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When you wish to increase your computer’s performance for video gaming, there are several ways to do so. The first thing is to get a proper monitor – the bigger the better. You will probably be using LCD technology, which works well for gaming, but you will need to keep track of the refresh rate of the monitor, since a slower rate with a fast-paced game will cause visual “ghosting,” where you see the remains of past graphics on top of the newer graphics. You’ll likely want a full-fledged sound system as well, with surround options. Yes, it’s harder to set up five or six speakers when you’ve got a desktop computer, but you’re not going to hear those bad guys coming with low-powered stereo speakers.
External video and audio equipment are important, but not enough if you don’t have a powerful-enough computer, so here are some tips and tricks for improving your hardware’s performance. First off, the thing most people are missing for the latest games is a new-enough video card. Not all cards are created equal, and you’d better prepare to pony up some money if you want a card powerful enough to make the latest games pop. If you don’t know how to take out and install video cards, it might be worth your while to pay someone else to handle it for you.
Of equal importance are the computer’s processing speed and the amount of RAM it has. Think of the processor as the brain and the RAM as attention – the brain has to work fast enough to handle all the data deluging it, and it can only pay direct attention to so many things at one time. In other words, you’ll need more RAM to do more things and a faster processor to do complex things.
