Let's see what tools that provide real benefits should be installed on a gaming PC in addition to drivers, codecs and games themselves.
Even the most novice begins to understand that additional tools are needed on a gaming computer as soon as they try to take a screenshot in-game or decide to find out how hot the graphics card is in-game.
Of course, the situation in this regard has improved significantly in recent years, and the built-in tools of AMD and Nvidia graphics card drivers offer gamers more and more tools, and the game mode in Windows 10 and Windows 11 is more and more convenient.
But third-party tools for gamers are becoming more versatile, convenient and often unmatched, giving us unique new features. Today we will look at 10 such utilities, and I'm sure you will encounter some of them for the first time. All the tools in this selection are released by trusted software developers, as proven by the thousands of players who use them.
Borderless Gaming
For a long time, most games only supported full screen and windowed mode. The recently introduced full-screen windowed mode has the benefits of both modes, but is not available in all games. And it has many advantages: games launched in full-screen display mode expand and collapse immediately, the mouse cursor is not blocked in the game window when using two monitors, and background work tasks do not slow down during the game. The simple Borderless Gaming tool allows you to run your game in windowed mode and automatically hide the borders of your window, simulating full-screen windowed mode.
Link to the official website of the developer
https://github.com/Codeusa/Borderless-Gaming/releases
WTFast
VPN services inevitably increase data transfer latency, causing lag and even disconnection in MMO games. The utility WTFast, which is a special VPN client for the gaming network, can help. It forwards all traffic between the player and the game server through its servers, improving responsiveness and reducing lag.
Link to the official website of the developer
https://www.wtfast.com/en/
GameSave Manager
Many gamers have games saved on their computer that they have completed over the years. Gradually, this mass of storage becomes increasingly difficult to understand, and often the storage is lost after reinstalling Windows. The GameSave Manager utility will help you save your saves, which will scan your disk, find saved games it knows, and create a backup stored on disk or in the cloud.
Link to the official website of the developer
https://www.gamesave-manager.com/
Tunngle
Another tool that helps you play with friends, Tunngle allows you to play games over the Internet that only have a LAN connection. This tool allows you to simulate a local network and is a more convenient and functional analogue of another well-known tool for playing over the Internet - Hamachi.
Link to the official website of the developer
https://www.tunngle.cz/herni-klient/
Discord
But to communicate with friends while playing, you will need the cross-platform utility Discord, which combines voice messenger and text chat and has become the gold standard among communication utilities for gamers. This tool allows you to create as many servers as you need, encrypt your real IP address and prevent DDoS attacks. And also - it allows you to exchange images, videos and links from your PC and phone and embed most media players directly into the chat.
Link to the official website of the developer
https://discord.com/
WinDirStat
The games are growing in size and some of the new entries have exceeded 100GB in size. And even a 500GB SSD in a gaming PC fills up pretty quickly with installed games and user files. And when installing a new game, the question arises - "What to remove?". The WinDirStat utility will help you to answer, which graphically shows exactly which files and in which directories your disk is full. Looking at the data released by the utility, it is immediately clear who is the main culprit of running out of space on the SSD.
Link to the official website of the developer
https://windirstat.net/
IObit Uninstaller
And if you have chosen which game you want to remove, IObit Uninstaller will help you with that. Unlike a standard Windows uninstaller, IObit Uninstaller removes programs and games more thoroughly and cleans up all files and registry tails that always remain after uninstallation. And IObit Uninstaller can update already installed software and keep it up to date.
MSI Afterburner
MSI Afterburner has become a well-known utility for PC overclockers and computer enthusiasts, but no less essential for gamers. Display temperature, consumption and FPS monitoring, take a screenshot of a game or record a video, limit the maximum frame rate in games - MSI Afterburner can do a lot, even if you do not use the utility's ability to overclock or undervoltage the video card.
Link to the official website of the developer
https://www.msi.com/Landing/afterburner/graphics-cards
Display Driver Uninstaller
Another tool used by power users is very useful for gamers. The Display Driver Uninstaller utility can properly remove video drivers without leaving any traces on the system. This helps avoid crashes and issues when updating video drivers, which need to be kept up-to-date if you want to get the best performance from newer games.
Link to the official website of the developer
https://www.wagnardsoft.com/
Xpadder
The Xpadder utility allows you to remap keyboard and mouse buttons on almost any controller, making it possible to play games on controllers that do not offer such an opportunity. You can even play DOS games or games on game console emulators with Xpadder. There are several types of games that are much more comfortable to play on a gamepad than on a keyboard, such as racing or platformers.
