System Optimization Guide for Gamers

Mr.Tweak writes "We have written a comprehensive System Optimization Guide targeted toward Gamers looking to get the most out of their systems for all of today's latest highly demanding PC games. Take a few minutes of your life and read this System Optimization Guide for Gamers where TweakTown promises you will find something of use which will have you gaming at full speed in no time."

Comments

Screw tweaking

[Quasar1999]

I used to spend days tweaking my settings, getting the latest drivers, etc... SCREW IT!

The only way to really get performance is to get good hardware. No amount of tweaking your old Geforce 2mx is going to get the same performance as a Geforce 4 ti4200 even with the worst system settings... Prove me wrong people!

The Site Needs a Eula

[puto]

So they have written a manual for non technical people to really screw up their systems?

I can feel the pain already.

1. They reccomend futzing around in the bios. BIOS is a no no even if you know what you are doing. Most people who really know hardware stay outta the BIOS unless it is absolutely necessary. The standard settings are usually the best, and unless you need to free an IRQ, or change the boot device, leave it alone. Anyway these days BIOS kinda maintain themselves. Flashing the BIOS as well, Christ on a rubber crutch, don't get me started. Unless you really need some feature don't do it.

2. Overclocking? With AMD high ends running at such low prices why? The cost spent on all the fancing cooling devices can be used to just buy a better CPU. I dont overclock, admittedly I did drop 35bucks on all copper heatsink with heat pipes, to cool the new Athlon, but i think it looks cool,(like anyone is ever gonna see it anyway). LAst thing you need to do is get some newbie burning up his chip/board/ setting the curtains on fire, voiding his warranty.

I think this whole article is really bad advice for the non technical person. Because any tech worth his salt would not advise any of this stuff for a few more FPS.

I would say the best advice is quality hardware and don't pinch pennies when buying it. Aside from the ultra high end video cards, stuff is really cheap these days.

Here is my guide to a good system. I judge it by having the case cover on and how often do I have to get in there and open it up. New computer three months old, burn in 3 days, I havent had the case off since. And I am a hardware nut.

This whole tweaking thing is like the ricers. Just spend the money that you would have dropped on fans,pumps, copper, heatsinks, on the high end stuff to begin with.

Puto

Imagine the support calls.

Security?

[Schik]

I love one of his first suggestions -

"I recommend only one account (the Administrator) for fastest performance... If you have only one User account (as recommended above) and you leave your password field blank you shouldn't be prompted for a username and password each time you bootup XP. This is the fast way to bootup."

So only have one account, the Administrator account, use it all the time, and don't put a password on it. Great advice.

Tweaking is useful, to a degree

[quantax]

As a zealot tweaker, I disagree that tweaking is useless. First off, if someone thinks they are going to double the speed of their system with some tweaks, thats ignorance. Tweaking serves two purposes for games: performance and quality. You know how often you can goto a support forum for a new game and see people saying, "Why does ___ run so slow?" and they dont realize they have all of the default game graphic settings on, which probably including shadows, realtime lighting, antialiasing, anistropic filtering and such. Understanding what these settings do can GREATLY improve your experience. No, this is not like buying a Radeon 9700, but thats $320, and this is free w/ a little time. Saying that tweaking is useless is like saying that recompiling your kernel is pointless if it works. Don't whine about people bothering to make the most of their hardware, no one is forcing you to do the same.