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As any PC gamer knows, it’s very easy to spend more time maintaining your machine than actually playing the games you bought it for. Thankfully, there’s a better way to maintain your expensive gaming hardware without all of the hassle and extra time investment.

Razer Cortex is a one-stop app that can address all of PC gaming’s biggest pain points, from optimizing individual games for the best possible performance on your machine to keeping background activity in check while you play. But Cortex is also much more than an optimization tool. This Razer software also helps you keep track of what’s in your game library across all of your launchers, leaving you more time to work through that ever-growing game backlog. And if you’re looking for the best game deals across the internet, Cortex has you covered there too.

PC Gaming is more than just a hobby—it’s a way of life. But for some gamers, it may also mean endless tinkering with their PC to get the ultimate gaming experience. It doesn’t have to be that way, though.

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Cortex doesn’t cost a dime and you don’t even need to own any of Razer’s hardware or peripherals to run this software. Let’s dive into five common PC gaming problems that Razer Cortex can solve for you right now.

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Problem #1: Even the best gaming PCs need to be upgraded too often to keep up with the newest and more graphically demanding games..

Spending thousands of bucks on a top-of-the-line gaming PC is a serious undertaking, so it’s demoralizing to see performance drop in the months and years after you’ve bought it.

While nothing can keep a PC at the very top end forever, Razer Cortex ensures you’re getting every last drop of performance from your hard-earned hardware for longer, eking out every additional frame and helping you get the most out of it for longer.

This part of Razer Cortex is called Boost, and it kicks in every time you start a game, freeing up RAM and various other computer resources to ensure everything is being put to the game in hand.

Though the default settings are a great start, you can customize Boost to your specific needs by clicking “Game Booster” on the navigation bar at the top, and then Boost. Here you can tick everything you want—from cleaning RAM to disabling Cortana—to ensure that your games run as fast and interruption-free as humanly possible.

Problem #2: Even the games that should run well on your PC don’t always feel like they’re properly optimized.

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Picture the scene: you’ve just bought a new game on Steam, and load it up to find a juddery, unpleasant experience that looks nothing like the gameplay footage you expected. You know that your PC more than meets the minimum specs, but it’s just not performing at its best.

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Previously, you’d have had to dig deep into the software settings in an often futile game of trial and error to get things right. Not only does Game Booster help optimize your PC’s overall performance, but with Razer Cortex, you can let the AI-powered Booster Prime take the lead and sniff out the optimal settings for supported games for you.

You’ll find Booster Prime on the navigation bar next to regular Boost. Just find the game you want to maximize performance on and press “optimize now.” Run the slider between graphical quality and performance, and the software will predict the hit to FPS from various tweaks. It’s genius.

Problem #3: Constantly needing to micromanage junk files and background processes as part of your daily gaming routine.

Properly optimizing games is only half the battle though. Every PC gamer knows that Windows has always been a performance hog and is often its own worst enemy in terms of junk files and gradually slowing down over time.

There are plenty of iffy paid tools that promise to fix these things, but Razer Cortex can do it all for you in just a couple of clicks—and once again, you can customize the process to your liking to ensure you’re happy with the changes.

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All of these features come under the System Booster tab, and it can do everything from clearing junk files taking up valuable space to defragmenting files used by your games for tip-top performance.

System Clean clears junk files (both system and software-related), deletes unnecessary registry entries, and cleans up leftover files from internet browsing.

The Speed Up tab, meanwhile, can pull off all kinds of neat tricks, such as optimizing disk caches, streamlining desktop menus, making file systems more efficient, and disabling unused Windows services. These can all be ticked or unticked, and you can restore things to Windows defaults with a single click as an insurance policy.

Finally, the Defrag tab lets you defragment the files of games saved on your hard disks to ensure they load as fast as possible. Note this can’t be done on solid-state drives, but it’s handy if you’re still rocking a larger drive with moving parts. These various system cleaning options will not only improve your PC gaming experience but improve the overall performance of your gaming PC!

Problem #4: Modern PC Gaming requires you to manage multiple game launchers

While there’s no question that Steam is the dominant platform in PC gaming, it’s unlikely to be the only launcher you use to play the latest titles. The trouble is that that means your games library ends up scattered across multiple launchers, making keeping track of all of your PC games more of a chore than it should be.

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Razer Cortex fixes that with its one-stop game launcher. My Library is the first tab when you open the app, and puts all your games from all your launchers in one place, whether you’ve got them on Steam, GOG Galaxy, Ubisoft Connect, Origin, or Xbox.

Not only is it more convenient to have your games in one place, but Razer Cortex also keeps track of how long you’ve been playing, what you’ve played most, and your favorite genres for when you want a bit more curation in your library.

There’s also a customizable in-game overlay which can keep track of frames per second, and time played, with an optional countdown timer should you need to be somewhere at a certain time. Currently, in beta, Cortex can even generate a neat FPS chart when you’re done!

Problem #5: There’s no easy-to-use tool that allows you to track the best gaming deals from across online stores.

There’s nothing more satisfying than getting a good deal on the latest PC game, especially if you’ve overspent on your hardware budget! But finding the very best prices can be exhausting, especially when there are so many places to buy games on the internet, and you’re always left with a nagging feeling that you could have found a cheaper price at another online store if you’d just looked harder.

Once again, Razer Cortex to the rescue! The Deals tab scans online game stores including GOG, Amazon, Steam, GameStop, and Green Man Gaming once an hour and flags the best deals right there in the app.

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Better still, if you have a wishlist of games you want to track for deals, then Cortex can keep an eye on them for you. This can be done automatically if you keep a wishlist on Steam or GOG, but you can add them manually too—either way, you’ll never miss a great deal again.

Install Razer Cortex Today, No Matter the Hardware

Razer Cortex really puts the old adage that “there’s no such thing as a free lunch” to the test. With all your games in one place, intuitive system optimization, AI-optimized in-game settings, and a powerful price comparison engine all built in, Cortex offers an awful lot for the impossible-to-beat price of “free.” And again, you don’t even need a Razer PC to enjoy all of its best features!

Download Cortex today, and give your day-to-day PC gaming life a major boost.

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Razer Cortex Is the Solution to PC Gaming’s Most Frustrating Problems