Gaming is a massive industry with many different types of gaming, from first-person shooter games to card and board games. However, the most popular type of game today is still video games. The latest research suggests that nearly 3 billion people play video games worldwide.
It’s no surprise that laptop manufacturers want to appeal to this growing community of gamers by creating laptops explicitly designed for gaming purposes.
What makes a gaming laptop? A gaming laptop has higher graphics quality than standard laptops and more powerful processors and memory capacities. They can run demanding high-end video game visuals without lag or delay. However, a gaming laptop comes at a higher price tag, so many gamers turn their normal laptop into a gaming laptop to play games.
How to turn a laptop into a gaming laptop
How can you turn your ordinary laptop into a gaming laptop? It’s easier than you think. Just follow these simple steps to run games smoothly.
1. Cleaning
It would be best to start by cleaning your laptop for a better gaming experience. Maybe you’ve noticed there’s a lot of dust and debris accumulating in the vents and around the fan? This is not good for your laptop; it can damage its internal components, such as the motherboard, CPU, and hard drive, over time.
The best way to prevent this from happening is to clean out your laptop regularly. You can use compressed air or a vacuum cleaner (be sure not to damage any internal components) and carefully blow and suck the debris away from around the vents and fan of your laptop. If you do this once every couple of months, you shouldn’t have any trouble keeping your laptop running smoothly.
2. Defragment of hard drive
The second step to turn your laptop into a gaming laptop is by cleaning your normal laptop, making sure to defragment the hard drive as well. Over time, the files on your hard drive become fragmented, and it slows down your laptop’s performance. You can use an external hard drive defragmentation software to fix this problem without reinstalling Windows.
3. Update Direct X
Direct X is a graphics API that Microsoft created in 1995. It provides a standard for software developers to create multimedia and gaming applications to run on multiple platforms. For example, this ensures that a game developed for PC can be played on Mac or Linux systems.
Direct X updates usually come out once a month, and they sometimes include critical bug fixes or performance enhancements.
4. Texture and shade settings
Now it’s time to optimize your laptop’s texture and shade settings. Many older games allow you to choose different levels of screen quality, such as how sharp the images displayed will be or what kind of special effects will be applied.
Instead of simply choosing the highest setting (which would be way too fast for your laptop to handle), you want to select the third-highest setting. This will give you subtle changes in quality while maximizing your gaming experience.
Keep in mind that if you do this too much, it can cause your video card to overheat, which brings us to our next step.
5. Cooling your laptop
You can’t just sit there and play for hours on end without causing damage to your laptop. Your laptop needs breathing room so it doesn’t overheat, which is why one of the most important things you should do to turn your regular laptop into a gamin for a better gaming experience.
Make sure your laptop is on a flat surface, and there’s good airflow around it at all times. This will ensure the cooling fan is working efficiently to keep your laptop from overheating when playing for long periods. Also, make sure there isn’t anything too close to your laptop, like a blanket or pillow, which can block the vents.
6. RAM upgrade
If you have a laptop with an integrated graphics card, your laptop may not handle the memory requirements of some games. This is because video games are getting bigger and more complex all the time, so you must play RAM-heavy games with enough RAM on your laptop or
An excellent way to check memory usage is by using the video game benchmarking software known as “FurMark.” It will tell you how much graphics memory your laptop is currently utilizing every time you run it. If your laptop doesn’t have enough memory, you can replace your laptop’s RAM (random access memory) to improve performance.
7. SSD upgrade
Another way to improve your laptop’s performance is using a solid-state drive instead of a hard disk drive. This will give you faster data transfer rates and boot times, which means your laptop will run faster in general if it has an SSD installed instead of an HDD.
It’s a great way to breathe new life into an old laptop to experience amazing games.
8. Graphics card upgrade
Upgrading your old Intel HD graphics processor can able to handle new games. You can buy dedicated GPU online on websites like Newegg or Overstock for very cheap, but make sure you make the right choice.
Once you have a new GPU, you must ensure your power supply has enough wattage to support it. You may also upgrade your software and graphics driver if necessary to work with your new GPU.
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9. Wireless upgrade
Games that require a lot of bandwidth can cause your wireless card to malfunction and cause your laptop’s connection to cut in and out. There’s no reason why you should be subject to these kinds of interruptions when you can fix the issue by buying a new laptop wireless adapter.
These devices come in PCI-e versions, which will provide better speeds and fewer issues, and you can install them yourself without having to take your laptop apart or pay someone else to do it for you.
There’s also the option of using a USB wireless adapter if your laptop doesn’t have an available PCI-e slot, but these devices are generally slower than PCI-e adapters, so keep that in mind when you buy one.
10. Turn on game mode
Windows 10 has a great new feature that will optimize the operating System for gaming performance by turning off background tasks and other processes that can slow down your laptop.
All you have to do is go to “settings,” click on “gaming,” and turn on game mode to make sure you get the best performance possible while playing games.
11. Optimize Power settings
By default, Windows puts your laptop into sleep mode every time it’s inactive for a certain amount of time. Having your laptop go to sleep while you’re playing games will cause them to run at a lower frame rate or even freeze up entirely, so make sure you go to “settings,” click on System, and then go to “Power & sleep settings” and turn off the setting that will put your laptop into sleep mode.
You can also choose to make your laptop run better. You will need to change the settings into advanced power settings.
12 . Upgrade operating system
Whenever Microsoft releases a new version of Windows, some older laptops won’t handle the more demanding hardware requirements necessary to run it. But if your laptop does have what it takes to support one of these new operating systems, you’ll get more efficient power management, faster boot times, and overall better performance on your favorite games.
Upgrading to the latest Windows 10 or 11 is also the best method to improve your laptop gaming performance.
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FAQs
How much ram do you need for gaming and work?
In general, 16GB of RAM is enough to do a lot of gaming and work. Unless you’re focusing on doing a specific task with large chunks, such as modeling a digital object in Blender or photoshopping photos, then more memory can give you an edge. Having way over the recommended amount of ram doesn’t just give you bragging rights. It will affect the speed performance too.
Are gaming laptops pricy?
It’s true, and the best gaming laptops have a bit of sticker shock associated with them. That’s because premium hardware is required to play modern games at HD and 4K resolutions and with stable frame rates. The good news for most people is that some high-end gaming laptops sell for under $1000, including models from brands like Alienware, MSI, Lenovo, and Asus.
How much does a decent gaming laptop cost?
It all depends on what you need. If you’re planning to do general computing tasks like word processing, emailing, surfing the web, listening to music, and viewing photos, consider a budget laptop, but if gaming is your primary reason for buying one, then expect to pay between $1,200 up.
Conclusion
In this blog post, you’ve learned how to turn a laptop into a gaming laptop.
If your primary reason for buying a gaming laptop is to play more games on it, whether casual or hardcore, we recommend getting a good GPU and investing in an SSD hard drive. These two components will have the most significant impact on the gaming experience, but there are plenty of other factors to consider as well.
In addition to the hardware mentioned above upgrades, make sure you research which operating System will work best with your laptop before upgrading from Windows 10 Home/Pro SP1 64 bit if possible.
