PC gamers need a little more than lightning fast twitch-reflexes, immensely powerful strategizing brains, and a comfy chair – we also need a variety of apps to keep our battle stations in peak operational order. Below, MyGaming has listed a variety of our favourite apps which help to keep things running smoothly as well as squeeze the most out of our gaming rigs.
CCleaner and CCEnhancer
CCleaner has gone from strength to strength over the years and it is virtually indispensible for those who put their operating system through a lot of stress – installing and removing applications over the course of months and years takes its toll on a system. For gamers, being able to squeeze every last drop of performance out of a computer is paramount. CCleaner removes bad registry entries, and cleans out unwanted files that clutter a system. CCEnhancer takes things a step further by adding a further 270 applications to the already extensive list of apps that CCleaner can tackle.
Anti-Virus
Microsoft Security Essentials and Avast!
Everyone will have their own opinion on anti-virus software, but in my opinion, a free anti-virus is perfectly fine for most gamers. MSE has proven itself to be a reliable and unobtrusive AV and Avast! remains a firm favourite. Don’t be caught with your pants down at the next LAN – it pays to have free anti-virus software installed.
More open-source goodness, meaning community supported updates and free implementation. Mumble is a multi-platform voice over IP (VoIP) application utilised by gamers who want a manageable alternative to (sometimes flawed) in-game VoIP implementation – Bad Company 2, I’m looking at you. Mumble is simple to download and setup so gamers and their online buddies have no excuse for being out of contact during intense multiplayer games.
Mumble uses a client-server architecture, which means that the client (you, the gamer) will need to connect to a Mumble server, preferably hosted nearby. This system is designed to focus on voice quality and reduce latency and bandwidth use when transmitting voice. South African gamers should look to MMBL South Africa for local Mumble server details.
Instant Messaging
Xfire remains a firm favourite among gamers, syncing information between friends about who is playing what, and providing an in-game information overlay. It features Instant Messaging support for certain protocols, VoIP, video recording, and clan and guild systems that WoW players in particular have found useful. Xfire was purchased in August 2010 and most of the original development team has left, so it remains to be seen what direction the application will take from here.
An alternative is Raptr, founded in 2008 by a previous Xfire co-founder. Raptr offers integration with many more IM protocols than Xfire, including Gtalk and Facebook. Game and achievement tracking for Steam PSN, and Xbox LIVE are very attractive features, and of course, the in-game overlay ensures that keeping in touch doesn’t interrupt gaming sessions.
Things go wrong and computers need to be re-formatted. If you are anything like me, you have a large number of games at various stages of completion that you fully intend to finish one day. There is nothing worse than losing your progress in your games, and often it can be the final nail in the ‘will be completed one day’ coffin for certain titles. GameSave manager takes the pain out of backing up save game files and restoring them. It even comes with a bunch of other nifty features, such as FTP uploads and a Steam Spreader to help manage that ever-growing Steam folder.
Love it or hate it, Steam is here to stay. As far as PC-centric digital retail portals go, Steam is king of the hill, and dare I say that it’s almost entirely stable these days. As the world adapts to storing their data somewhere out in the ether of the online realm, Steam has proven to be a reliable way to ‘store’ digital copies of one’s games for retrieval at a later stage – a system that is becoming more relevant and accessible in SA as bandwidth prices slowly fall. Even if you don’t own a game on Steam, there are the occasional free titles (such as Alien Swarm) and free-to-play promotional periods upon which gamers should capitalise.
The Video LAN Client is an open-source media player and it’s pretty powerful at its core. While most people will simply use its playback features, it’s also capable of performing as a streaming media server. The VLC mantra of “It plays everything!” is absolutely true. Every video codec worth mentioning is crammed into the player, and it is therefore capable of playing partially downloaded files, damaged, files, and most obscure file formats.
So VLC will play pretty much everything, but it does have some interface shortcomings. The KL Codec Pack comes with the stalwart Media Player Classic (MPC) and depending on the version you download, it is quite possibly crammed with just a few more video codecs than VLC. 32-bit and 64-bit MPC and codecs are on offer.
The Xbox Media Center (XBMX) has been around since 2003 in one form or another, and showing a serious level of polish these days. An open-source project and free download (automatically scoring itself 10 awesome points), XBMC is a full featured home theatre PC application. Most gamers will have an old machine lying about that can be put to good use as an HTPC, and XBMC is a snazzy way to power it. It’s also a cool way to manage media collections (especially TV series and movies) as it will connect to a large list of services to download information related to the files, such as cast, crew, production info, trivia, pictures, etc. A cherry on top – if you have an android device, you can configure it to operate as a touch screen remote for XBMC.
Everyone will have their personal preference in a music player and mine is MediaMonkey. It’s probably not the prettiest looking music app, but it makes up for it with functionality. Synchronisation with other media devices, including iPods, auto-folder monitoring and music library updating, and a robust and effective online file tagging lookup function helps to keep massive music collections manageable. MediaMonkey Gold offers some additional features that power-users may find compelling and the standard version doesn’t bother users with ‘nuisance screens’ to upgrade.
Do you have any favourite applications that make you PC gaming rig that much better? << Share on the MyGaming forum.
Loading ...
