Slowing Down Your Computer to Achieve Higher Game Scores
Written by unitedt0yland
I recently bought a new, fast computer. It has 2 GB RAM, an AMD 4000 CPU, and a 7800GTX graphics card. I can now play any 3D game with the highest settings possible at a very fast speed. But I found when playing Neopets using my new computer, I could never get scores as high as I usually do. My scores dropped by at least fifty percent. I hadn’t stopped playing Neopets games for a while, so I hadn’t gotten worse due to lack of practice. It must have been my new computer that was making me worse. So I tried playing a Neopets game on my old, slow computer, my scores were back to normal. I soon realised that having a faster computer while playing Neopets games doesn’t speed up your frame rate in the game (the number of frames of animation per second rendered in the game window), but it increases the game speed instead. From this I concluded that people with slower computers have an unfair advantage while playing Neopets games, since the action in of the game progresses slower, so they have more time to react to certain things.
I wanted to find some way to use my newer computer to play flash games, because I don’t want to have to set up my old computer every time I decide I want to play a flash game. After hours of thinking and planning (ok, actually 5 minutes), I came up with the solution. I needed a way to slow down my computer to compete on equal terms with the people who had slower computers. It wouldn’t be as simple as just opening a bunch of programs to slow my computer, I have way too much RAM, and my CPU is just too fast. I would have to literally slow down my computer, by editing my BIOS settings. If you continue reading, you too will learn how to slow down your computer to be able to compete against the people who have older computers.
Is this cheating? Can you get frozen for this?
This is absolutely not considered cheating. If you think that this is cheating, than you must also think that buying a faster internet connection to be able to improve your restocking ability is cheating. You must also think that owning an old slow computer is not cheating, but owning a fast computer that you make slow is cheating – this makes no sense. No body deserves an advantage for owning a slow computer, and you should be allowed to take that advantage away from them.
You cannot get frozen for this. If you did, then Neopets would be in a lot of legal trouble. In their use of information policy, it doesn’t say anything about them using your BIOS information. If you got frozen for this, you could take them to court and sue them for not telling you that they were using your personal information (your BIOS information). Also, most BIOS’s have measures installed that prevent windows programs from accessing and reading it. There is NO WAY you can get “busted” for doing this (although, it isn’t cheating, but Neopets still likes to freeze for things that you do that aren’t cheats).
Risks – Read this!
If you do exactly what I say, there is little risk involved. It is only when you make a mistake that you could damage your computer (when you change the wrong setting). If you make a mistake, you could PHYSICALLY damage your CPU beyond repair. I don’t know how your motherboard will react to the changes in your BIOS settings. Your computer MAY not boot up, or perhaps even turn on. If this happens, you have to remove the battery from your motherboard, then put it back in (this will bring your BIOS settings back to the factory defaults). Your system may become unstable, your programs may start crashing. In this case, just restore your BIOS default settings the next time you boot up your computer. I cannot be held accountable if you do this and end up breaking your CPU, or if something bad happens to your computer.
How to slow down your computer
Alright, if you just skimmed through the risks section, go back up to it and read through it thoroughly. Since all BIOS’s are different, I will try to be as general as possible here, so everyone can relate to this.
1. Enter your computer’s BIOS. You can do this by mashing the delete key while your computer is booting up (before you see the Windows logo). If you do it right, a blue menu will come up instead of your normal Windows stuff.
2. Enter the Cell Menu. This menu is given a number of different names, depending on what kind of motherboard you have. Highlight the cell menu using the arrow keys, then press enter.
3. Now this is where it gets SOMEWHAT complicated. Every processor has three things. It has a core base frequency, a core multiplier, and a product frequency. For example. My product frequency is 2400 MHz. The core base frequency is 240. That means my core multiplier would have to be 10, because 2400 / 240 = 10. If I increase the multiplier to 11, my product frequency would be 2640 MHz – my computer would be faster. DO NOT INCREASE THE MULTIPLIER. DO NOT CHANGE ANY OTHER SETTING EXCEPT THE MULTIPLIER. If you increase the multiplier your computer will not start. You can only decrease it. You should decrease your multiplier enough that your computer goes so slow, that it makes the flash games go very slowly, which will make them easier. I decrease my multiplier to around 2-3, so my computer loads very slowly. Your computer is probably slower, so you wouldn’t decrease the multiplier that low. Try to make your frequency around 750-1000 MHz, or slower if you are really bad at the game ;).
4. Exit the cell menu by pressing ESC.
5. Save the changes by highlighting “Save and Quit” or something like that, and pressing enter.
6. If you want your computer to go back to full speed, REMEMBER what the multiplier was before you changed it. Or just restore the default settings.
Great job, you have now successfully slowed down your computer, assuming you didn’t change anything but the multiplier, and your computer booted up. Now you will be able to compete against the people who have slow computers- unitedt0yland