Hey,
I am going to be putting in here a number of tips and tricks to help speed up windows and get every gram of power out of your PC to play all the latest games with. If you have suggestions for tips and tricks then please message them to me as i will be expanding this topic over time.
WARNING! Some of the topics and advice given here are of a technical nature and some of the steps advised if done wrong can prevent your machine from working correctly. I (Movian) and The Sanitarium.fm take no responsibility for any issues encountered while following this guide and you follow these steps at your own risk.
Page File:
A lot of people have probably heard of virtual memory or the paging file. However I have come across even veteran gamers who do not know what these terms mean or how they affect your computer.
So what IS the paging file?
The paging file (also known as virtual memory or swap file) is used as an overflow for your RAM. When the ram get close to full windows will automatically move the least used information still in memory and push it to the swap file to free up space to use for other things. Then it can move the information back to memory when its done.
So what does this mean for me?
Well first of its best to have enough RAM in your computer that it should not be doing this very much as moving data to and from your memory and hard disk takes time and resources and thus can slow down your computer.
This is why having enough memory is important.
Ok but i can't go out and buy memory at the moment. Is there anything else i can do?
Yes there is, by default windows expands and contracts the amount of disk space that is reserved and used for the page file as needed. However this process also takes up clock cycles and resources so it can actually reduce speed. One thing we can do to fix this is to set the size of the page file ourselves and set it so it does not change. To do this
Right click My Computer and select Properties (in vista and windows 7 you will now need to select Advanced system settings, in XP you will need to select the Advanced Tab).
On this form you will click the top settings.... button in the "Performance section"
In the new window select the Advanced Tab
Then in the Virtual Memory Section click the Change... button
This windows will now display your current Virtual Memory settings and options. Most people will have "Automatically manage paging file size for all drives" select.
deselect this option. Then in the middle of the page select custom size.
At this point you need to set a new size for your paging file, the typical recommended size is 1.5X your memory size in MB
so if you have 1GB of memory (1024 MB) you would set a paging file size of 1.5 GB (1536 MB). If you have 6 GB memory (6144 MB) your paging file would be 9GB (9216 MB).
So figure out what your setting should be then enter that number in megabytes in both the initial and maximum size fields and push the Set button.
then select OK for all the windows open. This will then require your computer to restart.
Disk Space:
Disk space can be another factor in the speed of your computer. Currently the hard drive market is flooded with inexpensive very large drives, ranging from 500GB to 3-4 TB (terabytes). This is A LOT of space if you consider that in the mid nineties my family got its first windows PC and it came with a 3gb hard drive. This was enough for windows, office plus all my games at the time...
However the basic architecture behind drives has not changed and they have certain requirements to operate effectively. One of the sometimes overlooked aspects of a hard drives operation is the amount of free space on a drive.
To operate effectively a hard drive mus have a minimum of 15% free space (Personally i would recommend 20%).
This is due to the fact that the hard drive is relocating and sorting data constantly. To give you an analogy you have 3 glasses; one with whiskey, one with water and one that's empty. Say you wanted to transpose the contents of your whiskey and water glasses, the easiest way is to use the empty glass ass a go between. While its technically possible to switch the contents without the third glass, its MUCH MUCH slower and therefore degrades performance. So make sure to keep your disk with 20%+ free space, disks are cheap there is no excuse not to.
Environment Variables
This Tip is not so much for performance but for keeping things clean and organized inside windows.
Most people have probably noticed that windows has quite a few "Temporary" folders that store files for a short period before being removed.
However unfortunately there are a large number of poorly coded applications and errors that can cause these files to not be removed and can sit there taking up disk space.
However there is a fairly easy solution to this problem.
create a folder on your c: drive (MyComputer-> Local Disk (C:))
call this Folder Temp (or anything you like)
Right click My Computer and select Properties (in vista and windows 7 you will now need to select Advanced system settings, in XP you will need to select the Advanced Tab).
Then in at the bottom of the form click "Environment Variables..."
This will open up your environment variables, this is kind of like a map for where terms like "System Folder" and "Temp Folder" actually go to on your hard disk.
In the top list there should be two items "Temp" and "TMP"
Click each one in turn and select press "Edit"
Change the location to C:\Temp (or whatever folder you created on your local drive).
once you have done this for both look in the bottom list and scroll down near the bottom of the list
There should be two more items (Again one called Temp and one called Tmp)
Do the same for these two items. Then select ok
You have now setup your system so that instead of using potentially 4 different Temporary folders they all point to a single folder. This makes regular maintenance much easier as you can just go into the one folder and select everything and select Delete.
That's the end of my Guide for now. I hope to add more tips and tricks as time goes on if you have your own tips and tricks please send me a PM and i shall review them.
Movian's Windows Tips N Tricks
-
Movian
- Posts: 26
- Joined: 28 Feb 2011, 20:20
Re: Movian's Windows Tips N Tricks
Internet Security Suites.
I know almost everyone has heard about the shock stories of people having their computers hacked and everyone has had at least a few spam emails come to their inbox. But how much security is TOO much security? There are many companies out there, Nortan, Mcafee and Kesperski to name a few. Who sell bundled "Internet Security Suites", now i am the first to say that i hate virii and spyware and i myself have a set of programs i use for my network security. However i would recommend staying away from these big company suites for several reasons.
1) Bloat ware
You may not have heard this term but it means a piece of software that takes up LARGE amounts of disk space for no apparent reason (i know there are several other meanings but I'm going with that one). While it may not affect most modern computers with terabyte hard drives but these suites are normally HUGE and include many security features that are not actually needed.
2) Included firewall
Now everyone know that they need a firewall. Most people however don't even realize that they will already have at least 2 firewalls in place without doing anything. That's right, windows comes bundled with a firewall.... it's true that there are better ones but since windows XP service pack 2 the windows firewall is quite effective. Not only that but almost every modern wireless (and non wireless for that fact) router has a built in HARDWARE firewall directly into the router. This will prevent a large number of attacks before they even get to your computer!
This is why i personally do not run any additional firewalls on my computer. They tend to block programs that you actually want to run and add little extra protection over what you already have and eat up system resources. So consider what you have and what you need before adding a third firewall to the mix.
3) Virii
Now lets do the old cop thing and put yourselves in the shoes of the bad guys.... in this case the people who write virii (yes that is the correct plural of virus). Now you want to write a virus and have it affect as MANY people as possible. But there is one problem, those pesky anti virus programs! i know what il do. I will write my virus to counter their security! at this point i would compile a list of the MAJOR anti virus suites and get cracking. So for this reason i try and stay away from the major corporations and stick with lesser known but effective systems up until recently this was AVG and avast however they have gained huge popularity and i am personally on the search again for a good little known system that gets the job done. I also currently use Spy-bot Search and destroy for spyware/ad aware removal. Between those two I'm normally good, on a last note don't forget the power of common sense. A virus can't get onto your computer unless you do something to allow it, such as going to a bad website or opening a suspect e-mail attachment, just think twice before doing anything that could potentially be bad.
I know almost everyone has heard about the shock stories of people having their computers hacked and everyone has had at least a few spam emails come to their inbox. But how much security is TOO much security? There are many companies out there, Nortan, Mcafee and Kesperski to name a few. Who sell bundled "Internet Security Suites", now i am the first to say that i hate virii and spyware and i myself have a set of programs i use for my network security. However i would recommend staying away from these big company suites for several reasons.
1) Bloat ware
You may not have heard this term but it means a piece of software that takes up LARGE amounts of disk space for no apparent reason (i know there are several other meanings but I'm going with that one). While it may not affect most modern computers with terabyte hard drives but these suites are normally HUGE and include many security features that are not actually needed.
2) Included firewall
Now everyone know that they need a firewall. Most people however don't even realize that they will already have at least 2 firewalls in place without doing anything. That's right, windows comes bundled with a firewall.... it's true that there are better ones but since windows XP service pack 2 the windows firewall is quite effective. Not only that but almost every modern wireless (and non wireless for that fact) router has a built in HARDWARE firewall directly into the router. This will prevent a large number of attacks before they even get to your computer!
This is why i personally do not run any additional firewalls on my computer. They tend to block programs that you actually want to run and add little extra protection over what you already have and eat up system resources. So consider what you have and what you need before adding a third firewall to the mix.
3) Virii
Now lets do the old cop thing and put yourselves in the shoes of the bad guys.... in this case the people who write virii (yes that is the correct plural of virus). Now you want to write a virus and have it affect as MANY people as possible. But there is one problem, those pesky anti virus programs! i know what il do. I will write my virus to counter their security! at this point i would compile a list of the MAJOR anti virus suites and get cracking. So for this reason i try and stay away from the major corporations and stick with lesser known but effective systems up until recently this was AVG and avast however they have gained huge popularity and i am personally on the search again for a good little known system that gets the job done. I also currently use Spy-bot Search and destroy for spyware/ad aware removal. Between those two I'm normally good, on a last note don't forget the power of common sense. A virus can't get onto your computer unless you do something to allow it, such as going to a bad website or opening a suspect e-mail attachment, just think twice before doing anything that could potentially be bad.