How can you make the most of your existing gaming PC?

It’s much more fun to play games when they are running smoothly, free from any lag or online time-outs. Gaming PCs, whether bought or home-built, are designed and optimized to run games, but you always need to make sure you can meet the minimum and recommended system requirements. In other words, you need the right hardware capabilities to begin with.

If your PC is new, it probably still meets the system requirements for the latest games, even if this requires a little bit of tuning. There’s no escaping the fact that aging gaming machines start to slow down, and it can feel like the only option is to buy a new one. If your PC only just meets the requirements for your games, there are steps that you can take to bring it back over spec. Here’s how to make the most of your gaming PC.

Update and Optimize Graphic Cards

One of the main causes of poor performance when gaming, is an outdated graphics card. Graphics cards with the latest drivers will boost the performance on both newer and older games. If yours are out of date, consider upgrading or adding multiple graphics cards to your setup.

You can also optimize the frame rate and tweak the settings of your graphics cards to improve the performance of your games. A slight overclocking of the card can bring your graphics up to spec and is totally safe. Use tools like MSI Afterburner to overclock pretty much any GPU.

Install More RAM

Installing more RAM is one of the easiest ways to improve performance.

Another very common problem is the amount of RAM you have available on your computer. When you are close to maxing out your RAM, the data will spill out over onto your hard drive, which will, in turn, clog up and slow down. The performance will, therefore, degrade if you do not address the issue, meaning either reducing the number of applications saved on your PC or adding more RAM.

It’s easy enough to upgrade your RAM. Though Windows can run on as little as 1GB, it’s recommended that your PC has at least 8GB of RAM for gaming in 2018/19. This will allow you to run most games. However, 16GB of RAM is more optimal, and it’s likely that you will never run out of memory if you have this setup. If you’re struggling with 8GB, add another 8GB to get going.