PC Utility Software Categories:
PC utility softwares are extremely useful for both yourself
and your PC. We have listed below some of our top recomendations
on software to Backup your PC, to Undelete Files, and to
speed up your PC. Choose the category name to view all titles
in that category.
PC Utility Software Featured Article:
Improving Gaming Performance
Modern computer games are probably among the
most demanding PC applications available today. Running a
modern 3D game, such as Quake III, requires your computer
to execute over one billion instructions per second. Games
also need large amounts of RAM to store everything from textures
and 3D models to streaming music and sound effects. While
most modern PCs, with a new graphics card and a few hundred
megabytes of RAM, will handle this fairly well, it is not
uncommon to find annoying delays and other glitches on even
the most expensive computers. These problems are often caused
by software conflicts and bad settings, rather than insufficient
hardware. By optimizing all your system settings and by monitoring
resource usage more carefully, these problems can be avoided,
resulting in a smoother and more stable gaming experience.
CPU Usage and Process Priorities
One of the most critical resources to any computer game is
obviously the CPU. Since a CPU can only do one thing at
a time, Windows and other multi-tasking operating systems
switch between all running programs or processes, giving
each process access to the CPU. While this is usually a
good thing because it makes it possible to run many applications
simultaneously, it causes some problems when you run games
on a typical computer. Since there are usually a large
number of background processes running on any computer,
even when you are running a game, Windows will interrupt
the game for brief periods if one of the other processes
needs to do something. SpeedUpMyPC offers two different
solutions to this problem. It allows you to assign more
CPU time to a critical application, such as a game, and
it allows you to remove all unnecessary background applications
permanently. This can reduce the number of unwanted interruptions
considerably and will also reduce start-up times on most
systems.
SpeedUpMyPC
Received an Editors Choice from GameZone.com:
"SpeedUpMyPC is a great utility that increases
PC performance on a couple different levels. It prioritizes
CPU usage, increases bandwidth usage and frees up RAM
as necessary. Plus, the Anti-Crash utility is great
for combating frequent Windows lockups." |
Memory Related Delays
Another common reason for annoying delays when playing games
is the fact that Windows uses the hard drive to emulate
RAM when there is not enough physical RAM. This is usually
not a problem because most applications work fairly well,
even with delays that last several seconds. When you are
running a game or watching a DVD movie, a delay of a few
seconds while Windows is swapping data between RAM and
the hard drive is simply not acceptable. To avoid this
situation, you should always force Windows to do the swapping
before starting a critical application, rather than having
Windows do it automatically in the middle of a game. With
SpeedUpMyPC you can easily free up RAM and swap unused
information to the hard drive in seconds. By freeing up
RAM and keeping track of your memory usage in real time,
SpeedUpMyPC can help you optimize your system before starting
games or other critical applications such as CD writing
software or DVD players.
Network Performance
When playing online or multi-player games, network performance
is very important. If you are connected to the Internet
using a modem or ADSL modem, your connection speed and
stability can often be improved considerably by optimizing
a number of network settings found in the registry. SpeedUpMyPC
can automatically optimize these settings for your particular
connection type and will also monitor your Internet connection
in real time, helping you to spot bad servers and other
network problems.
