Building the Ultimate Gaming System VI

2. Crank down Windows (This only applies to Windows XP)

Windows is a freaking memory hog. Ever since Apple became the fancy company it is, Microsoft has been trying to play catch-up by coming up with similar looks so people feel as if they're looking at something fancy. However, people rarely realize that these little fancy tricks tend to slow your PC down horribly, especially older PCs. Old PCs were not meant to have to generate stupid little tooltip animations. Because of that, even people like me with gaming PCs crank down the visual effects available.

How we do this is simple. Go back to Control Panel. Open "System". Click the "Advanced" tab. Click "Performance- Settings". You now have in front of you a list of the main Visual effects Windows XP uses, most of them you've probably never noticed before. I, as a very simplistic person, reccomend turning everything OFF. Smoothing the edges of screen fonts takes up a good bit of RAM for me, so I think it's worth it to keep on, but if you're looking for saving as much RAM as humanly possible, this is a good way to crank down the RAM usage by Windows.

3. Install new Drivers

Believe it or not, installing new things can speed up your computer. Old drivers, especially Video Card drivers, can make your computer slower than it needs to be. The simplest way to do this is to go to the website of the manufacturer and look for the driver. Typically, big companies like ATI, nVidia, and the like will have a whole damned section devoted to Drivers.

Some drivers are not necessary. How do you tell? Simple- some things will obviously not speed up your computer. ATI's new "Catalyst" program, while giving you further control, will not speed up your computer, but the drivers that come with it will. A Monitor driver will never speed up your computer. CD/DVD player drivers will not speed up your computer, but they may make using the drive easier.

A word of caution. Drivers can be malicious to your computer. If you run a very old PC and try to install some of the latest drivers, they may do more damage than good. Always try to keep in mind exactly WHAT you need the driver for, instead of installing everything in sight. Even my new, super-fast PC has problems with it's monitor drivers, FOR NO REASON. Needless to say, someone running a 3 year old PC will have even more problems- so keep an eye out.

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