Customers, purchasing there first computer, and those that have had their systems for a period of time, find it frustrating that a game will not play as well as they hoped for, or not at all, not realizing that their system does not have the correct hardware.  There are many tweaks, upgrades, and settings one can perform with your current system, which might improve the gaming experience, some not costing any money, and some that will.  A list of system tweaking, and purchase suggestions are listed below to help many in improving their gaming experience.
 
Unfortunately, some systems did not come with a dedicated video card, or those that did, would not play some games well enough, and the individual would become frustrated as to why.  Those that do not have a dedicated video card, may have the ability to install a video card later that will increase the gaming pleasure, while others many not have this opportunity ( Some Notebook owners ), and there might be little that can be done to help.  The list of suggestions below is a Generic one, with tweaks, suggestions, upgrades that might have already been done, but perhaps some might be of some use to you, in helping with your games....
 
Remember, every little bit does help.
 
1.   System Memory:  Memory is important to provide a boost in over all performance of a system.  The operating system (OS) needs its share of memory to keep the windows running well.  Windows XP, as we have learned, needs at least 512 mb of system memory in order for this OS to run better.  However, we have now noticed that 1 GB of memory would be the sweet spot for XP, and gaming, not 512 MB.  A few games even like 2 GB of main memory, and this is now becoming the new sweet spot.   Windows Vista, the new operating system, works, according to Microsoft, on 512 Mb of main memory, but this is a stretch, and we strongly suggest 1 GB would be the bare minimum.  2 GB would be the sweet spot for this operating system.
 
2.   Windows XP:  In this operating system, to improve the performance further, it is recommended to turn off windows best appearance, to best performance, which frees up some resources (Memory).  How to do this is simple.  Place your mouse arrow any where on an empty part of the monitor screen, than click once, the right mouse button.  A small box will now open, and at the bottom of the list you will see Properties.  Click on Properties. Now you are in Display Properties utility, where a number of settings can be changed to improve the appearance of windows.  Find on top Appearance, and click it.  On the mid lower left side you will see Windows, and Buttons.  Click the down arrow, and select windows classic style.  Click Apply, and now much of the memory for the Windows XP eye candy is gone, freeing up some more memory for the games.  After game play, go back into Display Properties, and change it back to Windows XP style, and click Apply.
 
3.   Wallpaper/Screen Saver: Having these will take a small amount of memory (Resources), and should be turned off during gaming. Go back into Display Properties once again, and this time on top of this Utility Program you should see on the left most side Desktop, and right of that, Screen Saver.  Go to both, and use the up arrow to find the word None, click on it, than click Apply in the lower right side of this box.  Return later if you wish to turn these back on to the screen saver or wallpaper you had before.
 
4.   Background programs:   Not needed, except your Anti Virus / Firewall if online gaming.  If you are not online gaming, turn the anti virus software off.  Method in disabling these unneeded programs is shown below.
 
5.   Hard Drive:  If your hard drive is full or near full, this will slow your system down, causing games to suffer as well.  Best to burn to a disk all that you do not need on the system, such as music, photos, and other programs, that will free up some hard drive space, to speed things up.  Having a good 7,200 rpm speed hard drive is better than having one run at 5,400 rpm, such as those in notebook computers.
 
Hard drives need to be defragged once in a while to eliminate fragmentation of files on the hard drive, which also slows the system down, not to mention the games being jerky, so your Defrag Program should be used right after the game is installed, and later when the hard drive becomes fragmented. You can check how fragmented your hard drive is anytime you wish to see if the program needs to be used.
 
6.   Disk CleanUp: Use this tool as well.  To keep your PC running smoothly, regular maintenance is critical. Disk Cleanup Utility can easily determine which files on a hard drive may no longer be needed, and delete those files. In addition to freeing up potentially significant amounts of hard drive space, using Disk Cleanup on a regular basis can significantly improve system performance.
 
Starting Disk Cleanup
Disk Cleanup is available on both Home and Professional versions of XP. Utility can be accessed in any of the methods listed below.
Click Start | Programs | Accessories | System Tools | Disk Cleanup
Click Start | Run and in the Open box type cleanmgr, and click OK
In Windows Explorer or My Computer, right-click the disk in which you want to free up space, click Properties, click the General tab, and then click Disk Cleanup.

7.   A better video card will vastly improve games.  If you have a system with the integrated video chip on the motherboard and that system has the ability to have installed a dedicated video card, than by all means do so.  Just remember to disable the integrated video chip, and purchase the correct video card for the slot that is on your system.  This will improve your games a great deal for those that have an AGP slot, or better PCI-Express slot.  Those that have only the older PCI slots will notice they will be able to play many games better, but not to the games full potential, since the PCI slot cards are not as good as the newer technology out today.
 
Prior to a video card purchase, one should find out first, which cards will not only work best in a given system, but which cards have been known to be problematic, and one should stay away from.  Learn about your system, in what it can accept, and what it cannot.  Some may have a power supply issue, not being powerful enough for the card, and some cards may not fit into a system that is too small to accept that particular size card.
 
8.   Video Drivers:  The driver for the video card is ever changing.  Improvements are included to help performance or to correct an issue that was in the older version of the video card driver.  You may wish to experiment with some other newer released driver to see if it works for you, and the card you have in your system.  You may even learn that an older driver may work better.  You can always try different drivers as many have done, and learned which ones you like or do not like.
 
9.   Lower the game settings, IE :  If you find that your games lags, freezes, or you see what we call a frame rate slide show, the game setting may be set too high.  You may have to go into the game settings to lower a number of them, including the resolutions from 1280x1024 to maybe 1024x768 or even lower to 800x600 resolution settings to improve the game.  Some may have turned on AA or AF, which, unless you have a very powerful video card, will take a big hit in frame rates, slowing the game even further.
 
 What is AA or AF?
 
Anti Aliasing attempts to make curves look smoother by lessening the 'Jaggies' or lines found in the make up of curved images. It's one of those things you don't usually notice in a game until you actually try out AF/AA, and you realize then the difference it makes.
 
Anisotropic filtering attempts to smooth out or enhances the sharpness/quality of a texture when it's viewed from an angle. When you look at a texture in a game head on, it’s a perfect image. If however you move to one side of the image but still look at the same spot, the image becomes sort of drawn out. Anisotropic Filtering removes the blurring we see from an angle.
 
 
10. Updates:   Over time, some patches for a game are made available from the game site to fix an issue or to include additional scenes, so look there to see if they have any, download, install it.
 
11. Make sure you use your anti virus software, and spyware program to check for issues. Download the updates often.
 
13. If troubles persist, than maybe reinstalling the game may help, make sure you turn off the anti virus software during the install, than back on again.  Installing a game while the anti virus software is turned on, may interfere with the install, not always, but its best to turn this off during the install of the game, and back on afterwards.  To be on the safe side, disconnect your internet service (ISP) during this time, than back on again afterwards.