Want a better online gaming experience? Here are some great tips to improve your game playing and make it smoother and more enjoyable.
- Organize Your Library
If you happen to be a PC gamer, you are likely using Steam as your primary game client. Steam is a great client to use to manage your game library. If you are using Steam, you’ve likely accumulated way too many games from Steam sales. The good news is, Steam has built-in organization features that you can use to effectively manage your game library. You can manually add different games to genres, categories, and more. You can even use an automated tool like Depressurizer to do it for you. The built-in search functionality is very useful and Steam’s client has a variety of “views” that you can use to make it easier to navigate your library in many cases.
- Back Up Your Saved Games
If you’ve ever dealt with a failed hard drive, you’re likely well aware of how stressful it can be. This is especially true if you’ve got all of your saved game data on it. Luckily, Steam has thought of this and has contingencies in place to mitigate your data loss. You can utilize Steam’s built-in and helpful Cloud feature. This way, you can sync your saved games with the cloud to avoid data loss. Unfortunately, it’s not the most reliable tool and it’s not effective with every game. You’ll want to utilize a tool like GameSave Manager to ensure that you can back up and sync all games via Dropbox. If you want to do it yourself, you can sync the saved files manually through a cloud provider like Dropbox.
- Play Some Classic Games
A lot of times, you might need a dash of nostalgia. While there are plenty of great new games coming out every year, there are so many classics that you can enjoy. Sadly, some of them won’t run great on newer versions of Windows. Some may run in compatibility mode, but not all will. If everything fails to work, you can try to install an emulator. Emulators like ScummVM and DOSBox can help you play some of your favorite classics without having to worry about compatibility issues.
- Use Big Picture Mode
Many gamers use the excuse of not wanting to sit at their desk as a reason to avoid PC gaming. However, the truth is, you don’t need to. You can have that same comfortable couch gaming experience if you play on a PC. All you need to do is use Steam and a Bluetooth/wireless controller. A Steam Machine makes for a great alternative to a console for PC gamers. However, you don’t need a tiny Steam machine to get the same experience. You can have the same couch gaming experience with the built-in Steam Big Picture mode. This will turn your PC into a console-like experience. You can even install the SteamOS beta on your living room PC to ensure you get the authentic Steam Machine experience with all of the streaming features built-in.
- Don’t Be Afraid To Mod
Modding is one of the best aspects of PC gaming. It’s one of those things that can keep you a PC gamer as you cannot get the same experience on consoles. If you don’t enjoy an aspect of a game, you can mod it. Best of all, there are modders out there fixing all kinds of things with games. Some mods can give you an entirely new or different experience. There are mods that patch games, enhance graphics, change mechanics, and more. You can find mods readily available on the Steam Workshop. However, you can also find third-party modding sites like Nexus Mods and ModDB.
- Get Great Hardware
If you are going to be getting into PC gaming, you need to invest in high-quality hardware. You want to get the hardware that can give you the gaming experience you are looking for. It isn’t enough to have fibre optic broadband. If you want a more responsive gaming experience, you can get a better graphics card or even a better monitor. You can get better peripherals if you want faster aiming. You can get a TV if you want high graphical fidelity. There’s so much customization that you can benefit from when you get into PC gaming. With consoles, you are stuck with what’s available. With PC, there’s limitless customization potential that can help you tailor your gaming experience to your desires.
- Tweak Your In-Game Settings
One of the great things about PC gaming is the customization aspect of the software itself. Because consoles all have the same hardware, the developers don’t give you nearly as many settings to mess with. Because the PC gaming industry is full of different hardware, PC games typically come with tweakable settings across the board. This means you can mess with the settings to tailor and optimize it for your respective hardware. If you are someone that cares more about graphics than responsiveness, you may opt for higher-quality graphics settings over FPS. Whereas, if you are someone that wants responsiveness and you don’t necessarily care about extra textures in grass, costumes and water, you could turn down the graphical settings and get more Frames Per Second as a result. It can also help you get more out of your hardware for longer. After all, there are only so many upgrades you can make. You don’t have to spend hundreds or thousands on a new graphics card every year. Eventually, you can fine-tune the settings so it works best for your PC. This can help you get the best gaming experience with every game that comes out.
