Title: Tech Features: Let’s talk PC Gaming – Essential Software For Your Gaming Rig
Author: Uberutang
Recovered Author: Uberutang
Published Date: 2016-02-24
Original URL: https://geeknode.co.za/2016/02/40150
Wayback URL: https://web.archive.org/web/20170814103614id_/http://www.geeknode.co.za:80/2016/02/40150/
Recovery Confidence: high
Categories: Games
Tags: Gaming, Let's talk PC, rigs, software

- Uberutang

- 1 year ago

- 1 0

This entry is part 3 of 5 in the series Let’s talk PC Gaming
Episode 2: Essential software for your gaming rig.

You have just build your dream rig (or perhaps you have just re-installed Windows).

You have your Operating System setup and all the drivers are working as intended. What else do you need to get the ‘most’ out of your gaming rig?

This is my personal list of “Essential” software any PC, with a focus on Gaming.

Steam , Origin , Uplay , Battlenet and GOG Galaxy clients.

These are not even optional. To start gaming on your Rig you will need to install at least one of these.

The Steam client is the most ‘advanced’ out of the lot, enabling you to install to different directories, scheduling update behavior and speeds, checking for updates to all the games and placing them in queue to download and it even has the option to run in Big Picture Mode that allows you to play games on your TV, using only a controller to navigate.

Steam will also allow you to share your games with friends and family on other systems that you nominate, allowing them access to your games library and granting them their own achievements in games they play from your library.

Uplay and Battlenet features the ability to start playing games before they have fully downloaded, handy for gamers on slower internet connections.

Most of the game client systems will also back up your save games to cloud storage for you, but just in case it does not do that you can install and configure:

GamesaveManager : With GameSaveManager, you can easily backup, restore and transfer your gamesave(s). No longer do you need to manually track through all of the those different directories to backup/restore/transfer your game saves, making it great for those who like to share game save progress with friends/family, format frequently, paranoid about data loss, etc.

Who loves checking for Graphics driver updates and the best settings for your games? Not this guy OK yes, I do love it, but you don’t have to:

Nvidia Geforce Experience and AMD’s Gaming Evolved software will check for driver updates, check for the optimal settings for your installed games and even allow you to screenshot, record and or cast (stream to Twitch etc.) your games as you play them. Incredibly useful for a ‘hands off’ approach to PC gaming.

Once you have the games, the drivers and the settings sorted, you might want to talk to people when you play games. For that you will need to either use the in game chat, the game client (like Steam) chat or ideally join a chat server that is hosted by your ISP, gaming clan or friends.

Teamspeak is the chat client I recommend for this since it is widely used, easy to setup and almost all South African ISPs has a free teamspeak server (or two) you can join to talk to friends or fellow players. The server will usually have ‘rooms’ setup for each game the ISP hosts, with sub channels for the various teams, etc in the game.

Sharing is caring? You might want to share screenshots, videos or memes with fellow internet travelers from time to time. For that I recommend you use ShareX . It will allow you to ‘snap’ screenshots, etc and instantly upload, tweet, Facebook or whatever you like.

How do I know what my hardware is in my system? Speccy will sort you out. Incredibly useful application that will give you a detailed overview of all hardware installed on your system. Useful for sharing information when troubleshooting or just bragging rights.

Love mods? Of course you do! And there is just one mod manager worth mentioning in my honest opinion: Nexus mod manager . From Skryim to the Witcher, this mod manager will help you mod your games to broken and back.

Not all developers are equally awesome and so they sometimes stuff things up in games, luckily you have the power to resolve some of those issues by using the following two applications:

Rivatuner Statistics Server – Can be used to cap the frame rate of any game. Useful if used with borderless fullscreen in games that have problematic v-sync.

Borderless Gaming – play games in a border-less window. Handy for Alt Tabbing to get to that game guide, etc.

Ever wished you could hot key launch any app and not just a few basic things in Windows? Launchy – Launch applications using keystrokes will do that for you.

If you are like me and prefer your PC to do the menial tasks like updates when I am not using it, then PatchmyPC will be just the thing for you. You can set it and forget it on a schedule and let it take care of those pesky Java updates. Also very useful for first time setups as you can simply tick what you want and go watch Netflix while it will install all the software you selected for you.

And that is my list of software that I deem essential for my Gaming PC. Did I miss your favorite? Hit the comments section and let me know how wrong I am or what topic you would like me to address next time.

This entry is part of 5 in the series Let’s talk PC Gaming
<< Tech Features: Let’s talk PC Gaming – Recommended System Specs Tech Features: Let’s talk PC Gaming – The True Cost of Ascension >>

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Uberutang

Gaming / Tech Author at Geek Node

When I asked my mom where I was from she said they caught a wild ape and shaved it… she weren’t joking.

This primate has an unhealthy obsession with all things tech and pc gaming and when not in front of his Battlestation he can be found roaming the Cape wildlands with his motorcycle.

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Article Tags:
Gaming · Let's talk PC · rigs · software

Article Categories:
Games · Tech · Tech Feature
