This page shows how to quickly and easily improve your gaming performance on any laptop or desktop PC. Now, we are not talking about hardware changes such as upgrading your graphics card or your processor. We are also not talking about putting in more RAM or about overclocking your system... those improvements will also work, but these fixes usually involve some layout of cash and some serious time to get the work done.

What we are talking about here are easy changes which you can do within the next few minutes to improve your gaming performance. Changes which won't cost you anything and will greatly increase your enjoyment of your games.

Here are some things to try:

1. Update Your Graphics Card Drivers

Most serious gamers will have a dedicated graphics card(s) which gives them extra power/resources when playing games. You need to keep the drivers on these cards updated regularly, especially as new games are being added all the time. New drivers will be adjusted or programmed to better handle these new games - so update your drivers. Just go to your card's website - usually this will be ATI or Nvidia - find the download section for your specific card and check to see if there are any new drivers to download and install.

2. Update Your Game

This might sound very obvious and if you're playing games online, it will already be done automatically for you. But if you play your games off-line, you must update your games to get the best performance levels. New game updates and patches are introduced all the time and you must update the game to get the best enjoyment. Again, most games will have an online company website where you will find any current patches and updates.

3. Clean Your System

You need to clean your system or computer of any unwanted files and data. One easy way to do this is to use a program or site called Ccleaner. You can get the program here: Ccleaner.

Just download the program and clean your system. Many times, this can erase up to 5 - 10 GBs of unwanted files from your system and make it run more smoothly.

4. Defrag Your Hard Drive

You should be regularly de-fragging your hard drive to make it work at peak performance. Over time, files and data on your hard drive can be separated or become fragmented, you need to re-arrange these files/data so they are grouped together and the hard drive pin is not jumping all over the place to get the information. If you're not sure of HOW to defrag your particular version of Windows, just do a search in Bing or Google, to quickly get the instructions. There are many different ways to Defrag but usually it will be something like:

Use the Properties of Your Local Disk

Open My Computer.
Right-click the local disk volume that you want to defragment - click Properties.
On the Tools tab, click Defragment Now.
Click Defragment.

5. Install Your Game First or Reinstall

Try installing your game first on your system before you install any other programs. Sometimes, you can increase performance by re-installing the game on your system. Some gamers also get a single hard drive for all their games or they partition their current hard drive to place their games.

Always Remember...

You can also Adjust Your Resolution on your display and/or on your game. Demanding games which are laggy or choppy at high or ultra settings will play more smoothly at lower resolutions. Granted some details may be lost but the game play may be much more enjoyable.

To find out more go here: Best Resolution for Your Laptop.

6. If All Else Fails - Reformat Your Computer

This is the very last resort. If all else fails, you can reformat or re-install your Windows operating system to its original form. This will take some time and its a step many computer users don't like doing but it can greatly improve your gaming performance levels, especially if some of your files have become corrupted or you have installed a lot of programs on your computer. These programs can interfere and/or drag power away from your system and cause your computer to lag or even freeze up during intensive gaming.

That's it. Just try some or all of these steps to improve the gaming performance of your laptop or PC.

Happy Gaming!

The Notebook Guide

www.bizwaremagic.com