Is there anyway to speed up your Computer without buying a ton of stuff? Thread

Is there anyway to speed up your Computer without buying a ton of stuff? Any programs or editing you could do to make games run faster? Disk Defragment? I heard that it speeds things up quite a bit.

First thing first...

whats your OS, CPU, RAM, and 3D Card?

and your computer may just suck

but yes

SPECS BOY GIVE US SPECS

Mac10 wrote: Is there anyway to speed up your Computer without buying a ton of stuff? Any programs or editing you could do to make games run faster? Disk Defragment? I heard that it speeds things up quite a bit.

That won't do much.

You won't beable to get a speed boost without paying any moolah.

DON'T have a background image

(IF YOU'RE USING WINDOWS XP) Under "visual settings" select "adjust for best performance"

have as few background programs running as possible

run msconfig and turn off all non-Microsoft services (unless they're something you need, like a virus scanner)

(if you're using windows xp) When playing a game, press ctrl-alt-del, go to the process, and change to priority to HIGH (DO NOT SET IT TO REAL-TIME!!!!)

Defrag the HD, if it is really fragmented

make sure your hd's are using DMA (you don't have to worry about this with winxp)

have lots of virtual mem (at least 500 mb)

go to administrative tools (in control panel), go to services, and turn off crap you don't need (like the messenger service, automatic updates, etc.)

if you use winxp pro, make sure your hd's are NTFS

that's all i can think of for now. this should get you a significant performance boost. using these techniques, my PC performs better than some top-of-the-line PCs i see reviewed in magazines (no lie!) and yes, give us specs

- Edited By robo_ronald On Mon 31st, May 2004 @ 4:42:29pm

Play a less powerfull game can't hurt either.

OR buy some some more ram, easy to install and cheap, i regulary see 256 meg sticks of ddr333+ for 30 bucks.

get a new computer or a new internet conection

or you could always um clear out old useless files that helps me from time to time

its only like £60 for a 2.5ghz processor, or less

just buy one and fit it in

the title of the topic said "without buying a ton of stuff"

i just thought of something. try to have at least 1 gig of free space on your hd. more if you can spare it.

- Edited By robo_ronald On Mon 31st, May 2004 @ 7:53:57pm

ph i have a horribly small HD and i still have 3.1 gigs left

I have Intel Pentium 4 1.8 GHZ, 512 mb RAM, Radeon 9000 Pro 128 mb, anything else?

The Thief demo ran a smidge slow and its pissing me off.

- Edited By mac10 On Mon 31st, May 2004 @ 9:38:26pm

OS, please

you could also lower the resolution/ color depth. that doesn't bother me to much and it will help.

I am running XP.

your computer is fine already

delete useless crap

and what games is it mainly slowing down on?

Thief is the only one, just lags a tiny bit and pisses me off, makes me wonder if my comp is going down the shit hole.

Lower the ingame quality of theif

Are you using anti-aliasing or anisotroscopic (*whew*) filtering?

Also buying an extra 512mb of RAM would be cost-effective (assuming you have DIMM)

What is DIMM exactly....srry kinda been awhile

i don't remember what it stands for (i think its something like Dual-something Memory Module) it allows you to run two cards of memory at once without performance loss. it depends on your motherboard.

oh well it doesnt really matter ne way

Would RAM be more cost efficient and useful than a new processor?

RAM is very cheap and effective

I got the speed figured out, no lag now. Just moved the Radeon card to Optimum Performance.