Is there anyway to improve the performance on my PC?

Question

I have a dell. 3 ghz processor, 256 mb radeon graphics card, 1 GB of ram..

I am currently playing Elder Scrolls 3: morrowind (yes I know its an old game) but I would like to be able to play it with the video options all maxed.. anyway to make my computer better without spending any money at all?

Answer 1

overtime, your OS can become corrupt from installing and uninstalling programs, files, etc. you may not notice it but it happens. it just slows down your machine slightly, etc. so the first free thing you can do is to restore your computer back to factory specs. most dells have the restore partition built into them. NOTE: IT ERASES EVERYTHING. make sure you back up whatever files you don't want to loose. once its back to original settings, remove any programs you don't use. then run all the updates and install the latest drivers for your video card. that should give you a slight but improved performance.



Next step is hardware.



New Video card will probably make the biggest difference since that is what you want to improve. how much you spend will affect the quality you get but since there are always newer, faster video processors coming out, what you get for $100 today is better than $100 a year ago.



RAM would be the next step. for the price difference probably 4gb is a better choice but if money is an issue 2gb should show some improvement... remember, its twice the amount of memory you have now.

Answer 2

I agree with Ashmasterash. Make sure you have the latest graphics drivers. Also make sure you have the latest drivers for your motherboard. This could include a hard drive controller update that could give a good speed boost. It could also include a BIOS update. A BIOS update can improve performance and boot-up time, but if something goes wrong during the install, it can break your motherboard, so be careful if you are installing a BIOS upgrade.



Also, consider some more RAM. While this isn't free, it shouldn't be more than about 50 bucks to bring your computer to 4GB or the maximum it allows (whichever is less). Check out http://www.crucial.com to find out what kind of memory you use and what the most you can install is.



Note that this all assumes you're already running at more or less peak software performance. Run a spyware/adware sweep (using AdAware or Spybot). Also make sure you have anti-virus software and that it is up-to-date. And make sure you have the latest system updates (from Microsoft). Delete any programs you aren't using (using the Add/Remove Programs tool in your Control Panel). And if you have any programs that launch at start up (other than your anti-virus software), turn those off (usually this can be done in the program's settings or by removing it from the "Startup" folder in your start menu).



Finally, if you do have a lot of adware/spyware/viruses/malware, you might consider reinstalling your OS (Windows) from the disk it came on. With Windows, I recommend doing this every 18-24 months at least (depending on who is using the computer and how much).



Following these steps can vastly improve your computer's speed in some circumstances. Hopefully that helps!



Good luck!

Answer 3

well to improve it a bit you can do two things (both completely free of charge)



1. You can download an update of your graphic/video driver on the website that your driver is (just try googling "radeon")

Or you can do...



2. Go to add or remove programs and delete some programs and software you never really use anymore (for example, free games you downloaded, zip files that you already used, etc.)

Answer 4

Go into "control panel" "System" "Performance" or "Devices" "Performance" and change from letting Windows decide to performance. (doing this from memory since this system isn't running Windows.) Windows won't look so pretty ( it'll look like Windows 98 but will have a nice chunk of resources available for your game.

Answer 5

one good thing is to clean up your desktop. A lot of people have a lot of shortcuts of icons on there desktop and they don't know that their desktop refreshes itself every few minutes or so. So keep icons or shortcuts to a minimal on your desktop and that should help a bit. Also try to run a software that deletes non important temporary files, that your computer may automatically store when surfing the internet.

Answer 6

Update your drivers on your videocard

Ask yourself why you have a 3ghz processor and a 256 mb graphics card

Defrag your hard disk

Answer 7

run disc cleanup

download and install cc learner and run a full scan and run a registry scan

run a virus scan if you have no anti virus download norton 360 trial

run disk fragment

move files on to usb drives or cds.

Answer 8

firs to start delet your browsing history all of them too not just serch history. also you can gp to some websights like finalyfast.com but ive never done that befor. you can also get external memory for you computer harddrive with more memory your computer will b 2x faster by!

Answer 9

Boost your Ram as high as you can go with it (up to 4gb). And consider a new Video card.



Ram:

http://www.kingston.com/



Video Card:

http://www.newegg.com/store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=48&Tpk=Video%20card

Answer 10

no, since the bios dells are usually locked, you can't overclock

the only way to increase performance is to upgrade

Answer 11

if your xp is ok then change your RAM, and if all the hardware is ok then please format your machine