Video games offer many options to configure your gaming experience. For example, you can adjust the controls, modify the graphics settings, and even set the difficulty in some cases.
However, what you usually can’t do is change the game speed. You may experience a stuttering game if you change PC game settings because your frame rate is lower than usual, but that’s somewhat different.
No, what we are talking about is throttling the game speed. You can use this trick to fast forward through a slow-paced game or slow down the action. How?
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When do you need to speed up or slow down your game?
For most games, shuffling the speed of play is a bad idea. Game difficulty and battle lines are built around a particular pace, and altering can make the game too easy or unbelievably difficult.
However, some games have quite high skill requirements. Performers like Fraudulent legacy or Hollow Knight popular among video game enthusiasts. However, newcomers to the genre may find it difficult to keep up with the breakneck pace. The slightly slower game speed will allow even absolute beginners to master the mechanics.
Then there are the games that are so slow paced that it’s a tagline to play through them. Official Pokemon The game is famous for this. For an experienced player replaying the game for the hundredth time, an option to skim the game is a godsend. Especially if you’re doing a challenge run that you intend to restart over and over again.
Use Cheat Engine to change game speed
If the wild game does not provide an option to adjust the game speed, you need to try the spin method. This is easier said than done, as you usually cannot interfere with the internal processes of the game itself.
That’s where Cheat Engine go with. A nifty little memory scraper, Cheat Engine can be used to solve many hidden variables of a game. Cheats like unlimited health bars or item duplication are easy to do in games that don’t usually have cheat codes.
But for this tutorial we are interested in another feature – Turn on Speedhack. This option allows you to adjust the speed of any running application, including games. Note that this requires the Cheat Engine to “inject” the code into the running process, causing many anti-virus engines to flag it as malware. You may have to manually create an exception for the tool.
- To get started, download Cheat Engine from the official website.
- Run the downloaded file to start installing Cheat Engine on your PC.
- The installer will try to install a bunch of bloatware if you’re not careful. Simply choose Skip all to prevent that.
- Option End after the setup is done. No need to run Cheat Engine yet – we need to run our game first.
- Now open the game you want to speed up or slow down. We will demonstrate by slowing down Rogue Legacy 2a fast moving action platformer.
- To see the rate of change in real time, keep scrolling through the menu into the game itself.
- Now press Ctrl + Esc to minimize the game window and open the Start Menu. You can leave the game running, but you’re better off pausing the game first.
- Search Cheat Engine in the Search Box and then run it as Administrator.
- Cheat Engine will open in a new window. Don’t worry if all the options shown don’t make too much sense – we’re only interested in one.
- First, choose File > Open Process to select game process with Cheat Engine.
- You will see a list of all the processes running on your computer, with their full names and icons. You can easily spot your game in this list. Select it and press Open.
- The original window will return but with the name of the selected process at the top. You will also notice that all gray options are available now.
- Click the checkbox along Turn on Speedhack to enable it.
- You can now drag the slider to select a speed modifier: left side is to slow down, the right to speed up. You can also type the number modifier directly into the text box. Option Application when are you done?
- Now switch back to the game window (without closing the Cheat Engine; it needs to be running), and you should see slow motion. Sometimes it doesn’t work the first time, so you may need to close the Cheat Engine and repeat the steps for it to work.
What about online games?
If you are thinking of using the method we outlined to slow down an online game, never mind. Offline games keep track of time by querying the operating system, allowing a program like Cheat Engine to insert itself between and fool the application. However, with an online game, these calculations are done by the server.
And even if you’ve managed to get the Cheat Engine working on an online game, the server will detect unusual behavior in your game and ban you. Especially for competitive multiplayer games where the use of third-party programs to gain an unfair advantage is not allowed.
Accelerate the emulator game
Many people like to play handheld console games on their PC using software emulators. Among other benefits, a big advantage of doing this is throttling the game speed.
When the software emulates the target hardware for the game to work, it allows you to directly change aspects of the game’s performance. You don’t need any third party apps to speed up or slow down the emulator – just go through the emulator options to find the feature.
What’s the best way to speed up or slow down an offline PC game?
Microsoft Windows does not provide any method to directly change the speed of any application. You can always change the graphics settings for better performance and speed up your FPS lag gamebut generally it is not possible to slow down the game from its default speed.
You can use Cheat Engine to modify the speed of any running process. You can also slow down Google Chrome, but it’s very useful for gaming. Many titles offer a better gaming experience at faster or slower speeds, which is possible with the Cheat Engine.
However, it does not work on Android or iOS, as their architecture is much more limited. But you can always use an emulator to play those games on your PC and then change their speed.
