Computer Performance

By Joshua Erdman
Digital Foundation, inc.

Getting the most out of your computer is what it is all about right? If you want to remain competitive against your fellow gamer you need the lowest ping times, the highest refresh rates, and the best resolution. All this takes major CPU power and a really fast videocard.

Below you will find different areas to get more speed from your computer. Each recommendation is listed in order of easiest to most difficult. Some recommend better configurations, others are a bit more dangerous. But it wouldn't be fun without a little danger.

PCI Slot Considerations

On every motherboard you have several slots. View the Motherboard picture for an example. The Motherboard is designed so that you can plug any PCI device into any PCI slot. But at times it does matter what slot you use.

It is not uncommon for the PCI slot next to the AGP slot share a resource called an IRQ. So if you have your PCI Sound Card in the slot next to your AGP video card you may hear crackling or popping noises as you play a graphic intensive game. Also on older motherboards that have ISA slots, the PCI slot that is closest to all the ISA slots may also share resources. So it is best to try not to use the PCI slots next to the AGP and ISA Slots. If you must, put a less important card in these slots. A modem would be a good example since modems are usually low bandwidth devices compared to a video card.

Finally the PCI slots closest to the CPU and AGP port are given a higher priority. So put your most critical PCI cards at the higher slots.

Hardware and Software Upgrades

Adding Memory

The single most effective upgrade you can do for the average computer is more RAM. Adding more RAM allows the Computer to load all it needs into RAM and access the much slower drives less often. Read our article on Overclocking before you purchase your RAM. RAM comes in different speeds and you might be able to get a further performance boost by purchasing faster memory.

Install the newest Drivers

Use the newest drivers! Never use the driver that your hardware came with. Instead go to the manufacturer's website and download the newest driver. Just like software, drivers have bugs and inefficiencies. Bottom line: Newer is always better.

Drive Performance

There are several configurations and maintenance tasks that you can do with your computer's drives that can speed the access of information and processing. Read our article on Drive Performance for more information.

Network Performance

There are a few quick things you can do to increase your network performance. Read our article on switches vs. hubs to learn how to maintain a high perforamance LAN. Also refer to SpeedGuide.net to get many tips on registry settings to lower ping times with network games over broadband and dial-up connections.

Overclocking

Each component in a computer is based on a clock, sort of like a high speed drumset that sets the beat for the whole computer to operate. There are many ways to increase the beat and have your computer pick up the pace. First read our article on Cooling. How cool you are able to keep your CPU is the basis for how fast it can run. Then read the overclocking article very carefully, if you set things up wrong, you might damage your system.

Testing Performance Tweaks

As you tweak the settings of your computer it may be difficult to determine if the changed actually made a positive impact on your computer's performance. This is where a benchmark test comes in handy.

PC Magazine, working with eTesting Labs have created a benchmark testing software and they offer it freely to download. With this benchmark software, you can test your computer's performance before and after each modification to ensure you are squeezing the most power from your computer.

Article last reviewed: 11/14/2003

Created by: Digital Foundation, inc.

All content of the NetworkClue website is copyrighted. Articles, notes, outlines, and all other materials may not be stored on the Internet or sold or placed by themselves or with other material in any electronic or printed format in whole or part. However materials may be referenced by links to the site.