XPerformance

[Spoon]

I have been long disapointed by the speed of XP on loading, and with ram so cheap decided to upgrade to 512MB - but I have seen it before, Windows will not live with out a slow disk virtual memory drive. I can load Windows and it will put 100MB out to the swap file despite hving over 300MB of system ram free.

A few tweaks as found here:

https://www.musicxp.net

helped to make XP feel snappier, but the swap file problem exists. Disabling all swapfiles - Windows sneakily use one on drive C!

I am sure if I had 4Gig of ram, it would still want to put out 100MB :(

[Narler]

Yea i agree, the swampfile (as i call it) is a pain, I have a funny feeling that windows maybe using the swampfile to help keep track / index of what's in physical ram.

Running Memturbo is interesting to see that even with 5 apps running, it can still recover upto 330mb of my system ram. Begs the question why the FARK is it allocated then.

Also i've seen some games state they will NOT run if you don't have a swampfile. irrespective of physical ram amount. very wierd. So basically I just have 1.3gb partition on a drive sitting there which has a permanent swampfile on it. that saves winblows from quite a bit of disk activity. (the idea of having a swampfile 2.5 times the amount of physical ram is a bit of a bitch, but with hdd's being so cheap, might as well to maximize 'blows performance).

Making sure the swampfile is on a different hdd to blows can certainly help, considering IDE can't multique instructions or requests. So for all you IDE wenies out there, having 'blows on a the primary ide channel drive, and the swapfile located on a secondary ide channel drive can certainly help. I prefer to run UW2 or u2160 scsi. Much faster.

I'm only using win98SE, and have no plans to Upgrade to xp anytime in the near future, but once my pc passes POST, when it says "starting windows 98" my system only takes 14 seconds before I'm at the desktop and can start doing something. I doubt XP will ever get that fast.

Another thing to maybe consider, not sure if it's as relevant to XP as it is to the win9x structure, but the size of the registry plays a considerably large part in the operating performance of windows. The larger the registry is, the slower win9x boots.

Hope that info helps someone

[Spoons]

for me it doesn't seem to make any difference if my swap file is on the primary or secondary. I swap it around when I do a defrag to clean things out.

yeh I need a cut lunch waiting for my system to boot. but it doesn't matter as when it is running.... well it runs :D

you lost me on the 'blows? blowey? hmmm...

[Narler]

Originally posted by Razgo
for me it doesn't seem to make any difference if my swap file is on the primary or secondary. I swap it around when I do a defrag to clean things out.

speed and setup of your drives can play a part in that to. also check to see that your hdd's are set for DMA access, if you use IDE, as DMA reduces the CPU usage considerably (like from 40% down to 2.5%)

yeh I need a cut lunch waiting for my system to boot. but it doesn't matter as when it is running.... well it runs :D

hmm doesn't it make you think, if it's that slow at loading, what else is it slow at, that you may not even be aware of?

you lost me on the 'blows? blowey? hmmm...

Windows

drop the d and and add bl

Winblows

then use the ' to indicate a shortened word

'blows

blows as in sucks.. it's just a play on words that sound the same but have completely different (more realistic ) meaning

[BestRip]

So when you say "blows" it actually means Winsucks, hmm interesting...
It's not always easy for us non-english speaking to understand all aspects of your language.:smile:

On performance, do anyone of you know if quick freezes of the mouse (1-2 sec.) that I have rather frequently, mostly after some commands, is due to Winsucks or something other. Does one have to live with it?
I'll give some hardware data so you have something to base your eventual reflections or ponderings on.
MSI board ATX KT266A Soc. A DDR RAID
AMD 1200
512 MB RAM
ATI RageXL
2x120GB in RAID:smile:
Oh yeah, and 2000 winsucks (just kidding, I actually quite like it, even though I'm more of a Mac-guy, with 90/10% Mac-hours/PC hours behind me).
And all the latest drivers I have been able to scramble up.

cya

[MODatic]

What sort of mouse do you have? Have you tried another mouse and still have the same problem?

My first M$ Intelli Mouse Optical had a dodgey cable, would always cut in & out. I would think it is a problem with your mouse rather than Windows, then again, I've had Windows undetect hardware for no apparent reason even though the hardware has been part of the system for well over a year :mad:

[BestRip]

It is a "Microsoft USB IntelliMouse Explorer" (optical), but I don't feel it behaves like having a loose wire or anything like that.
I'm guessing it's more of a driver or software issue than a hardware one.
Possibly also some USB issue?
What happens is that when I for example klick OK on something and try to move the mouse very directly after that, it will not have moved and I have to make the movement again.
I have seen this behaviour on several other PC's but not so often and as long as on this one. A double processor machine will not do this nearly as much.
I'm gonna test a few ideas, see what happens, thanks.

[Spoon]

I have seen my driver for the Samsung Yepp do this when it cannot find the yep, it can leave the Parallel port in a wierd interrupt DMA state that can do this - I would say it is a DMA problem.

[Narler]

So when you say "blows" it actually means Winsucks, hmm interesting...
It's not always easy for us non-english speaking to understand all aspects of your language.:smile:

Yes, that's what it equates to but saying winblows makes it sound so much like windows, the slang pronounciation fits in nicely.

On performance, do anyone of you know if quick freezes of the mouse (1-2 sec.) that I have rather frequently, mostly after some commands, is due to Winsucks or something other. Does one have to live with it?

First thing I'd check is to see if your USB controller is sharing an IRQ with another device. Right click on My Computer icon, choose Properties, click on Device Manager, then double click on Computer. This will give you a list of all irq's in your pc and what hardware is assigned to each one. Just make sure nothing else is assigned as that could cause delays with timing, especially if the other device sharing the irq is in use.

Are you using any other USB devices off the same port?. I found a conflict with my Microsoft USB IntelliMouse when I had my logitech Wingman Extreme joystick plugged in. So i run my MS mouse now in ps/2 mode.

So the other thng you can try is running the mouse in PS/2 mode from the motherboard ps/2 onboard adapter, if it still has problems running on that, then maybe it's mouse related

Also being ps/2 you can try is using a utility to check (or modify) the sampling rate (frequency in Hz) that your ps/2 mouse is opperating at. This will make the mouse respond so much faster.

The HomePage for PS2Rate is here

MSI board ATX KT266A Soc. A DDR RAID

cool.. I like MSI boards, I have them in all my main pc's as well. One last thing you can check is the MSI web site and see if there is any updated revision for your BIOS that may address this issue.

Ok hope that info helps

[totalXSive]

XP seems faster than 98 for me. If you're interested, I'm writing an eBook for GnomeTomes.com about speeding up your computer for free by tweaking the registry and such. In the meantime, check out http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_content.htm and http://www.blkviper.com/WIN2K/servicecfg.htm for tips for removing programs at startup - in XP, removing the Indexing Service is a must.

[BestRip]

GREAT STUFF!!!

I finally got around to setting the mouse up as a PS2 and it is as smoth as silk now, none of the stickieness left at all. My PC feels so much better, really.
Thank you Narler!
The IRQ 11 that shared the USB with the graphics board, the sound board AND the RAID controller, must have really been overworked.
I didn't (and still don't) know what can be tweeked on in this area so I'm gonna take a real close look at the recommendations of this thread.
My machine felt like it was choking before but now it feels like a totaly different (new) machine...

[Narler]

I finally got around to setting the mouse up as a PS2 and it is as smoth as silk now, none of the stickieness left at all. My PC feels so much better, really.
Thank you Narler!

No worries. glad to help. and glad to hear your mouse performance has improved.

The IRQ 11 that shared the USB with the graphics board, the sound board AND the RAID controller, must have really been overworked.

Yea that's certainly a load for a single irq.. Depending on what revision bios you have, check your CMOS settings, and under PNP / PCI Configuration, I can assign an IRQ to each PCI slot, that way I know there won't be any conflicts between any PCI cards, (for instance my Sound Blaster Live, my Adaptec UW SCSI Controller, my Netgear NIC, and i can assign a specific IRQ to my AGP video card).

If you can get each device to have their own IRQ and not share, then everything should operate more efficiently.

[Freddie4Fingers]

Bestrip said:

I didn't (and still don't) know what can be tweeked on in this area so I'm gonna take a real close look at the recommendations of this thread.

I didn't catch what version of windows you are using, but maybe TweakUI could be of some help. (For WIN98SE)



Get it here.

[ddominey86]

he he he lol

Originally posted by Spoon
I am sure if I had 4Gig of ram, it would still want to put out 100MB :(

actually if you had 4 gb of ram windows would want about a 2-5gb pagefile

but the reason y it uses a lot of ram and uses a big pagefile is that it caches disk acces that makes for faster program loads the 2nd time you run it

[STAR]

I dunno why anyone would want to talk trash about Windows XP. I would have gladly joined in on the Winsucks, or Winblows termology before... but XP has renewed my faith in microsoft.. and on the system I had running it... it booted faster than any other operating system. As far as the boot time.. I'd be nice if it could be faster but theres a simple solution to that... DON'T TURN OFF THE COMPUTER. I can understand having to reboot on system crashes... but Even playing around with beta and proggies that would crash any other winblows system.. good ol Windows XP chews em up and spit it out without any problems in my experience... I've tried crashing XP and only experienced a crash on one occasion. and it was my cd burners fault cause it wasn't supported with any XP drivers... damn my old burner...

I've noticed that tweaking settings in XP can help it to boot.. and generally manage better too...

Heres something for ya in case you didn't know about it...
Go To Start Menu... Then Run...
Type "gpedit.msc" (without the quotes)
Hit Enter... and enjoy