suggestions to make my sim work smoother

[Stevin]

My computer used to be up to the task with ease but over the last year it has begun to act funny. After about 15 minutes of sim it will start to feel choppy. I tried lowering my graphics settings and that helped some but I know it can be better. Is there anything else I can try rather then buy a new computer

[thenewguy]

Clean out your fan and the inside of your computer. Take it out and use a compressor to blow everything out. Then wipe out and reinstall everything. Make sure all drivers are up to date.


Thanks,
Chris

[Zerolizer]

careful with the compressor....even those caned air stuff can potently blow capacitors and stuff off the PC board. You can use them just don't get right on them and go crazy, lol. A straw and my mouth are usually good enough. (insert blow hard joke here, lol)
It certainly could be that the caked on dust (if you don't regularly clean the inside of your computer case) can cause your computer to start to over heat and slow down.

also getting the latest video card drivers would not be a bad idea.

[RCHSF]

It's a good habit to clean the pc fans, and a good dusting. I do it about every three months.
PSU Fan, CPU Fan, and any other fans. I use a tooth brush and clean each fan blade. It gets caked on the back sides of the blades even more. Once you give it a good cleaning you can hear it even sounds better. Also you can go into system and Advanced System Settings, and Performance, and set the pc to adjust for best performance. Aslo go into Windows C: be careful don't start just deleting stuff. But once in Windows C: delete anything in Prefetch, and Temp. Also run your Disk cleanup and check all the box's and click OK. And you can delete any Desktop icons, you can get to them from start menu. This will help also.


If you do a little research on what is safe to stop, you can go to MSconfig, type that into start menu search and hit enter, and it will bring up a box, then you can stop any service's that you don't need running it will speed up your computer even more. But you need to know what your doing in their. Caution!!! You may stop your internet or other much needed services. As the others have said above, Clean & Reload windows and updated drivers make a big difference. And don't install any programs you don't have to have.