Game glitches are part of the landscape. Some of them can be endearing and cement themself into gaming lore. Others can render a game inoperable and destroy all faith in the developers who created it. The truth is that they are not always down to the manufacturers. Glitches and problems can come from your own system. Below, we discuss how to troubleshoot any glitching PC games you may have.
Get Your Settings Right
If your games are freezing or stuttering, it may be a case of getting your settings correct. This signals that somewhere in the system you have a bottleneck, which can make playing almost impossible. The key is to try and make the game less intensive on your system’s resources.
Start by lowering the graphics options on the game. Free up disk space on the system by deleting unused programs and other games. Finally, before booting up the game, close down other programs that may be running. This uses up less CPU power and RAM, so more is available for the game itself.
Check Your Graphics Card
One possible cause could be your graphics card. CyberGhostVPN recommends checking that all drivers are up to date as the first precaution. They also recommend physically cleaning the system, as dust can cause overheating, particularly if it has built up over a prolonged period. You can do this by using a light brush with soft bristles, then gently blowing on the components. Do not use a vacuum cleaner, as you may damage the parts beyond repair.
You could then check online forums, particularly ones such as Reddit. They often have answers to niche problems way before the card manufacturers or game developers have. If someone else is having the same issue with the same graphics card, possible solutions will be posted promptly.
Streaming Issues
If you are having issues when streaming and facing glitches, then the issue is most likely to be down to your connection. The dreaded buffering sign is not just bad for you, but for the followers of your game streams. Luckily, there are a few things you can do to check this.
Intel recommends starting with the game servers. You can conduct an online ping test to see if you are connected to a server within your area. If you are playing on servers a long way off, you are bound to get bad response times.
Next, check your internet speed. You may be playing at a time of high traffic when many other people are online and the speed drops. This will be exacerbated if others are in the house using the same systems. If you don’t do this already, connect to your router using a LAN cable instead of relying on a Wi-Fi network.
If you still have issues, it may be down to the game itself. Check their social media feeds and see if they have acknowledged the problem. If not, send them a message. You may find it takes a few days before a patch is delivered.
