Tweaking Windows XP..make it go faster!

Herbert Dypp

** FIRSTLY, IT MAY NOT BE A GOOD IDEA TO USE ANY OF THESE TIPS IF YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT THE WINDOWS REGISTRY IS **

Recently, I've been having trouble with video lag whilst playing EQ. This is odd as I have a GeForce4 TI4600 which is not a slow card. I would find zones 'stuttering' when I turned around in any zone, not just the usual Bazaar, PoK, etc. So I did a bit of research and found this guide:

http://www.blkviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm

Since, I had a play around, my video lag has reduced so i can now walk around stutter free in the bazaar (just like i used to!) although with the clip plane turned all the way down.

The main culprits seem to be WindowsXP System Restore Service & the Indexing Service.

As stated above, I only recommend having a go at this if your understand what you are doing. It may also not help any problems you may be having. It just helped mine Smile

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Herbert Dypp - EQ Storm Warden(Retired)
"I think I need a deeper algorithm"

Elnrik Talshiar · Member Joined: 23 Jul 2003 Posts: 820 Location: Denver, CO

Just some friendly pointers (which are stated plainly on the Blkviper site, yet I feel should be mentioned):

When playing w/ services, don't mess with too many at once. Adjust a few, reboot, and test your system for stability. Also, use (click Start -> Run, then type) services.msc to mess with this, not MSConfig.

When in doubt on a service your thinking of turning off, set it to manual instead of disabled. This way if your system needs it, it can still start the service up and will be less likely to throw a bunch of errors in your face. After reboot, go back into services.msc and see if that services is started or not. If it isn't, then it probably safe to disable it. If it's started, something needed that service when the PC started, and you may want to leave it on automatic.

IMO, by turning off nonesential services, you will see better performance gains on slower / low memory systems. Performance gains are less evident on faster machines that have lots of memory. (Doesn't mean you shouldn't do it on fast PC's tho, it just means that (for example) you'll boot half a second faster, vs 10 to 15 seconds faster.)

I'm running about 21 running services when I'm playing EQ. That's about 12 services less than WinXP loads by default, I think. I have a pretty fast system however, and don't mind leaving a few things running.
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(AKA - Brent)

Elnrik Talshiar · Member Joined: 23 Jul 2003 Posts: 820 Location: Denver, CO

Oh, and some services you shouldn't mess with at all. (Like Workstation and Cryptographic services.) kk, thx.
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(AKA - Brent)

Daneloire · Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2003 12:52 pm Post subject:

Yes, Remote Procedure Call (RPC) is my favorite one to accidentally turn off. It basically cripples your machine and is nigh impossible to turn back on without using the Restore Console.

-Dane

Shiloch Veneficus · Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2003 7:49 pm Post subject:

I think if you're PC is powerful enough to run Windows XP, you probably shouldn't be playing around with the services. Most of them are now extremely efficient and don't really use up that many resources. For most day-to-day computer users, I would say you could probably get away without the indexing service. The vast majority of them (or their dependencies) that rely on the Server service, Workstation, RPC (Local), RPC (Remote), and many others that run on your network stack should not be touched.

The guy that wrote that article is the same guy that I ripped a new asshole for on the Motif Registry forum because he wrote an article for Windows NT Server where you basically turn off enough stuff so that.... it isn't a server anymore.
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Sage Shiloch Venzolmes - Arch Convoker - Walkers
QUALITY, not quantity.

Rocsalt · Member Joined: 05 Mar 2003 Posts: 200

so, if you running XP Professional... you turn off enough stuff it's not Professional anymore? Twisted Evil

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No Peeking
65 Monk

Shiloch Veneficus · Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2003 8:04 pm Post subject:

XP Home and XP Professional are damn near the same with a few minor differences. XP Home will not join a domain. That's the big one. I'm not exactly sure on this, but XP Home will also not support multiple processors.

They are named appropriately. XP Home is for Home use and XP Pro is for business, or power-users (Umm, like... you have your own NT domain at home... or you need multiple processor support).

The services they run are basically the same otherwise.

If you want to know how effecient they are, and how bullshit it is to turn them off, for christ sake, check the usage yourself. Load up performance monitor and add process counters, or right-click on your taskbar and click Task Manager. Click the Processes tab. The column that says CPU is a two-digit number that tells you the percentage of your processor's cycles each process is using. You'll find that on most computers (especially those that meet WinXP's minimum requirements) have over 90% of that under "System Idle Process" meaning your PC is sitting there doing nothing.

If you want to speed up your gameplay, you're looking the wrong place to mess with your services. Turn off your virus scanner and buy better hardware. Razz

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Sage Shiloch Venzolmes - Arch Convoker - Walkers
QUALITY, not quantity.

Daneloire · Posted: Thu Nov 13, 2003 11:51 am Post subject:

Checking your CPU System Idle Time may tell you your computer's sitting there doing nothing, but if you fire up EQ, log in, and then Alt-Tab out and check again... I'd be surprised if ya had even 10-20% idle time. EQ isn't exactly a trivial application. Closing down or disabling truly unnecessary processes may not help much, but in some older machines, it can help enough.

Just, for chrissake, be sure you TEST it before you disable it Razz

Like Shi said, XP is pretty good at minimizing negative impact on performance from such processes. Saving a few kilobytes of memory here and there isn't gonna help ya much when you have half a gig of RAM.

-Dane

Shiloch Veneficus · Posted: Thu Nov 13, 2003 1:48 pm Post subject:

I by no means said that EQ doesn't hose up a large percentage of processing power. I simply said that Windows XP Services aren't using as much as you think they are.

And, for the record, I've found evidence to suggest that having the Indexing Service ON can improve performance of gaming, depending on your configuration (this is also granting your PC is powerful enough to run XP to begin with).
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Sage Shiloch Venzolmes - Arch Convoker - Walkers
QUALITY, not quantity.

BlackCastle · Member Joined: 19 Aug 2003 Posts: 165 Location: Tucson, AZ

In my OPINION, there are some things its good to turn off, maybe not necessarily for performance purposes, but security purposes. Typically these sites tell you why/when/why not you should/should not disable certain services, if you have any question in your mind to disable it or not, dont do it. I disabled the following:

1) Messenger
2) Remote Registry Service
3) Telnet
4) Terminal Services
5) Netmeeting remote desktop sharing

I posted this site before, I will post it again if it helps anyone.

http://snakefoot.fateback.com/tweak/winnt/services.html

BC