Speaker A
If you're lucky enough to have yourself a gaming PC, then chances are you might not be unlocking its full potential. I mean, after all, it's very easy to get hold of one, start playing your games, and just not think about anything else.
Discover 10 easy PC gaming tips to boost performance, optimize settings, and enhance your gaming experience on your gaming PC.
Key Takeaways
- Simple BIOS and software tweaks can significantly improve gaming performance.
- Proper fan tuning balances noise and cooling effectively.
- Using driver optimization tools and manual settings tuning can enhance frame rates and visual quality.
- Monitoring FPS and latency is crucial for optimizing gameplay experience.
- Organizing games and using compatible peripherals improves overall usability.
What the video covers
- Learn essential keyboard shortcuts like Alt+Tab, Alt+F4, and Ctrl+Shift+Escape for better game and system management.
- Enable XMP/EXPO in BIOS to overclock RAM for improved frame rates on CPU-limited games.
- Tune your PC fans to ramp up only when necessary, reducing noise during light use and gaming.
- Use applications like CCleaner to clean unnecessary files and iCUE or Signal RGB to manage RGB lighting efficiently.
- Organize all your games in a single folder for easier management and optimization through AMD or Nvidia driver panels.
- Adjust game settings manually by balancing resolution, DLSS/FSR/XSS, and turning off ray tracing to optimize FPS and latency.
- Use built-in tools like Xbox Game Bar or Nvidia/AMD FPS counters to monitor performance and latency while gaming.
- Configure Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) technologies like FreeSync or G-Sync for smoother gameplay.
- Explore advanced game launch options to increase FPS caps in certain games like Apex Legends.
- Tips on gamepads and controllers for seamless switching between mouse/keyboard and controller input.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction and Overview of Gaming PC Potential
- 00:51Sponsor Segment: Gigabyte A16 Gaming Laptop Features
- 01:46Keyboard Shortcuts for Efficient PC Gaming
- 02:44Enabling XMP/EXPO for RAM Overclocking
- 03:33Fan Tuning for Noise and Cooling Optimization
- 04:20Useful Applications: CCleaner and RGB Control Software
- 05:17Game Organization and Driver-Based Optimization
- 06:17Manual Game Settings Tuning for Best Performance
- 06:18FPS and Latency Monitoring Tools
- 07:11Advanced Tips: VRR Configuration and FPS Cap Adjustments
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
There are actually some real quick and easy, simple tips and tricks you can make to just make your whole PC gaming experience that much better. Which is the exact reason why in this very video, we're going to walk you through 10 super
Speaker A
easy tips and tricks to help you get the very best out of your gaming computer and potentially increase your frame rates, smoothness, and make your PC just way quicker and easier to use. And I know for a fact there are going to be
Speaker A
plenty of people watching this thinking they know everything about PC gaming. They couldn't possibly learn anything new. But let's just wait and see about that, shall we? I think this video is going to be incredibly helpful. So, join
Speaker A
us for absolutely everything you need to know right after a short word from this video sponsor. Introducing the new Gigabyte A16, the wallet-friendly gaming laptop that's better than ever.
Speaker A
Now equipped with up to an RTX 570 laptop GPU, you get faster frame rates, access to DLSS 4 AI upscaling, and multiframe generation smarts. It rocks a super fast 165Hz display, ideal for multiplayer, and even goes up to 2560
Speaker A
x 1600 on the top set model. Get your game on today for less with the Gigabyte A16.
Speaker A
Learn more with a link below. Let's start with arguably the most useful first. And whilst definitely obvious to some, it's going to be a real game changer for others, keyboard shortcuts. And there is no doubt in my mind that every
Speaker A
PC gamer on this planet has to know about Alt and Tab. As this lets you change applications, but crucially brings you out of full screen mode when you're playing a game and back into the desktop. Whilst Alt F4 closes the current
Speaker A
application that you're using, which is fantastic for rage quitting in Battlefield 6. But the lesser-known key combination that has to be the complete game changer is actually Control, Shift, and Escape, which brings up the task manager. This by itself is very useful,
Speaker A
but where it gets incredibly powerful is when you hit the cog in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen and then enable always on top. This single change means that now whenever you have a game crash, the task manager will appear over
Speaker A
the crashed game, allowing you to safely close it down without having to restart your PC by holding down the power button. But whilst there is absolutely no doubt that that's very useful, if you want the real game changer, then it has to
Speaker A
be game optimization. And yes, I realize I've said game changer too many times this video. Leave me alone. These next steps are like using Razer Leaf on a toad doll. Super effective and it all starts with enabling XMP or EXPO in the
Speaker A
BIOS. It is incredibly straightforward. Just restart your PC, mash the delete key, and then check the box on the home screen or under OC settings. Assuming your PC can cope with the overclock, your RAM should now be running at its
Speaker A
rated speed and should now show up as such under task manager. And obviously, the difference that this is going to make to your game depends on how CPU limited the title is, what the speed of your RAM was, and obviously what it's
Speaker A
now overclocked to. But you'll actually be surprised because on quite a few systems, this should make a significant difference to frame rates, as I say, that are kind of quite heavily hitting the CPU. It is worth noting though that
Speaker A
this one-click solution isn't going to work for everyone. You'll find or might find that your PC then doesn't boot and kind of like has some weird funny lights on it, just clear the CMOS and go back to what you had before. And then if you're
Speaker A
feeling a bit more adventurous, you can kind of enable the XMP or EXPO, but then kind of manually dial down that speed until you get it stable. But it's definitely worth having a play around with. Another optimization that again
Speaker A
everyone really should be doing is to tune your fans to make sure that they only ramp up, they only get loud when your PC actually starts to heat up.
Speaker A
Personally speaking, I usually set mine to ramp up at around about 70°. And this way, most PCs can be essentially quiet when you're just using in the desktop and then with a little bit of trial and error, a decent chunk quieter when
Speaker A
gaming, too. This is either done in the BIOS for most users or in the desktop if you have fancy fans with a USB controller and you haven't plugged them into the motherboard. If you've already done all of these things, though, or
Speaker A
just know it all, how about a couple of extra applications that you can use just to make your life a whole lot easier.
Speaker A
The first is called C Cleaner. Not CC Cleaner like I thought it was for 10 years, but hey, at least I've been using it for 10 years. And the free version should be all you need. There is a
Speaker A
premium one with some extra stuff in it, but the real meat of it is that it lets you delete unneeded files on your system in just a single click. And it's very good at finding things you didn't even
Speaker A
know existed, and it's way more effective than just emptying the recycle bin. The other application is either iCUE or Signal RGB. Two applications that aim to streamline RGB and let you mix, control, and crucially synchronize different brands of RGB
Speaker A
fans, motherboard headers, and ARGB strips, all from one single application. Both of which are free, though Signal does have a paid tier, too. Right, then that is our system optimized. But now, let's move on to arguably the even more
Speaker A
important bit, the game optimization. The first thing I'd do is frankly a little bit boring, but very important, and that's to create a single games folder on your gaming drive called Games, and then point all of your game
Speaker A
launches here so they're all in one place, nice and neat and tidy. Once you've got something installed, you then have a couple of choices. I'd say for less confident users, I'd recommend opening up your new game and then
Speaker A
perhaps counterintuitively closing it down, as this will then let you find it listed in your AMD or Nvidia driver panel. And there's a button called Optimize that lets you hit this and then it will dial in your perfect settings
Speaker A
just with a single click. For those that hate being told what to do, people like me, I'd instead advise starting a game at a high preset and then turn your textures up as high as your VRAM will allow as this doesn't usually affect
Speaker A
performance too much. And then set your output resolution to match your display resolution. From here, set DLSS, FSR, or XSS to the balance setting. And then use this setting to control your frame rate.
Speaker A
If it's higher than you need and you want it to look better, increase it to quality or ultra. But if it's too low, you can then decrease this to performance. If this either looks bad, the game is still chugging, or worse
Speaker A
still both, ensure that ray tracing is off as this tanks your FPS. Disable frame generation as this adds horrible latency. And then start reducing the quality and lighting settings down until you're happy with the overall FPS. But wait a minute, how do you see the FPS? I
Speaker A
can't see it. I can't see the latency. What are you talking about? Glad you asked. Without installing anything, you actually have a few options. And the easiest is just to open the Xbox Game Bar as it gives you performance stats
Speaker A
you can then pin to the screen and see whilst gaming. But I'd argue that this is probably a little bit bulky and it doesn't always work properly. So once enabled in the driver, both AMD and Nvidia do actually have better FPS tools
Speaker A
that can be toggled with a hotkey. And Nvidia's also shows the latency data too, which is neat. Alternatively, you can get this data with Nvidia's Frame View app. And this works on any GPU brand. Or if you want to go really in
Speaker A
depth, you can download MSI Afterburner for the most complete list of statistics, including.
Speaker A
data to work out whether your system actually has a bottleneck. I mean, every system has a bottleneck, but in particular to work out what that bottleneck is. If your GPU usage is sitting at 97% or above, then chances
Speaker A
are your graphics card is holding back your system. If it's not, it's probably the CPU. But don't get caught out if you have a 16 core processor and you're only using 20 or 30%. That doesn't mean you're not held back by the processor.
Speaker A
And if you find that your game is feeling particularly bad or is missing a load of textures, then it's worth checking both your RAM and VRAM usage.
Speaker A
As if either of these are at max capacity, you can have serious unplayable game issues. Our next tip, though, is all about VRR or variable refresh rate. Have you got yours configured properly? If you're unfamiliar, then both FreeSync and
Speaker A
G-Sync monitors make your game smoother by syncing your refresh rate with your game's FPS, but it needs to be enabled in both the monitor menu and your PC settings. Check this by going into your driver software, finding the option, and
Speaker A
then hitting enable. Though, for lots of freezing displays, if you're using an Nvidia GPU, you're also going to need to check the box at the bottom. If it says this is currently unvalidated and you want to enable it anyway, then either in
Speaker A
game or in driver, create a FPS limit that's just below your refresh rate. So, say 163 or 164 FPS on a 165 Hz display and then enable VSSync in the game. This way, you're getting a super fast refresh
Speaker A
rate and you're going to ensure all of your frames are in sync with your display, negating the lag that can sometimes happen if the game dips over and under your monitor refresh rate.
Speaker A
There are a couple of exceptions to this though. Obviously, if you're playing a multiplayer title and crucially, your frame rate is way beyond uh what you're able to show on your display, then you can just turn the frame rate limit off
Speaker A
here because to be honest with you, you're probably not going to see much uh in the way of tearing anyway. And obviously, you want it to be as up to date as possible. And then the other one is in certain games, you'll find that if
Speaker A
you turn VSYNC on, even whilst using G-Sync, the game will just get really unnecessarily laggy. I I don't really know to be honest why this is. It shouldn't do that. But if this does happen, then try experimenting with a
Speaker A
VSSync lock in the driver. Otherwise, just turn it off. And if there's any tearing, this is kind of better than obviously having something that feels bad. But by default, try and set yourself a frame rate limit because it
Speaker A
really does work. Now, for our next tip, I want to talk about mods. And I know that mods aren't for everyone, but I'd always recommend making a few tweaks to some games that need a little bit of boost. It doesn't have to be a complete
Speaker A
redesign. Apex Legends is a prime example of this. And using a simple advanced launch option in either Steam or EA or wherever you're playing the game, it will let you boost the FPS cap all the way up to 300 FPS, which can be
Speaker A
a massive competitive advantage. And whilst there are loads of games that can be tweaked in this way, others require a little bit more finesse and can be boosted with a quick change to what we call an in file, the text document that
Speaker A
gets updated with all of the settings that you've enabled in game. Personally speaking, I'd recommend using Notepad++ for any changes. This doesn't add any extra formatting. And then you can just open up your file, depending on the game, do things like change an FPS
Speaker A
limit, force settings on or off, disable unskippable startup videos, and even unlock new graphics options that are hidden to your average Joe. Yeah, you heard me, Joe. You're average. Joe's aside though, let me now get to the most
Speaker A
important bit of purchase advice. And you've probably guessed cuz I'm holding one. There are loads of PC upgrades you can do. You can make it look prettier.
Speaker A
You can water cool it. You can buy the PCcentric mouse mat available at pccentric.store. I would highly recommend it before they sell out. But actually, the best thing you can do for your gaming PC experience is to buy a
Speaker A
proper gaming mouse. And if you don't have one already, you're using a handme-down, even like a $30 Logitech is going to be so much better, chances are, than what you have right now. And they've come along such a long way in
Speaker A
the last 10 years or so that you don't have to spend an arm and a leg. Like the very best ones, you're looking at like just over £100 of dollars, but something for about 50 quid, $60, something like
Speaker A
that, uh, is going to be all that you need. And it really is going to make a massive difference between being able to play the game and being able to haven't thought of an objective. Win the game.
Speaker A
Oh, and here we go. PC trick. He's just trying to get me to spend money. No.
Speaker A
Actually, this next tip is to save you money. My best advice here is to actually buy your games from places other than Steam. No. No. I love Steam.
Speaker A
Look, Steam is fantastic, okay? They have, in my opinion, the best platform. It's easy to use. The download speed's always really good, but unless something is on sale, it's often very, very expensive. And there's loads of other stores that you can go. I mean, you've
Speaker A
got things like Epic Games. You often get cash back if you buy from there as well. Uh you've got EA, and then you've got Xbox. Actually, even Xbox Game Pass if you're not too fussed about what you play. The PC Game Pass is very good. Uh
Speaker A
but you've also got third party stores as well, things like Greenman Gaming, for instance. I'm not saying never buy anything from Steam. I do regularly buy things from Steam, but have a shop around. It's like as long as you're
Speaker A
buying from like an authorized store, if there's a sale on, why would you pay more? Especially bear in mind if you want it on Steam, you may well be getting a Steam code that you just activate in Steam and then it's
Speaker A
basically the same thing anyway. Oh, and then I'm looking around for it and then I've just realized that is right in front of me. The final tips and tricks are actually all about these things, game pads, controllers. Few things.
Speaker A
Firstly, if you're going to use an Xbox pad, I would highly recommend that you do actually buy the official wireless adapter rather than use Bluetooth. Every single computer, I think I've ever used it on. I've found that it's been a
Speaker A
little bit flaky at times, which is not what you want when you're playing a game. You just want to sit back and enjoy it. It's usually available for like 30, 35 dollars, that sort of price mark. And then you can use multiple
Speaker A
controllers will be limited to one. And then the vibration, I find always works properly as well cuz that often cuts out on Bluetooth, which is annoying. The other thing as well is don't forget that if you're using a mouse and keyboard,
Speaker A
you can have both on your desk at the same time, just turn this on. So something like Cyberpunk or any game where you are kind of roaming around first person and then you want to like drive around in third, you can just have
Speaker A
both seamlessly. Literally just pick it up, start using your controller and then it should just take over and then when you go back to your mouse and keyboard again, seamless, really nice little PC feature. Uh but then the other thing as
Speaker A
well that I've forgotten, oh yes, of course, is don't forget about Steam Big Picture. There are loads of people that often say to me, "I didn't know that even existed because it's not actually marketed that heavily anymore." If you
Speaker A
go to Steam, top rightand corner of your screen, you'll find there's this like little controller logo. And when you hit this, the whole thing will kind of go big. It's uh running OpenGL, I think.
Speaker A
And it just means that suddenly your PC can be operated with a game pad. You can even like sleep it, shut it down, and it just makes your whole display a lot bigger as well and more suitable for
Speaker A
television. So, you're not going to need to do that if you're sitting at a desk, but if you want to use your PC like I do where it's actually plugged into a TV and you use like a smaller like keyboard
Speaker A
that's got a trackpad or something, uh it's actually a fair bit easier to navigate Steam uh by using a gamepad.
Speaker A
So, that would be my advice there. But those have been all of the tips and tricks. I really hope they've been useful. Let me know yours down in the comment section below. What have I missed? What are some things that you
Speaker A
love about PC gaming that you didn't used to know? Uh let's get a little bit of a community going. If you do want to join that community as well, obviously follow us on Discord. The link is down below. We've got, I think, coming up for
Speaker A
5,000 members, which is awesome. So, if you want to get help with anything or let people know your advice and stuff, head down there. And if you do want to check out current pricing on some of the very best PC builds or some gaming mice
Speaker A
or that adapter that I recommend, you can find it all listed down below with our affiliate links. And while you're down there, why not check out the Gigabyte A16. This gaming laptop is properly powerful in a full portable
Speaker A
form factor with Nvidia's 50 series of GPUs and up to a 10 core i7 Intel CPU or 8core Ryzen processor all in an affordable package. It's got a super fast 165Hz 16x10 display with super sim bezels. Gigabytes latest WindForce
Speaker A
cooling system and immersive Dolby Atmos audio. You can even use Gigabytes GIME software to let AI optimize your system or answer your PC gaming queries. Grab yours today with a link down below.
Speaker A
Well, thank you guys so much for watching. Smash the like button if you've enjoyed it. Get yourself subscribed and we'll catch you in the next one.
Speaker A
[Music]
Topics:PC gaming tipsgaming PC optimizationXMP overclockingkeyboard shortcutsgame performancefan tuningCCleanerRGB controlFPS monitoringVRR FreeSync G-Sync
