How to Run High Graphics Game On Your Low-end PC

With tech giants like Asus and Acer making affordable gaming PCs, they are more accessible than ever. Every couple of days, the tech industry makes giant leaps in terms of PCs’ speed and capabilities. In such a world, players with low-end PCs often find themselves losing to players with newer and newer PCs despite being skilled gamers themselves.

Popular games like Grand Theft Auto V, FIFA, Fortnite, Last of Us, Call of Duty, Assassins Creed now need higher specifications than ever. For example, you might have downloaded games like Runescape through free RuneScape accounts, but now your PC does nothing but lag and slow down the rest of your operations.

If you find yourself in such a situation, don’t fret. Here are some ways you can level the playing field and run high graphics games on your low-end PC.

1. Lower Your Graphics Setting

Sure, your game may not look the best when it’s running on your PC. But, nothing is more frustrating than a game that lags. Lagging games take all the fun out of the game and make them a chore to get through. We can’t eat the cake and have it too.

Tweak with the settings on your own to get an idea of how the game will perform in different conditions, with different things turned on different levels. All PCs are not the same, and you may have to give up more or less on graphics depending on the exact specs of your PC, its age and condition.

Alternatively, you can watch YouTube tutorials to know precisely which settings you have to change. Channels such as LowSpecGamer have built entire livelihoods on playing high graphics games on low-end PCs. If they can, so can you.

Figure out which game you want to change your settings for and try to find a tutorial with the PC model similar to yours.

Turn off Accessorial graphics like shadows, reflections, etc., which are not essential to the functioning of the game and see as your FPS grows higher and higher.

2. Close All The Background App

High graphics games are very taxing on the CPU—the breathing space you can give the CPU, the better. PCs under 8GB of RAM are considered low ram PCs. It would be nearly impossible to run most games on such PCs with background apps open.

Before starting your game, open Windows Task Manager on Windows PC by holding Control + Shift + Escape and remove all unnecessary applications.

Similarly in Mac Task Manager, press Command + Spacebar, type “Activity Monitor” and hit Enter. Remove all unnecessary applications.

3. Keep Your Game And GPU Drivers Up To Date

New games generally lag. Give the game developers some time. Often the later patches of the game experience much lesser lag and run smoother on all devices.

Keeping GPU drivers up to date is also essential. Most people don’t pay attention to this. But this little update can give your performance a boost.

4. Install Game Boosters

Game boosters are a lesser-known solution to bring the problems of low-end PC gamers to an end. As the name suggests, the Game Boosters boost games, i.e., improve the performance in the games by extracting as much performance as possible from the CPU and GPU.

3D Analyse, SwiftShader, and Razer Cortex are some commonly used game boosters. Razer Cortex is one of the most trusted game boosters in the industry.

5. Upgrade Parts Of Your PC

A more straightforward and more reliable solution to all this would be to update the parts in your PC. A big RAM can make all the difference in the world.

Upgrading from a two or four GB ram to an 8 or 16 GB ram would catapult the performance of the PC. It is a cheaper alternative to buying a new PC altogether. Moreover, most applications need a lot of processing nowadays. Getting a new RAM would smoothen your day to day operations too.

Alternatively, you could get an external graphics card by companies like Nvidia, Asus, and Razor if the issue is with your graphics card.

Many times the hard drive itself is too slow. In such cases, upgrade to SSD, solid-state drives, which are nearly 40 times faster than an average hard drive. It also has no moving parts and is, therefore, less prone to breaking.

Many DIY tutorials are available on such topics online. While upgrading, make sure that the components you buy are compatible with your low-end PC. Also, note that any upgrades you make to your personal computer would disqualify it from getting Warranty in most cases.

6. Look For Low Graphics Versions Of The Game

Finally, if none of these tactics work or you cannot upgrade your PC, look for low graphics versions of the game in question that would work on your low-end PC.

These versions might be MODs or merely a simplified version of the game available online. They can be quite fun, if not as much as the original game.

Here are some games that are available in low graphic versions:

1. Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas
2. Borderlands 1, Borderlands 2 and The pre sequel
3. Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 2
4. The Elder Scrolls 5, Skyrim, Oblivion
5. Portal 1 and 2
6. Scarface The World Is Yours
7. Driver 3, Driver Parallel Lines, Driver San Francisco
8. Nfs Hot Pursuit 2, Most Wanted 2005, Underground 1, Underground 2
9. Sniper ghost warrior 1 and 2
10. Sniper elite v2 and 3(tweaked)
11. Tomb raider 2013(great game), Tomb Raider Underworld
12. Toy Story 1, 2 and 3
13. Half-Life 2, episode 1, episode 2
14. Max Payne 1 and 2
15. Homefront 2011
16. Mafia 1 and Mafia 2
17. Godfather 1 and Godfather 2
18. Far cry 2 and Far Cry 3
19. Pop Sands Of Time, Warrior Within, The 2 Thrones And Forgotten Sands
20. Cod 1, Cod 2, Cod Waw, Cod Mw1, Cod Mw2, Cod Bo, Cod mw3 and Cod Bo2
21. Halo 1, 2
22. Team Fortress 2
23. Total Overdose
24. Freedom fighters
25. Saints Row 2 and 3