Game Prelauncher

The video game industry has greatly evolved throughout the years from pixel graphics to near photo-realistic displays of action. However, in order to be able to fully enjoy a game you need a solid hardware configuration, since most recent iterations can devour system resources. In this regard, applications like Game Prelauncher give you the possibility to run greedy games with increased performance.

If you decide to run your entire game collection through this application, you'd best first create a restore point for your operating system. This is because in order to give you the extra juice you're looking for, the application disables a handful of Windows features, such as Explorer, which tend to eat up more and more system resources with each Windows iteration.

The application also gives advanced users the possibility to manually select which drivers to leave running while in the so-called game mode. A list displays all available hardware components as well as their specific drivers, but little other details are available, with the possibility to get your system damaged if not carefully managed. For example, tested out on Windows 8.1 we managed to obtain a serious system crash when entering game mode, but functioning just fine with Windows 7.

On the other hand, the application runs as a tiny operating system itself, but using your existing one as a backbone. The total amount of available and used memory is displayed so you get an idea of just how effective the application can be, and how much some Windows features eat up.

Individual profiles need to be created for each game you include in the list. Adding entries triggers a wizard that takes you through a series of steps, where you choose one or more applications to be launched, whether or not to disable Windows Shell and Internet connection. What's more, for an enhanced experience, you can enable Windows Live, as well as PunkBuster for multiplayer.

All your games end up in a list you can use to launch them, or choose an option when adding an entry that creates a desktop shortcut with the specific profile. However, each time you want to enter game mode or return to the original Windows state, your computer restarts and might make short-fused people look away.

Taking everything into consideration, we can say that Game Prelauncher certainly brings about more juice to pump into system resource hungry games, but no updates seem to be planned and Windows 7 is where compatibility reaches the peak. What's more, Steam enthusiasts can cleverly integrate the client in the application for a smooth overall experience.