3 Rock-Solid Tips To Optimize Your PC For Gaming

By: Karan Goel | 13th May 2010

It’s a sad fact that gaming hardware is quickly outdated. Turn your back for a few days, and the previous minimum specs have already been left behind.

Of course, there’s a good chance your computer isn’t even running at its optimum performance. A cluttered hard disk or outdated graphics card can let a long hand into slowing down your gaming system.

Below are 3 solid tips to optimize your computer for gaming, and allow you to play more recent and heavy games with your current set up.

Hard Drive Space

First and foremost, you must make sure that there’s enough space on your hard drive. Like many, even I operated at 95% full hard drive. Not only does this give you little breathing room, your computer will also run slower because of it. Check you system again and axdmit it, you don’t need half of what’s stored on your hard drive right now. So get rid of it.

Defragment

When using a hard drive, space is used wherever available. As such, some files are fragmented all over the disk. The defragment utility analyzes your hard drive, and attempts to consolidate those fragmented files, in an attempt to optimize your computer and speed up your system.

You can find the Disk Defragmenter under Start -> Accessories -> System Tools. Optimally, you can also set a defragmenting schedule.

Updates

Contrary to popular belief, not all Windows’ updates are intended for your displeasure, discomfort, or to keep a tab on your every digital move. Some of them actually improve your system’s performance by fixing known bugs. Imagine that! It’s often best to let the update utility do its thing. If you’ve got your Windows updates turned off, at least check them manually once in a while.

Do you have any other tips for our fellow gamers? Let us know in the comments section below!