Tweak XP for Gaming

This was written mainly for XP Pro. But most, if not all of it should work for other versions.

First step is to create a profile, you just go to Control Panel, click on User accounts and create and account. Name it “Gaming” or something like that. Now log in to it.

Adjusting for Best Performance : right click on my computer, choose advanced>visual effects and then click on adjust for best performance.

To increase system performance :

Right click my computer. Click properties.
Click advanced.
Click settings (under performance).
Click Adjust for best performance.
It will uncheck everything in the list

How to disable XP’s built in CD Burner

Click the start button.
Select Run.
Type “services.msc” and click ok.
Go to IMAPI CD-Burning Com Services open it and click on start up type, change to “Disabled”.

Fine tune your systems memory:

You need at least 256MB of ram to do this, if you do not know how much RAM you have you can check by right-clicking on My Computer and selecting properties. Near the bottom of the page it will tell you how much RAM you have.

Go to start\run\regedit -and then to the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management

1.Disable Paging Executive -double click it and in the decimal put a 1 – this allows XP to keep data in memory now instead of paging sections of ram to harddrive yeilds faster performance.

2.Large System Cache- double click it and change the decimal to 1 -this allows XP Kernal to Run in memory and improves system performance a lot.

3.Create a new dword and name it IOPageLockLimit – double click it and set the value in hex – 4000 if you have 128MB of ram or set it to 10000 if you have 256MB set it to 40000 if you have more than 512MB of ram -this tweak will speed up your disckcache.

Reboot

Unable to delete Avi files from HD:

XP holds files in it’s memory even after you have closed the application using them making it impossible to delete them from your hard drive. To fix this:

Start -> Run -> Regedit
Find the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SystemFileAssociations\.avi\shellex\PropertyHandler\ directory and delete the “DEFAULT” key.

Tweak The Swap File:

For Users with 256 MB RAM or more this tweak will boost their Windows- and Game-Performance.

What it does: It tells Windows not to use any Swap File until there is really no more free RAM left.

Open the System Configuration Utility by typing msconfig.exe in the RUN command. There in your System.ini you have to add “ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1″ under the 386enh section.

Disable Services:

XP Pro runs a lot of services by default that are pointless if you are not on a network (If you are on a network don’t touch it), the following services are ones that I safely disable thereby freeing up memory but check what each one does first to make sure your not using it for something:

Go to Run and type services.msc, right click on each service, properties and choose disable.
NOTE: Depending on your version of Windows and settings you may not have some of these services.

Alerter
Application Layer Gateway Service,
Application Management
Automatic Updates
Background Intelligent Transfer
Clipbook
Distributed Link Tracking Client
Distributed Transaction Coordinater
Error Reporting Service
Fast User Switching Compatibility
IMAPI CD-Burning
Indexing Service
IPSEC Services
Messenger
Net Logon
Net Meeting
Remote Desktop Sharing
Network DDE
Network DDE DSDM
Portable Media Serial Number
Remote Desktop Help Session Manager
Remote Registry
Secondary Logon
Smartcard
SSDP Discovery Service
Telnet Themes
Uninterruptible Power Supply
Universal Plug and Play Device Host
Upload Manager
Webclient
Wireless Zero Configuration
WMI Performance Adaptor

Speed Up The File System:

If you have FAT32 ignore this

To check what file system you have go to My Computer and select a drive, in the details tab or in properties it will tell you if it is NTFS or FAT32.

NTFS is a great file system, but its feature-set comes at a slight cost in performance. You can negate this a little with the following tips:

* By default NTFS will automatically update timestamps whenever a directory is traversed. This isn’t a necessary feature, and it slows down large volumes. Disable it by going to Run and type regedit:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem and set ‘DisableNTFSLastAccessUpdate’ to 1.

* NTFS uses disparate master file control tables to store filesystem information about your drives. Over time these core MFT files grow and become fragmented, slowing down all accesses to the drive. By setting aside a little space, MFT’s can grow without becoming fragmented.

In the same key where you disabled the last access feature creat a new DWORD value called ‘NtfsMftZoneReservation’ and set it to 2.

Disable DLL Caching:

Windows Explorer caches DLLs (Dynamic-Link Libraries) in memory for a period of time after the application using them has been closed. This can be an inefficient use of memory.

1. Find the key [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer].

2. Create a new DWORD sub-key named ‘AlwaysUnloadDLL’ and set the default value to equal ‘1′ to disable Windows caching the DLL in memory.

3. Restart Windows for the change to take effect.

Tweak The Prefetch:

1. Run “Regedit”
2. Goto [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters\EnablePrefetcher]

3. Set the value to either 0-Disable, 1-App launch prefetch, 2-Boot Prefetch, 3-Both (“3″ is recommended).

4. Reboot.

It will decrease the boot time but double and increase the performance of your XP.

Speed Up Your Connection By 20% (Cable Users Only)

You do not need to do this tweak if you have all the latest Windows updates. This problem has already been corrected by Microsoft.

1.Log on as “Administrator”.
2. Run – gpedit.msc
3. Expand the “Local Computer Policy” branch.
4. Then expand the “Administrative Templates” branch.
5. Expand the “Network” branch.
6. Highlight the “QoS Packet Scheduler” in left pane.
7. In the right window pane double-click the “Limit Reservable Bandwidth” setting.
8. On the settings tab check the “Enabled” item.
9. Change “Bandwidth limit %” to read 0.
10. Then go to your Network connections Start=>Control Panel>Network & Internet connections>Network Connections and right-click on your connection. Then under the General or the Networking tab, (where it lists your protocols) make sure QoS packet scheduler is enabled.

It may take effect immediately on some systems. To be sure, just re-boot.

Additional Tips

Stop explorer.exe during gameplay:

You can start up a game, then press Control+Alt+Del to bring up task manager, go to processes tab and find “explorer.exe” and click “end process” button all your icons and the start menu will disappear that is because explorer.exe controls opening folders, shortcuts ect. which you don’t need during a game and wastes memory.

to turn it back on go back to task manager (Control+Alt+Del) go to File> New Task (Run…) and type “explorer.exe” and press Enter to bring everything back.