Friday 15 June 2012

7 Tips For Reducing Lag During On-Line Games

If you enjoy playing video-games online, then you surely know how it’s annoying when the game experience is riddled with slowdowns. Typically referred to as “lag”, this unwanted effect can be caused by a number of hardware or software problems. Here, we shall overview the most common such issues, and present an appropriate fix for each one.

Reducing Lag During On-Line Games


Step 1 – Check Hardware
Low processing power is the most common reason for lag in computer games. The first thing you should check whether your computer meets all the hardware requirements of the game you want to play. Additionally, check if all the appropriate drivers (such as Direct X) are present on your computer.

Read - Hardware Specs For High End Gaming

Step 2 – Internet Connectivity
If you are experiencing lag in online games then one of the reasons for it could be a slow internet connection. Modern on-line games often need quite sizeable bandwidth to run smoothly, particularly if the game involves many people.

Read - High Speed Internet

Step 3 – Downloads
Make sure any kind of upload or download is not taking place while you play online games or else network connectivity will be lower and you will be more likely to experience lag. If you stop all download/upload activities then there will certainly be a considerable improvement in the speed of the online games you take part in.

Step 4 – Available RAM
Try and see which applications are utilizing more of your computer’s RAM and whether they are required, if not remove such applications or disable them to free up more RAM. More available RAM will usually mean better performance of online games.

Step 5 – De-fragment the Disk
Files on your computer are often store in non-contiguous locations instead of contiguous sectors, causing fragmentation of the hard disk. Your computer will perform better if it is defragmented on a regular basis and while playing online games also you will notice the improvements.

Step 6 - Firewalls
High ping rates are also common if the firewall on your machine is blocking the network connection. If you suspect this could be the case, you should change the configuration of your firewall as to not interfere with the game you’re playing.

Step 7 – OS
 Many times the reason for lag in the online game is because of the operating system you are using. The best thing to do will be to go through the details about which operating system will provide the best playing experience and install the same on your computer. Another reason for lag in games could be malware, viruses or Trojans in your computer system. To correct this problem you will have to install good anti-virus software and clean up the system properly.

Conclusion
As you can see, lag in on-line games may have lots of different causes. Even if you have a state of the art computer, you may still come across this kind of issue. If that’s your case, consider the advice in this article, and have fun playing silky-smooth on-line games.

Read - Perfect Laptop For Gaming

Author: Did you find this guest article useful? If so, make sure to visit the Computer Too Slow website, for various tips on how to improve the performance of your computer.
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Meet the Author

Gautham A S

Gautham A S is a personal tech columnist and blogging expert at TechGau.Org, one of the leading Tech, How-To and Blogging Tips blogs