Process lasso

LASSO: Process Lasso can optimise all your process priorities to help deliver improved system speeds

It may also be worth trying Process Lasso, which assigns and manages process priorities automatically. It's a commercial product, but it's reasonably priced (from $20), and there's a free trial available so you can see if it works.

Further basic rules

If you've followed our advice so far, you'll have discovered and tamed resource-hungry processes, turned off unwanted Windows services and taken steps to reduce the impact of many other programs on your PC's performance.

That's great, but to get the most from your PC you'll still need to follow two simple rules while you're working. If you have a bulky application open but you won't be using it for a while, don't leave the window open on your desktop – minimise it. Windows will often free up some of the RAM it's using immediately.

If you're walking away from your PC and leaving an app running some lengthy task – rendering video, say – then make sure that the program is running in the foreground (just click its title bar). Windows gives more CPU time to the foreground app and you should find it completes more quickly.

Make games faster

Nothing is quite as demanding on your system as a cutting-edge game. To get playable frame rates you'll generally need lots of fast RAM, a powerful graphics card, a decent CPU and a speedy hard drive. But if your PC isn't quite up to scratch, don't give up immediately – there are a few tweaks you can apply that may improve things.

As we've already mentioned, detecting and removing resource-hungry processes, freeing up RAM and keeping your hard drive defragmented and optimised will make a real difference. Updating your video drivers can deliver even more benefits.

For example, Nvidia claimed that its 195.62 release would increase performance by 10 to 20 per cent in many 3D games, as well as by 38 per cent in Far Cry 2, and by up to 80 per cent in Lost Planet: Colonies. Impressive? Yes, but unfortunately the driver was soon withdrawn because users were reporting that their cards were overheating, so updating on the day of release probably isn't the best idea.

drivers

KEEP UPDATED: Keep your video drivers up to date to ensure the best possible performance

Stay aware of what's going on, but let others try out new drivers for a couple of weeks before you jump in. In the meantime, you can always get an immediate speed boost by overclocking your video card. It's surprisingly easy.

上一页  [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] 下一页