Most of us who use our gaming laptops to play games in between making presentations know that PC gaming isn't always as simple as console gaming. I am an avid gamer and love console gaming because it is just plug & play.
I need not worry about an e-mail popping out from my boss in between my gaming session. I also need not worry about the performance of my laptop which will slow down the performance of my games. I hate to wait for my keyboard to respond to the multiple keystrokes
Playing games on your laptop or PC often is equivalent to ‘’plug & pray’’ than ‘’plug and play.’’ This article is intended meant for all those avid gamer like me who love to play console games, however are working professionals too.
At home during the weekends I can spend time on my Nintendo Switch and roam around with it as it is very compact. However, on weekdays, since I work in an advertising agency, I need to work on my laptop and create presentations to impress my clients and lure them to give business to my company.
So here are few of those things which I do to optimize the performance of my gaming laptop which I also use as my work laptop too. We will tell you how to improve game performance on laptop, how to boost FPS (Frames per second), and increase your GPU's (Graphics Processing Unit) performance in general.
Ways to Improve the Gaming Performance of Your Laptop
1. Upgrade your Graphics Drivers and Laptop Drivers regularly
Think about an awesome gaming experience and the first thing which comes to our minds is a good graphics card like 2GB NVIDIA GeForce 920MX Graphics card, 2GB NVIDIA GeForce 940MX Graphics card, AMD Radeon 530 4GB Graphics card and the likes.
Since the graphics card is the centerpiece of your gaming experience updating it from the nVidia’s or AMD graphics drivers’ repository is of utmost importance.
If your laptop uses Intel integrated graphics card, then the regular Windows update will do the needful.
However, laptops equipped with an integrated Intel graphics card is not suitable for hardcore gaming sessions.
If you are a serious gamer and use an NVIDIA or AMD graphics card, then you will have to manually update the drivers' software versions regularly.
You may also choose to set the GPU management software (such as Nvidia GeForce or AMD Gaming Evolved) to automatic updates.
Without updating your laptop's controller and audio drivers, the gaming experience will never be complete.
Whether you use a laptop which is running on Windows, macOS or Linux operating systems all of them use the same architecture and are almost based around the same hardware. Hence irrespective of the OS, keeping device drivers up to date is of utmost importance.
2. Optimize Windows 10 With Gaming Mode
Windows 10 features a gaming mode, which is a built-in optimization for Windows 10 gamer.
When you press Windows key + I, and type game mode, and then click ''Control Game Mode'', you can easily optimize your laptop for a better experience while playing games.
Watch these videos for better understanding and you can also do some more research to understand this concept better.
3. Defragmentation- An ultimate solution to optimize the performance of your hard disk
When your use your laptop for various purposes like browsing, e-mailing, connecting to Skype calls, playing games etc., bytes are written or deleted from your hard disk constantly.
These bytes are saved in various virtual files which become fragmented and physically sprinkle all over the disk drive.
The performance of your hard drive will be hit all the more when you play games constantly.
The hard disk will start acting like a scavenger collecting all of these portions to process the entire file.
Since games normally have a lot of audio-visual contents, they are heavy and take up multiple GBs. Both the games and their associated files will be scattered all across the hard disk and the processor will take time to collate everything and produce the desired output.
If you are not proficient with the process of defragmentation, then take a backup of all your data on your laptop and approach a service center for further assistance. Else you can check out these tutorials and try it at home, if you are familiar with the architecture of your laptop.
4. Supercharge your Graphics Card- Overclocking
The more powerful your graphics chip is, the better your gaming performance will be. If you have a laptop with a high RAM configuration, and superlative processor speed, again, your gaming experience will be better.
So in order to improve performance, we recommend you to run the graphics card over and above the factory speed setting. So basically what you need to do is to overclock your graphics card.
The latest laptops are very smart and overclocking will not damage the hardware. So we recommend you to overclock your graphics card maximum up to 15%.
If your laptop is on Windows 10, you may think about pushing the GPU by plus 100 MHz on the chip and memory by 300 MHz.
Again if you are not a technical geek, then we recommend you to take the help of an expert before you decide to overclock your system.
There are multiple tutorials and tools available online for you to learn how to overclock your graphics card. You may choose to do it for both AMD and Nvidia GPUs.
5. Keep Your Laptop Clean, Dust and Grime Free
Physical maintenance of your laptop should be the first priority in your life whether you are a gamer or a regular user of a laptop.
If you remember, a few decades back, we had to take off our shoes before entering a room which had a computer as dust, dirt and grime are the worst enemies of performance.
The keyboard which is overloaded with dust will never be smooth and hence your will miss out on important keystrokes. It will also reduce airflow, and the laptop will get hot faster.
The moment your laptop starts heating up, it will not be an effective gaming machine.
The processor, GPU, graphics card drivers, audio components, speakers and most of the other components will slow down.
6. Install the Latest DirectX Version
If you are an avid gamer, then you will know the importance of DirectX pertaining to your gaming experience on Windows.
DirectX is a collection of software tools that enhance the graphics in any kind of laptop games or video games. If you are using windows 10, then DirectX 12 will be launched on your laptop.
If your version is not up-to-date, then do it right away and see the difference. You may check some YouTube videos or do some googling to find the right method to update the latest version.
7. Use AVG PC TuneUp’s “Uninstaller” and “Program Deactivator”
Your OS will keep on getting slower as you keep installing each program on your laptop.
Be it a video, programming file, huge power point presentation, album containing pictures of your family and friends etc. every time a new file is downloaded on your hard drive, it has a significant impact on your games repository.
All these programs run some sort of background activity and if you check the task manager of your laptop, you will get to see the CPU usage which these background programs are showing.
If you think that you have closed a program, and it will not impact your laptop's performance, then you are wrong.
The virtual memory which your laptop is using, will have the residue of the program which it will keep at the backend for you to use it immediately the next time you ask for it.
You might have wondered, when you opened an excel file for the first time, it took a few nano seconds more than when you opened it the second time. The cache memory had kept the background files intact which made the same possible.
Download AVG's PC tune-up and ''program deactivator'' and see the magic unfurl.
8. Upgrade to an SSD
Ditch your old HDD (Hard Disk Drive) and upgrade to the latest technology of SSD (Solid State Drive). SSDs are much faster than mechanical hard drives and they reduce the load time in game.
Your game's fps (frames per second) performance will not be improved by this technique; however, your overall gaming experience will improve.
We will recommend you to go with at least an SSD with more than 250 GB as most of the games which were launched in the last few years take up between 8-20 GBs.
If you have installed a few games like Age of Empires III, the new Tomb Raider, Heroes Of The Storm, Arena Of Valor etc. and your will see that it has crossed more than 50 GB.
Windows OS will take up to 30 GB and once you save some movies, song videos and other stuffs, you will soon reach more than 250 GB.
Laptops with SSD will be a little more expensive than the mechanical hard drives, however, if you want a fantastic gaming experience, then the investment will yield the desired results.
9. Close Background App
Close all your apps before you start your gaming session to experience the optimum pleasure. Check the system tray and ensure that none of the residual apps are running in the background.
Right click on each icon and close them.
Also it is a good idea to shut down yout laptop for five minutes so that the virtual RAM is cleared and your system does not have any residue from the previous work which you have done on your laptop.
10. Tweaking the AMD/ATI Control Center and NVIDIA Control Panel
Since all the NVIDIA drivers come with their own control panels, you can tweak the most essential 3D settings.
You can follow some online tutorials and go through the list of all the options and tweak them to suit your requirements.
The performance will be enhanced and visual quality will be improved after you find the right balance.
You can experiment with the Anisotropic Filtering Mode, Anti-aliasing mode and method and a few others in the AMD/ATI Control Center to squeeze out more performance from your games.
You will see that the visual quality of your games have gone up several notches and you are enjoying your same old games all the more.
(AMD control center optimization)
To access the AMD/ATI Control Center, right-click on your desktop and then select “Radeon Settings.” This will take you to the “Gaming Settings” which you can tweak as per your wish to enhance the gaming experience.
This will not impact your device warranty as we will not be playing with the BIOS of the OS or any other component of your laptop. We will just be changing the settings of the AMD graphics card and anytime you want to take the settings back to factory settings, you can do so.
(NVIDIA Control Panel Optimisation)
