Re-install Windows every three months. Windows machines tend to develop major performance problems over time — so its probably a good idea to re-install the OS every couple of months. If you’ve got your own dedicated PC for gaming, then this shouldn’t be a big deal. Re-installs don’t take all that long, and they’ll give you a chance to cut down on the number of games installed on your hard drive.Defrag often. Unlike Unix-based OSs such as Mac OS X and Linux, Windows-based computers suffer from disk fragmentation. This serious problem can result in dramatically-reduced performance if left untreated — games that are multimedia-intensive (and thus require reading large amounts of data from the hard drive) may well become unplayable. Fortunately, Windows ships with a utility (Disk Defragmenter) that can correct this problem. Defragmenting your disk regularly using this utility (or a comparable third party product) can yield significant performance benefits.
Nuke spyware. If you download a lot of software from the Internet (as many gamers do), then there’s a good chance that you may have contracted a spyware infection. Using a free utility such as Windows Defender or Lavasoft’s Ad-Aware can remove spyware, freeing up resources and improving overall performance. Some free utilities, such as Spybot S&D offer always-running protection and immunization that will stop nearly all spyware dead in its tracks.
Tune, and tune again. Before playing any game for the first time, spend some time online researching the various settings and options that will work best on your hardware setup. Some features (graphical or otherwise) may be optimized for specific hardware, so doing a bit of reading can help ensure that a given game is configured for maximal performance on your PC. Pay particular attention to any notices of patches (either by the game’s developers, or by third parties), as these may offer increased performance, or fix gameplay-busting bugs.
These tips, combined with some basic preventative maintenance (such as not letting your hard disk get too full, not installing too many games at once, and running regular anti-virus scans) will help to ensure that your PC continues to be a high performance gaming machine. Have fun, play hard, and always remember — it’s just a game!