How to Tweak Your Computer for the Best Gaming Performance

When you buy a new game and start playing it, you may realize that you have some seriously annoying lag at first. Then, you change the settings in the video panel under options, and your computer is still giving off some serious lag while still showing horrible graphics. What do you do? Well, in some cases there isn't much at all you can do, your computer is just completely out of date and you're going to have a hard time playing most games. However, if the game was able to install, you probably meet the system requirements, and this problem can be fixed.

Firstly, find out your chances of running the game under optimal conditions. Go to the following website first. http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/referrer/srtest. This is a website which will test your computer's ability to play a game based on the system specifications. Allow all attempts to check your system, I assure you this website is safe. Select the game you wish to try for, and make sure that everything is at least meeting the recommended minimum system specifications.

Assuming that your system at least gets close, you can probably now realize that the problem isn't as big of a deal as having highly outdated hardware. There are many ways to go about fixing the problem.

Firstly, make sure all of the effects in your game were either disabled or low. Keep everything else low, the refresh rate low, and the resolution low. If you're still having trouble after this, you might need to update a few drivers that would increase your performance for video gaming.

From the "can you run it" website, after diagnosing your computer for a select game, you should see driver information for your graphics card and sound card. If you had the option to upgrade either through the use of the "big blue button", I recommend doing it immediately. If you update your software that runs your video and sound cards, you're much more likely to be able to run more up-to-date games and applications.

After all of your hardware is upgraded, give it another try. If you're still getting lag, try altering the resolution of your desktop to the smallest resolution possible. This will probably increase in-game performance as well.

Also, make sure no other programs are running in the background. Temporarily end all browsing applications, antivirus, instant messaging, or anything else not require to run the game. Also, try and end processes under the task manager that you know aren't important to system performance. These are usually the processes that are under the category of your username. Just make sure not to end "explorer.exe" or you'll be forced to restart your computer. Ending these other processes that take up additional memory could clear up some memory and make it more possible to play games.

There are other programs that are meant to speed up the performance of video games that can be easily downloaded and at least tried for free. Google the program "Game Accelerator", this is a program known for somehow altering the memory processes of your computer and therefore increasing gaming performance. However I sometimes doubt the credibility of these programs.