4 Things You Can Do To Boost The Performance Of Your Old GPU

As the component responsible for rendering the graphics in games, the GPU is usually the most important part of any gaming battle station. With Nvidia, AMD, and Intel releasing more powerful variants of their GPUs every few years, even the most amazing graphics card in 2024 may not be able to render games at sharp resolutions and high frame rates forever.

Sadly, GPU prices have skyrocketed in recent times, and the amount of money that could get you a solid mid-range graphics card back in the day is barely enough to cover the insane price of an entry-level GPU now. But it’s not all doom and gloom, because there are a couple of methods that can grant the much-needed oomph to your GPU’s processing capabilities to help it run modern titles at acceptable frame rates.

4 Enable Resizable BAR/Smart Access Memory

They’re only supported by relatively newer systems, though

For the longest time, your processor could only access your GPU’s VRAM buffer in fixed-size chunks (usually around 256MB in size). Besides increasing the latency, this outdated approach acted as a bottleneck that prevented efficient utilization of the VRAM.

To counter the problem, Resizable BAR and its AMD counterpart, Smart Access Memory, allow the CPU to access the entirety of the GPU’s VRAM buffer, thereby improving the speed at which textures and game assets are streamed to your graphics card. Performance-wise, you’re likely to see a 5-15% increase in the frame rates, which is pretty decent when you’re trying to hit 60FPS.

The only caveat is that only newer processors and graphics cards have native support for Resizable BAR/SAM. So, if you have a GPU that was released before 2020, you’ll have to jump through a couple of hoops, including modifications to your motherboard’s UEFI image, to enable the feature.

3 Get rid of dust and replace thermal paste

To improve heat dissipation

Dust is often considered the silent killer in the PC community, and there’s good reason to fear it. Once too much dirt and grime piles up inside the processor, GPU, and case fans, your system’s cooling efficiency will start taking noticeable hits. This, in turn, may lead to thermal throttling, and your components won’t be able to operate at their maximum potential.

Unlike your processor, the GPU comes with a pre-installed thermal paste that can dry up in a few years, which can further increase your overheating woes. So, besides cleaning your graphics card’s fans every other month, you should disassemble them and reapply the thermal paste if you’ve been using the same GPU for a couple of years. Heck, I even recommend adding some thermal pads on top of the VRAM for better thermals.

2 Use Lossless scaling

Great for slow-paced games

If you haven’t heard about frame generation, it’s a feature that uses AI algorithms to insert an additional frame (or two) between two frames, providing a more fluid experience when the game runs under your preferred FPS. Although Nvidia and AMD’s frame generation tech can only be used on select titles, Lossless Scaling is a third-party application that can add this facility to any game!

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Lossless Scaling hands-on: An affordable means to add frame generation to all your games

This amazing app will help your underpowered system run modern games at solid frame rates

Of course, there are many issues with Lossless Scaling’s X2 and X3 algorithms. Unlike DLSS and FSR, the app can’t access the motion vectors of a game, meaning you’re bound to see more artifacts and visual glitches. Besides forcing the games to run at exactly half of your monitor’s refresh rate, you have to deal with insane input lag. That’s not really an issue in slower-paced turn-based games. But you’ll have a tough time playing games that require god-like reflexes with frame generation enabled.

All in all, Lossless Scaling isn’t for everyone, especially if you prefer playing esports and competitive titles. However, it allows outdated GPUs that are past their prime to run extremely taxing games at playable FPS.

Long live MSI Afterburner

Increasing your GPU’s clock and VRAM frequencies has always been the best way to boost its performance. Despite seeming rather complicated at first glance, overclocking your GPU is a relatively straightforward procedure. I’ll admit, there’s a slight degree of risk involved here, but you’re not likely to damage your precious graphics card as long as its thermals don’t exceed critical levels.

Speaking of thermals, there are some cases when you might want to turn the GPU voltage down a notch instead. By limiting the amount of power sent to your graphics card, you can reduce the amount of heat it generates, and in turn, its temperature. This way, your GPU won’t hit the throttling temps and can maintain high clock speeds even under heavy load.

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How to use MSI Afterburner to overclock and monitor your PC

From overclocking to undervolting, MSI Afterburner is a really useful software. Here’s how you can use it to improve your GPU’s performance

Having used multiple overclocking utilities in my PC building journey, I can confirm that MSI Afterburner is the most feature-laden tool out there. Besides its intuitive UI and extensive support for overclocking/undervolting, MSI Afterburner also has excellent hardware monitoring capabilities to keep an eye on your GPU while you tweak its voltage and frequencies.

Reducing e-waste (and the damage to your wallet) by making the most of old hardware

Apart from these four methods, you can also try a handful of other tweaks to gain a slight increase in performance. For instance, enabling Hardware-Accelerated GPU Scheduling can provide a minor boost to the in-game FPS if you’re on Windows 11. Similarly, you can look into game-specific performance mods if you have trouble hitting stable frame rates in the latest titles.

If you continue to encounter lackluster performance and unstable FPS even after following all these steps, then perhaps it’s time to part with your old GPU. After all, there’s no better way to bump up your PC gaming prowess than upgrading its hardware.