最糟糕的感觉之一是发现一个您兴奋地玩的新游戏无法在您的旧 PC 上运行。
最直接的解决方案是购买对硬件的升级(purchase an upgrade to your hardware)，但是当预算问题时，您可以使用这些技巧来充分利用旧机器的最后阶段。
了解您的限制和限制图形(Limit Graphics)
在我们开始之前，稍微降低您的期望非常重要。没有任何技巧可以让您在低端 PC 上流畅地玩高端游戏，因此就性能而言，您必须做出一些牺牲。
如果您希望旧 PC 在高图形设置下以每秒 60 帧的速度玩现代游戏，那么您对在线优化黑客圣杯的搜索很可能会徒劳无功。
但是，如果您将设置调到最低，并使用本指南中的提示，您可能能够从您正在玩的游戏中挤出一些额外的帧。
首先，请调低您的游戏内设置。它可能看起来并不漂亮，但在设置菜单中选择“非常低”并关闭任何额外效果是一个很好的起点。
想要更多帧？考虑降低分辨率。如果您的显卡太旧，这可能是提高性能的好方法。更少的像素意味着更少的显卡压力。虽然，不利的一面是它可能意味着你的眼睛会更加紧张。
尝试游戏流媒体平台
近年来，涌现了许多优质的游戏流媒体平台。这些平台可让您从云中的高端 PC 进行流式传输。从本质上讲，您可以将真实 PC 的性能和功能直接传送到您的计算机。
如果您有高速互联网连接和支付订阅费用的预算，我强烈向您推荐此选项。使用低速互联网连接时，您会注意到屏幕撕裂、输入延迟和其他问题。
您需要付费才能访问自己的虚拟计算机。在撰写本文时，该领域有两家领先的公司——Shadow和LiquidSky。
LiquidSky提供三种定价等级，向您收取一次性付款或按月付费。对于 14.99 美元的初学者套餐，您可以在自己的虚拟机上获得 25 小时的一次性访问和 200GB 的存储空间。
每月 29.99 美元的Prestige订阅可让您每月玩 100 小时的游戏和 500GB 的存储空间。
还有一个年度付款，每月 24.99 美元，您一年可以获得 1440 小时和 750GB 的存储空间。
Shadow提供每月 35 美元的订阅服务，您基本上可以无限制地访问您自己的具有超高端硬件的虚拟 PC。
当您想玩高端游戏时，这两种选择都适用，但它们并非没有问题。游戏(Game)流媒体仍然是一项新技术，并不完美。即使您确实拥有高速 (15mbps+) 互联网连接，也可能会出现偶尔的输入延迟和屏幕撕裂。
此外，在任一平台上订阅一年就足以为您自己的 PC 购买像样的二手显卡或处理器。
限制后台应用程序
如果您想继续使用旧 PC 并且不想为订阅付费，您仍然可以使用一些方法来提高性能。
一种这样的方法涉及限制在您玩游戏时运行的后台应用程序。在启动游戏之前打开任务管理器并强制关闭您不需要的所有内容。这可以包括Google Chrome、Skype、Discord或任何其他在后台静默运行的应用程序。
这些程序中的每一个都将占用少量的硬盘、RAM和CPU使用率，否则它们可能会专门用于玩视频游戏。
试用 Razer Cortex：游戏助推器
Razer Cortex：Game Booster是Razer的一款免费软件，可优化您的 PC 以进行游戏。使用Razer Cortex，管理您的后台进程将自动完成。
您只需在玩游戏前启动Razer Cortex，即可自动释放系统资源。Razer Cortex : Game Booster还通过确保它以最高性能运行来优化你的 CPU。
不要指望使用Razer Cortex : Game Booster会带来任何奇迹，但它仍然是一种工具，可以自动对我们在最后一步中给出的建议进行微观管理。
寻找低图形“黑客”
有些游戏有设置文件，您可以编辑这些文件以进一步降低图形质量。例如，您可以完全关闭阴影或降低纹理质量。
在许多情况下，这会使您的游戏看起来很糟糕，并且可能存在一些图形问题，但它可能是在高端游戏中获得更多帧的绝佳方式。
您可以简单地在Google(Google)上搜索“示例游戏设置调整”以查找是否有任何此类资源。
并非所有游戏都会有这样的图形调整，一些开发人员会积极劝阻你不要使用这些，特别是如果它是一款多人游戏。在您自己使用这些调整之前，请务必仔细阅读其他玩家或开发人员提供的有关使用此类调整的任何信息。
超频您的硬件
另一种可能的途径是超频您的显卡或处理器。超频通过将时钟速度提高到更高水平来为您的硬件充电。这会增加硬件的温度，因此您需要确保冷却充足。
超频时必须始终小心。我们在此处编写了安全超频显卡的完整指南。(full guide to overclocking your Graphics card safely here.)
结论
这让我们走到了尽头。我们希望本文中的提示将帮助您在自己喜欢的游戏中获得更好的性能。
每个人的情况都不同，因此其中一些技巧在您的机器上可能比其他技巧更有效。如果您需要有关您的特定系统的任何更具体的建议，请发表评论，我很乐意为您提供帮助。
Best Ways To Play Games Smoothly On An Old PC
Оne of the worst feelings is finding out a new game you’re excited to play can’t run on your old PC.
The most immediate solution would be to purchase an upgrade to your hardware, but when budget is a concern, you can use these tips to get the very most out of an old machine on its last legs.
Understand Your Limitations and Limit Graphics
Before we get started, it’s very important that you taper your expectations a little bit. There’s no hack that will let you smoothly play high end games on a low end PC, so you’ll have to make some sacrifice as far as performance goes.
Your search for the holy grail of optimization hacks online is most likely going to be fruitless if you expect an old PC to play modern games at 60 frames per second on high graphics settings.
However, if you crank down the settings to the very lowest possible and use the tips in this guide, you may be able to squeeze some extra frames out of the game you are playing.
To start with, turn down your in-game settings. It may not exactly look pretty, but choosing ‘very low’ on everything in the settings menu and turning off any extra effects is a great start point.
Want even more frames? Consider lowering your resolution. If your graphics card is too old, this can be a great way to improve performance. Fewer pixels will mean less strain on your graphics card. Although, the downside is it may mean more strain on your eyes.
Try a Game Streaming Platform
In recent years, many premium game streaming platforms have cropped up. These platforms let you stream from a high end PC in the cloud. Essentially, you get the performance and functionality of a real PC beamed directly to your computer.
If you have a high speed internet connection and the budget to pay for a subscription, I’d highly recommend this option to you. With a low speed internet connection, you’ll notice screen tearing, input lag and other problems.
You’ll need to pay a fee to get access to your own virtual computer. As of writing, there are two leading companies in this space – Shadow and LiquidSky.
LiquidSky offers three pricing tiers that charge you either a one-time payment or a monthly fee. For the $14.99 beginner package, you get 25 hours of one-time access and 200GB of storage on your own virtual machine.
The $29.99/month Prestige subscription gets you 100 hours of gameplay each month and 500GB of storage.
There’s also a annual payment that works out at $24.99 per month and you get 1440 hours in the year and 750GB of storage.
Shadow offers a $35/month subscription and with that you essentially get unlimited access to your own virtual PC with super high end hardware.
Both options work well for when you want to play high end games, but they aren’t without their issues. Game streaming is still a new technology and it’s not perfect. Expect the occasional input delay and screen tearing, even if you do have a high speed (15mbps+) internet connection.
Also, a year’s worth of subscription on either platform would be enough to buy a decent second hand graphics card or processor for your own PC.
Limit Background Apps
If you want to stay on your old PC and don’t want to pay for a subscription, there are still some methods you can use to improve your performance.
One such method involves limiting the background apps that run when you play games. Open up task manager before you boot up a game and force close everything you don’t need. This can include Google Chrome, Skype, Discord, or any other apps running silently in the background.
Each of these programs will take a small amount of hard disk, RAM and CPU usage that could otherwise be dedicated to playing your video games.
Try Razer Cortex: Game Booster
Razer Cortex: Game Booster is a free software from Razer that optimizes your PC for gaming. With Razer Cortex, managing your background processes will be done automatically.
All you need to do is boot up Razer Cortex before playing a game and you’ll be able to automatically free up your system resources. Razer Cortex: Game Booster also optimizes your CPU by ensuring it runs at max performance.
Don’t expect any miracles by using Razer Cortex: Game Booster but it is still a tool that automatically micromanages the advice we gave in the last step.
Look for Low Graphics ‘Hacks’
Some games have settings files that you can edit to reduce the graphics quality even further. For example, you may be able to turn off shadows completely or reduce the texture quality.
This can make your game look terrible in many cases, and there may be some graphical issues, but it can be an excellent way to get more frames in high end games.
You can simply search ‘example game settings tweak’ on Google to find if there are any such resources out there.
Not all games will have graphics tweaks like this and some developers will actively discourage you from using these, especially if it is a multiplayer game. It’s important that you carefully read through any information other players or the developers have given about using such tweaks before using them for yourself.
Overclock your Hardware
Another possible avenue to take is to overclock your graphics card or processor. Overclocking super-charges your hardware by increasing the clock speed to higher levels. This will increase the temperature of your hardware, so you’ll need to ensure your cooling is adequate.
You must always be careful when overclocking. We wrote a full guide to overclocking your Graphics card safely here.
Conclusion
That brings us to an end. We hope that the tips in this article will help you to get better performance in your favorite games.
Everybody’s situation is different, so some of these tips may work better on your machine than others. If you need any more specific advice about your particular system, please leave a comment and I will be happy to help.
