What is Digg?90 Comments
- illegalamigo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+62exercise caution with gamexp. i tried it once and it fried my system. it was unrecoverable and i had to reformat.
- Kingmichael, on 10/12/2007, -11/+70"I just posted this in that one topic in the consol section, but I figured this deserved it's own topic...cuz it really does help:
ok, here's how you make a gaming profile...now...it can be somewhat hard but don't be intimidated...
go to control pannel user accounts...now create one called gaming...CONGRATES!!! you've made a "gaming" profile...
now that your in that profile, take out the background and put a boring solid blue one that they have in there...right click on my computer, choose advanced>visual effects and then click on adjust for best performance.
take away all of the apps taht shouldn't be running...
and here's some other slightly more advanced tips..
To increase system performance
Right click my computer. Click properties.
Click advanced.
Click settings (under performance).
Click Adjust for best performance.
Scroll to the bottom and check the last one “use visual styles on windows and buttons”.
How to disable XP's -crud- built in CD Burner
Click the start button.
Select Run.
Type services.msc and click ok.
Go to IMAPI CD-Burning Com Services open it and click on start up type, change to "Disabled".
These Settings will fine tune your systems memory
You need at least 256MB of ram to do this:
Go to startrunregedit -and then to the following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlSession ManagerMemory Management
1.DisablePagingExecutive -double click it and in the decimal put a 1 - this allows XP to keep data in memory now instead of paging sections of ram to harddrive yeilds faster performance.
2.LargeSystemCache- double click it and change the decimal to 1 -this allows XP Kernal to Run in memory and improves system performance a lot.
3.Create a new dword and name it IOPageLockLimit - double click it and set the value in hex - 4000 if you have 128MB of ram or set it to 10000 if you have 256MB set it to 40000 if you have more than 512MB of ram -this tweak will speed up your disckcache.
Reboot
Unable to delete from Avi files from HD
XP holds files in it's memory even after you have closed the application using them making it impossible to delete them from your harddrive. To fix this:
Start -> Run -> Regedit
Find the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTSystemFileAssociations.avishellexPropertyHandler directory and delete the "DEFAULT" key.
Tweak The Swap File
For Users with 256 MB RAM or more this tweak will boost their Windows- and Game-Performance.
What it does: It tells Windows not to use any Swap File until there is really no more free RAM left.
Open the System Configuration Utility by typing msconfig.exe in the RUN command. There in your System.ini you have to add "ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1" under the 386enh section.
Restart your Windows and enjoy better Game performance
Disable Services
XP Pro runs a lot of services by default that are pointless if your not on a corporate network, the following services are ones that I safely disable thereby freeing up memory but check what each one does first to make sure your not using it for something:
Go to Run and type services.msc, right click on each service, properties and choose disable.
Alerter
Application Layer Gateway Service,
Application Management
Automatic Updates
Background Intelligent Transfer
Clipbook
Distributed Link Tracking Client
Distributed Transaction Coordinater
Error Reporting Service
Fast User Switching Compatibility
IMAPI CD-Burning
Indexing Service
IPSEC Services
Messenger
Net Logon
Net Meeting
Remote Desktop Sharing
Network DDE
Network DDE DSDM
Portable Media Serial Number
Remote Desktop Help Session Manager
Remote Registry
Secondary Logon
Smartcard
SSDP Discovery Service
Telnet Themes
Uninterruptible Power Supply
Universal Plug and Play Device Host
Upload Manager
Webclient
Wireless Zero Configuration
WMI Performance Adaptor
Speed Up The File System
NTFS is a great file system, but its feature-set comes at a slight cost in performance. You can negate this a little with the following tips:
* By default NTFS will automatically update timestamps whenever a directory is traversed. This isn't a necessary feature, and it slows down large volumes. Disable it by going to Run and type regedit:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlFileSystem and set 'DisableNTFSLastAccessUpdate' to 1.
* NTFS uses disparate master file control tables to store filesystem information about your drives. Over time these core MFT files grow and become fragmented, slowing down all accesses to the drive. By setting aside a little space, MFT's can grow without becoming fragmented.
In the same key where you disabled the last access feature creat a new DWORD value called 'NtfsMftZoneReservation' and set it to 2.
Disable DLL Caching
Windows Explorer caches DLLs (Dynamic-Link Libraries) in memory for a period of time after the application using them has been closed. This can be an inefficient use of memory.
1. Find the key [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorer].
2. Create a new DWORD sub-key named 'AlwaysUnloadDLL' and set the default value to equal '1' to disable Windows caching the DLL in memory.
3. Restart Windows for the change to take effect.
Tweak The Prefetch
1. Run "Regedit"
2. Goto [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlSession ManagerMemory ManagementPrefetchParametersEnablePrefetcher]
3. Set the value to either 0-Disable, 1-App launch prefetch, 2-Boot Prefetch, 3-Both ("3" is recommended).
4. Reboot.
It will decrease the boot time but double and increase the performance of your XP.
SpeedUp Your Connection By 20% (Cable Users Only)
1.Log on as "Administrator".
2. Run - gpedit.msc
3. Expand the "Local Computer Policy" branch.
4. Then expand the "Administrative Templates" branch.
5. Expand the "Network" branch.
6. Highlight the "QoS Packet Scheduler" in left pane.
7. In the right window pane double-click the "Limit Reservable Bandwidth" setting.
8. On the settings tab check the "Enabled" item.
9. Change "Bandwidth limit %" to read 0.
10. Then go to your Network connections Start=>Control Panel>Network & Internet connections>Network Connections and right-click on your connection. Then under the General or the Networking tab, (where it lists your protocols) make sure QoS packet scheduler is enabled.
It may take effect immediately on some systems. To be sure, just re-boot.
maybe I should put something in here about doing it at your own risk" - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+48gamexp screwed up my computer. Beware! Dont use it! i had to reformat!
- YHCIR, on 10/12/2007, -1/+40http://www.duggmirror.com/software/Tweak_XP_for_gaming/
- ronin2040, on 10/12/2007, -0/+35Just to add my $0.02, from both experience and research, most of those tips either A) are irrelevant for non-servers, B) don't really do much, or C) potentially dangerous.
Start with this page
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/SupportCD/XPMyths.html
or read on.
For starters, that QoS packet scheduler tweak won't do much for a couple of reasons. First, 20% of bandwidth=20mbit, leaving you with 80mbit. How many of you have an 80mbit cable line? If you do, theres a good chance QoS WILL be of use to you. FURTHER, unless a program specifically USES QoS, 100% of the bandwidth will be available regardless. This tweak really doesnt help--in fact, it has the potential to slow certain sorts of network traffic.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q316666
Disable Paging Executive setting seems to be detrimental, according to this:
http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsServer/en/Library/3d3b3c16-c901-46de-8485-166a819af3ad1033.mspx?mfr=true
Why do I want to store unused code in my RAM? Aren't we TRYING to free up RAM?
That "ConservativeSwapFileUsage" tip is total bunk, if I remember correctly. As I remember it, that is only for windows 9x, since NT based windows manages RAM much better. Microsoft has no articles for that setting under XP, although if you google "ConservativeSwapfileUsage xp site:microsoft.com", check the cached description for the first result.
Good news: There are a few tweaks there that appear to be on the level.
The "DisableNTFSLastAccessUpdate" tweak is recommended by Microsoft for servers to improve disk performance.
The "AlwaysUnloaddll" tweak is apparently used in "2000 and later" to resolve a winzip error, although I would be careful with that setting.
The prefetch tweak certainly cannot hurt, and since I dont believe boot prefetch is on by default, this tweak will probably help.
Disabling Services is more complicated. A lot of those services can indeed (and should) be disabled, there are a few that need more caution.
If you have a wireless card, and do not wish to use the card-maker's wireless card service, you will need the "WirelessZeroConfiguration" service on automatic.
If you wish to be able to download windows updates from the windows site, you will need "Automatic Updates" and "BITS" enabled. "BITS" is also supposed to let you resume downloads that were disconnected; I have no experience with this.
"Fast User Switching" may be useful to you if you have more than one person on the computer, and you have plenty of RAM.
"Secondary Logon" may be useful if you generally use a non-administrator account (which is a good idea).
Oh, and a few other services listed there should NOT be disabled on a company LAN, unless you KNOW what they do:
Alerter
Application Layer Gateway Service,
Application Management
Messenger (yes, some companies still use it)
Net Logon
Smartcard
WMI Performance Adaptor - ziadoz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+35My rules for getting my system to run better when gaming are:
- Use msconfig (or Startup CPL) to stop useless junk running at boot.
- Quit all applications, including those in the system tray, that aren't essential.
- Use task manager to set game process priority to High.
- Use task manager to kill explorer.exe (you can re run it when you've done gaming).
- Use task manager to kill any other useless processes running. - pierre, on 10/12/2007, -0/+19Never thought to actually kill explorer.exe... interesting idea. makes sense, you dont need it while gaming and its a nice chunk of memory. cool!
- perrupa, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13Well, they're not speeding it up ;)
- warfang, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12Well the benefit to making another gaming profile is that you don't have to keep doing those tasks every single time.
- sparkie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9The poster of the 'tweaks' truly understands the implications of his modifications to the windows registry, as categorized by his outstanding use of the word 'kernal'.
- latinjones, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12OMG it really works! I'm getting like > 60FPS in Arkanoid and Jumpman now!
- bertdevriese, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9This could be me, but I don't understand how "disabling Windows XP's build-in CD/DVD Burner" is optimizing it?? Do these things really slow down your system?
- uncleLeo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8it probably won't, what's happening is the program is expecting to access a particular piece of data from location (some hex location) but it is not there. the program flips out, and exits giving you that message. so unless a tweak will somehow allow that right piece of data in memory you're out of luck.
possible problem: if you're using a crack or cd-fix or something like that, it's probably just not programmed correctly - bentrop, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Wow, a few genuine "tweaks" mixed with a lot of urban legends and idiotic changes that even decrease system performance (and functionality) in most cases. Why are there so many articles, websites and software products dedicated to tuning and tweaking Windows with hidden setting and so few dedicated to debunking most of these tweaks?
This is especially sad for all those people that are not that computer literate and follow these guides step by step without thinking or doing extensive research how those alleged tweaks work.
One really great read is the German computer-magazine "c't" 17/2005 pages 102-119. But the problem is, that you need to be able to read German and you kind of have to own that issue, the archive CD or buy those three articles here: http://www.heise.de/kiosk/archiv/ct/05/17/
I wish there was something like that available in English, online and for free so I could link to it every time somebody publishes another "OMG!!! these hidden registry setting make windows like 50-times faster!!1!" article.
To give this "news" some credit: There are even much worse guides an products (e.g. TweakXP) out there. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Jumpman really puts the strain on my system, It fried my last 7900 :
- echoic, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9Agreed, please don't hesitate to go ***** yourself with a chipped coffee cup
- silverdragon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Gah My poor server!
- ronin2040, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7You want real tweaks?
*Lower your IE cache to 50MB, and history retention to 7 days. Harden IE by disabling most things
*Use Opera when you can. It is fast. Yes, firefox is nice, but before you start bashing, check opera. I run both--one for speed, one for flexibility.
*Apply the prefetch tweak
*Make sure you have a decently sized pagefile--1-2GB is generally good (depending on RAM)
*Disable unneeded services--use google if unsure.
*Run ChkDsk--this can work wonders.
*Use a NICE antivirus--Norton AV blows. Symantec corporate is better, but Avast/AVG/etc are much better. I recommend Avast.
*Use spywareblaster--passive spyware prevention. A first line of defense, with no penalty (save registry entries)
*Scan monthly for viruses with Spybot S&D--DO NOT USE ANYTHING WITH ACTIVE PROTECTION. It will eat yer CPU.
*Use a HARDWARE firewall, or set your router up to be one. Software firewalls are a waste.
*Dont use USB internet -_-
And if you're feeling ballsy, and are netsavvy, and have a hardware firewall, and dont use P2P, you could POSSIBLY get away without Antivirus active protection--ClamWin weekly scans COULD suffice. Just make sure you have a backup, and that you scan all downloads manually.
THERES yer tweak. By screwin with the bios, and doing all of that, I get really great boot speeds, and a really responsive system.
Of course, on a spyware free system, 1-2GB of RAM will toast most of these tweaks... - bentrop, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Thank you! We wrote our comments at the same time and I would have replied to yours initially if I had had the chance. The "XP Myths" is a great start.
Most of those idiotic advices anger me becuse I'm very often the one who will be called if one of my friends decided to follow one of these "guides" and brakes an incredible amount of things without even knowing what he is doing or remembering later what he did.
"DisableNTFSLastAccessUpdate" does indeed improve disk performance in some cases (especially if a lot of different files are access frequently) but disabling it also screws with quite a lot of defragmentation-, backup- and other software that does rely on this information.
"AlwaysUnloadDLL" is a very harmless setting, simply, because it doesn't do anything in Windows 2000, XP and higher. It was a genuine tweak in Windows NT 4.0 - so if one actually find games (or current hardware) that work under NT 4.0 this might speed things up a little.
If anyone doesn't believe me, read here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/shellcc/platform/shell/programmersguide/shell_basics/shell_basics_programming/debugging.asp - DarthBrady, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6good tip, but the part about 20% bandwidth boost is *****. Ask Microsoft, they have a page explaining that its *****. don't jump the bandwagon without a little research
- bairy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Bit of memory. A few cpu cycles. Nothing major of course but every little tweak done adds up to one big tweak.
- cyphr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I do not have a "DisableNTFSLastAccessUpdate" value. Is it necessary to add this, or is something fubar'd?
- dude3609, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5actually setting high priority on a game can some times make things worse for the game experience. Not better.. as odd as it seems. This idea only works on some games. But with some games it may cause problems. I wouldnt recommend doing that.
- Morph_Ball, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Never thought I'd see this...
Dugg for multiple reasons~ - ZerozenOnes, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7I am having super fun shinny dreams that this might help with that ***** "memory at XXXXX could not be "read" error that is preventing me to play HL2.... will try that tonight I guess...
- mancat, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5And some of you wonder why your Windows installation is unstable.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4These two tips always works for me when i got that problem:
Update your drivers - This is the number one useful tip (i think).
Verify your GCF cache - This will verifry that all your HL2 files are as they should be. (More about this can be found at http://support.steampowered.com/cgi-bin/steampowered.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=282&p_created=1101182584&p_sid=LQNyuNbi&p_lva=&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPTEmcF9zb3J0X2J5PSZwX2dyaWRzb3J0PSZwX3Jvd19jbnQ9MjImcF9wcm9kcz0wJnBfY2F0cz0wJnBfcHY9JnBfY3Y9JnBfc2VhcmNoX3R5cGU9YW5zd2Vycy5zZWFyY2hfbmwmcF9wYWdlPTEmcF9zZWFyY2hfdGV4dD1nY2Y*&p_li=&p_topview=1 )
Hope this help you and all the others with the occoured problem. - ronin2040, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4interesting. I'll have to read up on the unloaddll, since I understand from Microsoft that it DOES work in, and I quote, "Windows 2000 and later", and fixes a Winzip 6.x installation error. I also understand, from "X-setup" helpfiles, that its potentially detrimental.
But yeah, I've learned that you really cant let this get to you--I'm sure we've all gone through the phase where its all about max performance for $0, trying every tweak, chant, and raindance we find on the web just to squeeze another 0.5% out of our rig.
Its part of the learning process. As people try these tweaks, with varying results, they will inevitably learn a little more about Windows, and perhaps PCs in general. - ronin2040, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Why not just fork over $40 for a gig of dual channel ram? Given that it would take a few hours to do this, and that you can generally make $20 @ burgerking in the time it takes to do this....
This is about on the same level as trying to save money by OC'ing a processor, but laying down a bundle on watercooling. Theres such a thing as too far. - jsp317, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4i cant see any true gamer falling for that. we know we need the latest hardware to play the latest games with all the setting's on high. ram ram + more ram. any gaming machine with less than a gig is no gaming machine. if your hardware is a little outdated lower your setting's to fit your system.
- av4rice, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3A little more drastic one that they missed:
Reformat and reserve the first partition (about 2x your total RAM size) for swap usage only. Then install Windows on the second partition. That way you'll get a dedicated area (both physical and virtual) on the hard drive just for swapping without fragmentation interference from other data; and since it's the first partition it's in the inner ring of the platter making it faster to read. - jmoorse, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Is this really a gaming profile? Some of these changes are NOT user-specific, but systemwide.
- returnofmalv, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3All that work and no benchmarks to prove the performance gains?
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3explorer.exe is not "Windows itself". It is the UI of the file system. It lets you: A) Browse files and B) Open control panel, start menu, all that stuff. If you want an example of something that is "Windows itself", try killing all the svchost.exe's. Windows will reboot.
- pierre, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5stfu, obviously some people have interest in this content or it would not be dugg... go babble somewhere else.
- Edgen22, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3yes you have to add it in there
- brianvan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I just have to add - some of these mods made my games crash pretty consistently. So, no digg.
- natebmiller, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Spybot S&D is a spyware scanner/removal tool, not an anti-virus.
- jason7655, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Just found this:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/xpehelp/html/xetskdisablinglastaccesstimestamps.asp
Look on the left menu for other items that have been discussed. - PrometheuZ, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5@hammydude
It didn't screw mine up. Maybe you forgot to backup your original settings of which the program gives you the option before tweaking. - mancat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Modern hard drives are so quick that this really isn't an issue. Besides, if you specify a fixed size swapfile, where the minimum and maximum size values are the same, the swap file will never become fragmented.
- Muzztein, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4hahahahahahahahahaha
good sarcasm - WarpFox, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Some games won't run without a paging file. Planetside, for instance.
- umbepo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2aight after i did it, i cannot play music with any software (itunes, winamp, wm) and my itunes music store dont work and now i have to format. i dont reccomend it.
- w00ters, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2By doing everything in this guide at very best your system will crash more frequently. Absolutely zero performance gains will be had.
- krazyman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2FPS in CS:S (stress test) before the tweaks, 51 fps. FPS in CS:S (stress test) after the tweaks, 51 FPS.
- bentrop, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@ronin2040
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=196480
To resolve this issue, use Registry Editor to delete the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerAlwaysUnloadDLL
Important! This registry key is no longer supported in Microsoft Windows 2000 or later.
It does fix an installation error with Winzip 6.x and 7.x ... under Windows 95 and NT 4.0!
This is a completely and utterly useless tweak on every modern Windows OS, still, it shows up in almost ever tweak guide.
I cannot understand why this tweak guide gets almost 2000 diggs while its content is about 60% useless junk, 20% tweaks that DEcrease system performance and/or result in severe loss of functionality and about 20% recommendations that might really help make the system unnoticably faster. - PrometheuZ, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2No-CD patches. ;-)
- iSlayer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I guess this site didnt read on the preparation if their url was submitted to digg. Digg effect killed them!
- inactive, on 11/23/2007, -0/+1Broken
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