your laptop for gaming purposes, away from the power supply, is not recommended. However, here are the prompts on how you can optimize your power settings to accommodate larger power usage. You can go to the settings> Power and sleep> Additional power settings and then choose the “high-performance option”.
Final Thoughts
Most of the tips mentioned in this guide are practical, maybe even common sense ways to greatly improve your gaming experience on a PC rig or Laptop. There are quite a few other suggestions we didn’t mention, like buying a new GPU, overclocking/upgrading your CPU, switching to SSD/m.2 hard drives, buying a 144 hertz monitor, or upping the amount of RAM. Most of those suggestions cost a lot of money, while our aforementioned tips and tricks do not.
Remember, keep your computer clean, updated, and optimized, if you adhere to these three tenets your PC rig and laptop will run well and your gaming experience will be better. Like anything your computer needs rest, don’t forget to turn it off every once in a while to conserve power and the life cycles of it’s components. Read a book or go outside, and then come back and game on. And if you’re planning on replacing your old PC check out this london computer disposal service.