How to Increase Graphics Card Performance
Computer graphics cards offer stunning 3D performance and realistic physics modeling all rendered by a separate processor dedicated to making your graphics look fantastic. Because of the technology available, software designers (often video game designers) push the limits of the hardware available to offer the most engrossing graphical experience possible. What results is akin to an arms race with the hardware and software designers constantly pushing each other to achieve new heights. This means that you may find that your graphics card struggles to support your software. You can increase the performance of your graphics card by following a few steps.
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Instructions
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Update the drivers for your video card. Often the updated drivers will contain optimizations and bug fixes that can significantly increase performance. Nvidia and AMD are two websites where driver downloads can be found (see Resources).
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Close any other programs that might be running. Reducing the strain placed on your computer processor and RAM can also benefit your graphics performance. Before launching a game or graphic-intensive program, close everything else that's running.
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Lower the settings in the game or program you are using. Reducing the resolution, detail level, and special features within the graphics options of the program will increase the performance. You can have high quality or high performance, but not both. Start out by lowering the resolution because this has, perhaps, the greatest impact on performance. If you are running a game at 1920x1080 (full HD) that's 2 million pixels, and each one has to be rendered by the graphics card. Dropping the resolution to 1366x768 (basic HD) reduces the pixels to just over 1 million, saving your graphics card half the work.
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References
Resources
- Photo Credit Technology - Graphics Card image by Rob Hill from Fotolia.com
