PC Gaming Made Easy

You can’t just expect to press the power button on your PC and be ready to play a game. Well, unless that game is Minesweeper; if you can’t run that then I don’t know how you’re reading this or why you’re visiting TheSixthAxis in the first place. Today we’re going to take a look at some tools and give you some tips that will help make the experience of playing games on your PC or Mac better and a lot easier.

So, where do we start? Well, you’ll obviously need to know if your PC can actually run a game before you load it up, so here’s the easiest way to work that out:

Can you run it?

Well, can you, punk? SystemRequirementsLab have created a nifty little service that can be accessed from your browser; it taps in to your computer’s brain and checks if it’s able to run a game by analysing the hardware and software you have. This could potentially save you hours of trying to work out if your graphics card is good enough or not. These hours can then be spent playing games. It’s the perfect solution!

What happens if your computer just isn’t running the game properly, even though the CYRI test passed? Well, then you can either close all of the non-essential background tasks manually, or you can try this out:

Game Booster

Every time you want to play a game on your computer (unless it’s Minesweeper), you should open up Game Booster and Click (X) to Boost; you’ll notice that your computer becomes faster than a leopard hunting down a gazelle with a motorbike. Okay, this probably won’t happen unless you’ve got thousands of background programs, but it definitely frees up a bit more RAM. It has other uses, too, such as keeping you up to date with the latest game drivers and essentials, as well as tweaking your system for top performance.

Now, what if you can’t find those games on your computer and you have no idea where to buy them? Then there’s only one solution:

Steam

There’s a lot to be said about Steam (and most of it can be found here) so instead of rewriting that article, here’s one word to describe Steam: essential.

What happens when you’ve played every game on Steam, then? Yes, all of them. What do you do? Well, you expand the games you have, of course:

Mods

Mods can range from anything from something simple like a new gun to a decent map, or even a full new campaign. Some people go all out and combine these all into one to create a new expansion for a game. There are some great examples out there and many PC games support these. We’re not going to go off on a tangent about mods but stick around and we’ll make sure to discuss the best ones at some point in the near future.

Maybe you’ll want to show everyone what you’re playing, rather than just your friends on Steam. Well, there are a couple of services that encourage sharing and help to make PC gaming easier:

Sharing

Firstly, Raptr is a tool that tracks your progress in games and allows you to share this with the world. It updates your twitter, Facebook, Raptr whenever you go to play a game and can be very useful for when you want to spam twitter, explaining what you’ve accomplished in a game. Meanwhile, Xfire is a tool that shows your Xfire friends which game you’re playing and which server you are on, allowing the friend to join you. It’s also an instant messaging system that works in-game. Other features include clans, the ability to take screenshots and videos in supported games and stream your games to the masses.

We’ve barely scratched the surface here; but these are the most useful things for making gaming on your PC or Mac better and easier. Of course, we’re not just going to stop it here without discussing a few of them:

The Others

Steam may have built-in voice chat, but we’ve found that TeamSpeak has a lot more options and is simply better, if you’re really into good quality voice chat whilst gaming. There’s a useful tool called Fraps, which not only allows you to record HD videos (only for 30 seconds and you’ll be stuck with a watermark in the free version, however) and take screenshots in any game (although, you’ll be stuck with the BMP format in the free version) but also allows you to check how well your PC is coping, with an FPS count displayed in the top corner.

So, there you have it. You should now have the best tools for a good gaming experience. Sure, your PC might not have the best hardware but we’ll make sure to set aside some time to talk about that, too.

Do you have any other tips, tricks or tools for playing games on your computer? Let us know in the comments below.