Re: Any tweaks to speed up games under XP?

From: Chris H. (winxpnews_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 03/13/04 

Date: Sat, 13 Mar 2004 09:02:02 -0800

Have you tried, instead of "tweaking" what you might think is necessary in
Services, to run the default? Indexing, for instance, when turned off will
actually stop some games in their tracks. It is there for a purpose, and
that is to make things run smoother and faster. There are a couple web
sites and a PC magazine article which make recommendations to "speed up" XP
for gaming, but they don't tell the consequences - like turning off
Cryptographic Services. 

-- 
Chris H.
Microsoft Windows MVP
Associate Expert
Expert Zone - www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone
"pjp" <pjp_is_located_at_@_hotmail_._com> wrote in message 
news:u3fQ0uRCEHA.3024@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...
> XP Pro with integrated sp1 plus all criticals from Update site applied.
> Latest VIA 4-in-1;s applied as first install after OS up and going.
> DirectX9.0b, passes all DXDiag tests and there's "No Problem ..." all
> around.
>
> Tyan Trinity 400 S1854 motherboard
> PIII at 733Mz (to spec)
> 512 megs ram running at 133mz fsb (to spec)
> Radeon 64 DDR VIVO (7200)
> Xpert98 (2nd display multi-monitor)
> two wd hd's, 15 & 40 gigs with plenty free space on each
> Creative SB-PCI128 sound card
>
> 2 Logitech Rumblepads
> 2 Logitch wheels (MOMO Force & Racing)
>
> Mustek flatbed scanner "Twain", (lpt port pass thru model)
> Creative Webcam (also appears as a Twain scanner)
> Fuji digital camera as webcam or Mass Storage Device
>
> 3 printers, 2 Epson inkjets and an old Canon laser
>
> Logitech mouse
> Wacom pressure sensitive tablet
>
> Ethernet card connected to four other older 98SE pc's in-house (TCP/IP and
> Netbuie as protocols, including XP)
> USR Robotics 56K external modem
>
> 2 self-powered external four port USB hubs for all the USB devices. Does
> provide 500Ma spec to every port simultaneously, e.g. no attached device
> shows any kind of  problem in use..
>
> The hardware seems stable an there was/is specific XP drivers for it all 
> (I
> was surprised I found scanner driver). The ethernet is up and running with
> printers and folders being shared as expected from both sides. I even
> managed to get the Guest account to be able to use a proxy server on one 
> of
> the other pc's to connect to the net after giving up in frustration at 
> it's
> refusal to allow use of the dialup modem connection even though it's
> specified as "shared by all" by the "Admin" account that set it up (Users
> are ok and can use it). The only problem hardware wise is, I can't get the
> back speakers working off the sound card as there appears to be only XP's
> built-in support for the card.
>
> This is the one thing I've found really makes a difference for games is, 
> use
> batch files to start the game so you can elevate it's priority, e.g. "cmd 
> /c
> start /High LinksLauncher.exe" is noticably faster (as I'd expect).
>
> I feel the basic problem is background "tasks" as Performance under
> Ctrl-Alt-Del shows cpu bouncing from 2 to 13% continually (but randomly in
> magnitude). I've tried to determine exactly what all these various 
> services
> do but when you try to research them it seems like the answer becomes a
> circular reference and it's never really explained. In particular, it's
> undetermined what's going on in the background regarding the ethernet. 
> There
> seems to be a number of various services that might be doing some type of
> "polling" for shares or something but as they're not really documented I
> have no idea what one's I can turn off etc. at no risk to basically 
> mucking
> up what works now (the Guest account can connect to web using a Proxy 
> server
> running on one of the other pc's as it "refused" anything to do with the
> dialup miodem connection). Basically, I'm very wary of blindly changing
> things under any version of Windows because as often as not "un-changing" 
> it
> doesn't bring the system back to what it was (e.g. unknown inadvertant
> consequences).
>
> For example, I have no idea what the "Alerter" service REALLY does, what
> "other features" absolutely require it to be running in order to function
> correctly nor what these "other services" also do. Ask help for "them" and
> you get another reference etc. which eventually seems to lead no-where
> usefull.
>
> I have turned off the obvious, e.g. disk performance monitoring service,
> indexing and the like.
>
> As usually MS's help isn't helpfull, just frustrating.
>
> "Chris Catt" <notknown@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
> news:uhM4JnPCEHA.712@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...
>> Hi, all depends upon your hardware specs, we really need to know your
>> hardware specs before we can give you advice. What we need are cpu -
>> type/speed. motherboard, ram - amount/type, video card. If you have any
>> problems finding this out then here
> http://www.aida32.hu/aida32-download.php
>> is a good tool to use. Suffice to say that XP hardware requirements are
> much
>> higher than those of win98, therefore if you've not much ram, say 128mbs,
> XP
>> will really need twice that before you get reasonable game performance. I
>> expect Jimmy S will have more to say on this, over to you Jimmy :-)
>> Chris C
>> Chris
>> "pjp" <pjp_is_located_at_@_hotmail_._com> wrote in message
>> news:OiF0SEHCEHA.2308@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...
>> > Just installed XP Pro as dual-boot with existing 98SE.
>> >
>> > Same game (NFS:U) running from same folder (e.g. just created new
> shortcut
>> > under XP) is basically unplayable under XP it's running so slow (slow
>> > motion) at 640x480 where-as under 98SE I can run it acceptably at
>> 1024x768.
>> > All other settings the same including under Properties DirectX 
>> > settings.
>> > Links 2003 and Flight Sim 2004 seem the same but not so exaggerated,
>> > probably because they're not high speed "action" type games.
>> >
>> > Is this typical? I'm running same revision drivers for the Radeon, e.g.
>> Cat
>> > 4.3.
>> >
>> > I'm hoping it's all the crap running in the background so wondering if
>> > there's any site(s) document what all that crap actually does as MS's
> help
>> > doesn't even try to explain what they actually "do" in most cases.
>> >
>> >
>>
>>
>
>

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