Online gaming is a global phenomenon nowadays, and understandably so. Technology is constantly advancing making video games more exciting and immersive than ever before, while the rise of online multiplayer and international gaming communities has brought an engaging level of social interaction to one of the world’s premier hobbies. All up, it’s a great time to be a gamer, but that doesn’t mean that things can’t be improved.
Effectively communicating with other players remains difficult in many titles nowadays, while connection and hardware performance issues can be enough to make you ragequit and even want to give up playing entirely at times. Thankfully, there are ways to mitigate these problems with the right software. So, let’s look at some free tools that can help you to enhance your online gaming experience.
Virtual Private Networks
If you consume any online gaming content, you’ve almost certainly encountered sponsored videos or advertisements about virtual private networks. They’re everywhere, and for good reason, because using a virtual private network for gaming can improve your experience in more ways than one.
The most visible difference a VPN can make is to improve actual gaming performance. Nowadays, it’s common to encounter ISP throttling while gaming. This is when your internet provider deliberately restricts your data transfer capabilities because it detects high-bandwidth activity on your part. The result is a significantly slower connection that causes frustrating lags.
This can be enough to make you want to quit altogether, but a VPN helps alleviate the issue by encrypting your data and concealing your traffic. As such, it blocks your ISP from monitoring you, helping you to avoid throttling.
Additionally, since a VPN allows you to divert your connection and use the IP address of a remote server, it will help insulate yours against cyber threats through anonymity. Moreover, it will let you bypass geographical restrictions so that you can play the newest titles right away. So, if a game releases earliest in Turkey, for instance, you can simply connect to a Turkey VPN server to access it immediately.
Game Boosters
Whether you gaming on a high-spec, purpose-built PC or just playing on your work laptop, you naturally want to get the best performance possible out of your hardware. This can often be more difficult than you might think, though. With your machine allocating resources to a plethora of different background processes, frame rates can be inconsistent, but a game booster application can go a long way toward improving performance.
A game booster application will provide you with a way to have more control over how your PC utilizes its resources. Through a user-friendly dashboard, you will be able to tweak your system settings, prevent background processes from siphoning power away from gaming applications, and prioritize between your CPU and your graphics processor to ensure optimal performance. This means that you can maximize the potential of your gaming device to achieve better graphical quality, boost your FPS, and ensure a more responsive, engaging all-around experience.
Voice Chat Apps
In the age of online PvP multiplayer, communication has become a huge part of gaming. However, while most titles provide some measure of functionality as regards in-game communications nowadays, these are often inadequate in many ways. Some titles simply offer text-based chats, for instance, which are slow and cumbersome to use, especially when players must be ready to react to gameplay developments at a moment’s notice.
Others simply provide live-ping functionality, which does not allow players to exchange detailed information. What’s more, in instances where an in-game voice chat system is provided, that system is often plagued by poor sound quality or bugs. As such, it makes to install a dedicated voice chat application.
Many of today’s leading voice chat apps, such as Discord, for instance, are free to use and provide a high-quality service. This makes communication significantly easier and more efficient, allowing you to provide teammates with detailed information in real-time, something which is especially important in competitive online play. Additionally, leading voice chat apps also come with live translation bots which can help you to overcome language barriers. This gives you the freedom to play on a wide variety of servers in different regions by allowing you to effectively coordinate with other players, regardless of their preferred language.
Notably, many voice chat applications also come complete with a dynamic graphical interface that overlays with whatever game you’re playing. This means that you don’t have to remember different key mappings to communicate in different games, which makes for a better all-around experience.
Wrapping Up
Online gaming can be a highly engaging pastime and a great way to discover vibrant new communities, but bandwidth throttling, unoptimized PC performance, and inadequate in-game comms can prevent you from making the most of your hobby. With the right tech on hand, though, you needn’t worry. By utilizing free applications like VPNs, game boosters, and voice chat applications, you can solve these issues and enjoy a much more streamlined and satisfying experience whenever you game online.
