Epilogue - Steam Optimization
For this section we will concentrate on optimizing everybody's favorite online gaming platform, Steam. Optimizing Steam, unlike many of the other steps in this guide, is relatively straightforward and should have no negative impact on your computer in most cases. The first thing we want to do when optimizing Steam is to speed up the web browser. For some reason Steam has serious compatibility issues with Windows 10 that have never been corrected. Fortunately, it is easy to correct by ourselves. To do this, type in "Internet Options" into your start menu's search bar. In the "Internet Properties" window, switch to the Connections tab, and then click the "LAN settings" button. From here, disable the "Automatically detect settings" check box, and then click "OK" to save your settings. You can then click "OK" again to close the "Internet Properties" window. This should greatly increase the speed of the Steam web browser. If this technique has any negative repercussions on your computer, you can always re-enable automatic detection by re-checking the box under the LAN settings.
Next on our quest to optimize Steam, we will focus on clearing our browser's cache. To do this, simply pull up your Steam homepage and click the Steam button, then click Settings, then in the Settings click Web Browser. In this tab, click on "DELETE WEB BROWSER CACHE" and "DELETE ALL BROWSER COOKIES". Even though these are both in all caps, there is nothing particularly dangerous about these options. They simply delete the browser cache and history of your Steam web browser, making it a little faster if you have used it for a while.
Next we will optimize the library settings to free up bandwidth and a minor amount of CPU performance. In the same Settings tab we just used to delete our web browser history, click the Library tab and in this tab click "Low Bandwidth Mode" and "Low Performance Mode". Both of these options, while designed to assist lower end systems, will sometimes noticeably impact even higher end machines. Once these boxes are checked, hit OK to exit.
Finally on our mission to optimize Steam we will focus on Launch Options. For those of you who don't know, launch options are options available in Steam that can alter how a specific game runs. To find the launch options console for any particular game, click Library, then Home, then scroll down to your chosen game. Right click the game and click "Properties". Under the General tab which pops up, find "Set Launch Options..." and click on it. Once you've clicked on it a small console should appear. In the text box, type "-high", minus the quotation marks. Then click OK. What this command does is instruct your PC to prioritize the chosen game upon launch over all other applications. In my experience this causes significant performance increases in many cases, at the sacrifice of multi-tasking. Also keep in mind that setting the priority to high will increase the temperature of your system. If you are already having heat issues due to GPU overclocking, you may wish to avoid this step. Additionally, be sure you have ample free CPU capacity to prioritize towards the game you choose, otherwise you could have a negative impact on performance as basic necessary functions are slowed down in order to run your game faster (lower end machines only).