Windows Performance Optimizations (and the big 300)

[Darkness]

I'm looking for primarily speed and reliability optimizations. A way to cut down on the amount of RAM windows eats, etc.

[mirex]

Main suggestion: dont install every program you see on your computer. Windows will keep some of dlls from these progs even when programs are uninstalled.

Wallpaper consumes some memory. Small or none is better.

There is proggie, Memturbo, which cleans unused memory. Good to run it after some complex program(game). It is good as restart.
(I dont use it, I restart )

Then, set your swap, to exact size. They say it is faster than variable size. And it should be about 2,5 x size of your ram they say. ( Anyhow i have 32mb ram, 180 swap )

When you have lots of programs in background, or loaded after start, performance will go down. Like i turned off some Office quick start crap.

Hmm. That is about what i know. hope it helps

[ficedula]

Swap file should be fixed size if possible (it *is* faster) and also in a contingious block near the drive start.

How to do that? Well, if you reinstall Windows onto a blank drive, before you install *anything* else, defrag, set the swap file to a fixed size, then defrag again. So long as you don't change the swap file settings after that, it'll remain in one block near the start of the drive.

Some better defraggers (Norton? not sure) can also do this for you. However, the standard Windows defrag won't touch the swap file IIRC, which is why you'd have to go through the above...Obviously only works if you're installing onto a drive without anything on it. Or if you've partitioned your hard drive, in which case, you should definitely have the swap on the first possible partition.

[Darkness]

fice: I was actually planning on doing something like that. I was going to run a defrag, turn off virtual memory, restart, defrag, and set my virtual memory. how much would you suggest? PCGamer says no more than 512, but i have over a gigabyte of space to spare.

[ficedula]

Depends. I run a 500MB swap, but that's only because FF7 in NVidia mode requires it (for NO good reason). I'd have set it to about 300MB otherwise (I've got 192MB main RAM), though there's no real disadvantage to setting it a bit higher.

[Darkness]

speaking of ff7, does anyone ever get a problem with the cursor/character always moving a certain direction? If so, how do i fix it. I keep thinking that something is wrong with my numpad, but now im pretty sure thats not it.

[ficedula]

If you've got a gamepad connected, then that can do it. FF7 seems rather sensitive so a slightly uncalibrated gamepad sends the directions off quite a lot.

[Darkness]

oh! my old kraft joystick (1992?) is plugged in! thanks fice! i think ill plug in my gravis gamepad.

[Darkness]

ok, here goes.... i hope this is pnp.

[Anonymous]

There is a program called Xteq x-setup....

You go to the Tab called: X-setup
push the first button: Launch X-setup Default UI.

Inside it you'll find a tree of stuff
Go to:
Systems
memory

In there you'll find
General Memory settings (may find this one useful)
Spare Stack settings (don't know anything about that one)
Swap file usage. (may find this one useful)

There is a discription of what they do in the program.

I like using the Swap file usage one....it really does what it says too. All your phisical memory is used before and virtual memory is used. YOu can tell it's working by using DirectX's DXdiag.

[Threesixty]

Forgot the link:
http://www.xteq.com/

[Darkness]

been there, done that, undid that =)

another problem with ff7, i got past that place i was whining about in may-june, but now it crashes in every battle........ back to full install, i guess.

[Aaron]

I have this program called MaxMem. It monitors your memory and if you run out of RAM it cleans some for you without disturbing whatever you are doing.  This way you don't spill over into the hard drive.  I wouldn't recommend using it constantly unless you have at least 128 meg of RAM (I have 256).  It keeps the system running fast forever.

[ficedula]

Those programs are of limited use. How do think they free up physical memory? By moving data onto the swap file.

The gamble they're taking is that you'll need some more physical memory soon, so by freeing up a large block now, that's saved time compared to moving data bit by bit onto the swap file when you actually need the physical memory.

If they're right then it's good. OTOH, they might flush data onto hard disk that you're going to need soon, in which case performance actually decreases...

Whether or not such a program actually helps you depends totally on what you're doing.

[Aaron]

I don't think it moves data to the swap file.... I think it clears data that was being used by applications that are no longer running.  If you have more than 256 meg (or however much RAM you have) of mem being used, your system will crash ("Out of system resources").  It prevents your computer from using the SWAP file if you set it up right, which can be annoying, but its faster

[ficedula]

Windows will always reuse memory that was used by apps that have exitted! If it claims otherwise ... well, that's wrong.


Actually, I just downloaded it to have a look and I was right - it *does* flush data out to the swap file. So what I said before applies: may be useful depending on what you're doing, but it can kill performance in some circumstances.

[Goku7]

I prefer using a program called "DirectControl".  as the name implies, DirectControl interfaces with DirectX to allow for more detailed tweaking, CD-ROM and hard disk Cache settings, specific optimizations for P2 and above motherboards and CPU's; optimizations for the L2 cache; as well as various other optimization routines for Video, 3D, DirectDraw, etc.

It also allows "hot switching" of DirectX acceleration (3D, Sound, etc.) *on the fly* while the DirectX program is running; so you can enabledisable specific features without needing to exit the program or something.  It can take control of how the system uses the swap file as well.

I tried testing my 233Mhz system's performance in HomeWorld: Cataclysm in both OpenGL mode and Direct3D mode, D3D being assisted with the DirectControl program.  I got a huge increase in framerate on my slow system when I used Direct3D /w DirectControl on;  OpenGL just looked pathetic framerate-wise.

-edit- dumb punctuation error! -_-

Also, I forgot to mention that it as a "Debug mode" for practically all the main components for DirectX.  I guess graphics programmers like Sephiroth 3D and Ficedula (correct me if I'm mistaken about Ficedula) might find that feature handy.
[edited] 239 2001-12-02 01:50