A guide to overclocking your graphics card.

So you can’t seem to get Quake 4 to work at medium settings on a 1024×768 resolution at a playable FPS? Maybe overclocking your graphics card can give you that extra power required to do so. Overclocking is getting a part of you computer to run faster than it is supposed to. It is a simple process that can improve the performance of your computer. First things first, download ATItool.

Even if you have an nVidia GPU, I recommend this nifty little piece of software. Once installed, open up ATitool. You should immediately see some sliders and a temperature monitor. Overclocking your graphics card can be tricky, so proceed with caution. Increase the core value by 2-3 Mhz a time and every time you increase it, test it by clicking on “scan for artifacts. If your GPU temperature goes uncomfortably high, or if artifacts are detected, lower it. Find your maximum safe clock speed this way. Repeat the procedure for the memory clock. That’s it! You now have an overclocked GPU! I suggest you let ATitool scan for artifacts for at least an hour or two to make sure everything is fine. There are plenty of after market coolers available, if you do get one, it should really help you push your GPU a lot more!