Everyone knows how annoying it is to have to lag through a game when all you really want to do is pull out whatever gun you may have and shoot some zombies / Nazis / floating ducks. It is therefore essential to keep your computer clean and quick to allow you have the best gaming experience possible. By following a few simple steps you can be sure to save space and make your computer faster.
Defragment
Every time you install a program the individual files get scattered around somewhere in your hard drive. Over time and after more and more programs are installed, your hard drive has to search for each fragment of the file just to open it. This may lengthen load times. By defragmenting your hard drive you are grouping all these pieces into one part so that your hard drive can retrieve the information it needs faster. After not defragmenting for over a month or two, once you complete the process it is almost guaranteed that you will see an increase in speed. To defragment:
- Click Start
- Go to ‘All Programs’
- Accessories
- System Tools
- Click Disk Defragmenter
- Select your main hard drive
Defragmenting may take a long time depending on how much there is to clean up. However it is more than worth it.
Graphic Settings
Goodness knows that if you crank the graphics of your game all the way to maximum, the game will most likely look spectacular. Unfortunately, not everyone’s PC can handle the stress needed to create the life like images of the game. By lowering the graphic detail such as the shadowing or render detail, you can often speed up the game. It is worth losing a few pixels over running a smooth game. As well as this, pushing the game to optimum speed if your computer can’t handle it often leads to crashing.
Unnecessary Programs
Before starting up your game you should always close any large programs you are running. This includes photo and graphic editing programs as well as most other windows. By looking at the taskbar you can see what other programs are running in the background. Close the ones that take up too much CPU time.
Tip: When running MMORPGs or playing games online, if you really want to get the best out of your computer, close all chatting programs such as MSN Messenger or AIM. While the change may be slight it may just be the difference between a frag and a death.
By pressing Ctrl + Alt + Del, you can open up your task. By looking under processes and arranging the processes in terms of CPU time they take up, you can end the processes that take too much CPU energy. However, you should never end processes unless you know what their function is. Critical processes that keep your system running are also included in that list. For any process that you do not know, research it.
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Over on the European forums, there’s been some question over the Mage ability Evocation. High end mages are saying it’s just not restoring enough mana to be useful. CM Aeus comes to the rescue with an answer — though not the answer most Mages want to hear:
We feel evocate is working as it is intended: it’s simply highly dependent on how much spirit the mage has. Unfortunately, many mages seem not to like spirit that much and would rather spend their gem slots and enchants on other stats. This is fine, everyone has the freedom to choose what stats they want to focus on. Whereas in the past we forced a lot of spirit onto the mage’s tier sets so that they would have good mana regen, to leave more room for flexibility and choice we have replaced a lot of that spirit with gem slots in recent gear.
Mages, on the other hand, say that to maximize their DPS and justify their use in a raid, they’re required to stack gear and gems that eschew spirit and add to their spell damage, thereby rendering Evocation useless. But if they want decent returns from Evocation, and enough mana regeneration to keep them going in long fights, they have to sacrifice their spot on the damage charts in order to equip more spirit gear. To this Aeus responds:
No one’s asking anyone to gimp themselves; just making it clear that choices have to be made when it comes to certain aspects.
So, Mages, what do you think? Is Evocation working as intended — or does it just not give Mages these days enough staying power if they’re trying to keep to the top of the DPS charts? question from http://www.vicsale.com
Comment by jJamdesbondy — July 13, 2007 @ 1:54 am