49 replies to this topic

[boywonder]

Found this site out today has over 380 Registry Edits for Windows XP
Tweaks and Tips


http://www.kellys-ko...m/xp_tweaks.htm

[boywonder]

Easy Way to Adjust LargeSystemCache

Normally, the tweak I've seen asks you to go into HKLMSystemCurrentControlSetControlSession ManagerMemory Management and change the value to either O or 1 to the adjustment the
LargeSystemCache.

However, in Windows XP, all you have to do is:

1. Right click My Computer
2. Select Properties
3. Click Advanced
4. Choose Performance
5. Click Advanced again
6. Select either Programs or System Cache under Memory Usage.

Programs = 0 for the registry tweak equilavent
System Cache = 1 for the registry tweak equilavent

From arstechnica.com:
On NT Server (in this case XP), the Large System Cache option is enabled, but disabled on Workstation. The two different settings effect how the cache manager allocates free memory. If the Large Cache option is on, the manager marks all the free memory, which isn't being used by the system and/or applications, as freely available for disk caching. On the flip-side (with a small cache), the manager instead only sets aside 4MB of memory for disk caching in an attempt to accelerate the launch of applications. Or in a more technical approach, if enabled the system will favor system-cache working sets over process working sets (with a working set basically being the memory used by components of a process).

[ROM-DOS]

Memory Management: Kernel Paging and Cache Tuning

The "DisablePagingExecutive" entry in the registry prevents the kernel (the core of the XP OS) from being rolled out to the page file. The effect of this part of the tweak is to cause the OS to cache the OS Kernel and its entourage to RAM instead of to disk, which makes XP far more responsive.

The "LargeSystemCache" registry entry forces XP to allocate all but 4MB of system memory, that is system memory, not avaliable RAM, to the file system cache. The remaining 4MB of system memory is used for disk caching, though XP will allocate more memory if it is needed.

A modern hard disk will transfer sequential data to and from disk at up to 40MB per second, or even faster on some drives, but the LargeSystemCache tweak means that effective transfer speeds of 1GB per second or more can be obtained, depending on the amount of RAM in your system and its operating speed. This is achieved because the LargeSystemCache modification causes the OS to store data read from disk in RAM. It means that the OS is always using the optimum amount of RAM instead of leaving it untouched for future use that may or may not occur. Without this part of the tweak, 200MB or more of RAM in a typical 512MB machine goes completely unused.

Some I/O intensive applications may take a hit in performance from changing the LargeSystemCache, so this particular component of the tweak should not be applied to a system that is running either SQL Server or Internet Information Server (IIS) because both of those applications perform their own caching.

Start regedit and navigate to the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlSession ManagerMemory Management

Add these two lines, save the changes and reboot;

DisablePagingExecutive = dword:00000001

LargeSystemCache = dword:00000001

_  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _   _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _

The Win32PrioritySeparation has to do with processor scheduling.
This part of the tweak is impossible to explain without getting into the technical ins and outs of binary values, bit pairs and bit masks. Suffice it to say, this part of the tweak forces short, variable length processor timeslices to be allocated to foreground processes three times more often than those timeslices given to background processes.

There are 2 settings you can choose:

Adjust for best performance of Programs
  or
Adjust for best performance of Background Services.

All this does is change the DWORD value of Win32PrioritySeparation under this registry hive:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlPriorityControl

Set Win32PrioritySeparation to 0x26 (decimal 38) for Programs.

Set Win32PrioritySeparation to 0x18 (decimal 24) for  Background Services.

set the base value to hexadecimal.

[918-hatch]

Well I did about 96% of these tweak's on this snowy boring night. Will report back if my computer starts

[918-hatch]

Well its FASTER thats forsure. Thanks ROM-DOS

[Indestructable]

Yea, ROM is a great guy...i gotta say

[ArcticWolf]

Great work Rom-Dos ... although one of these tweaks do not work and are a myth... which is the (EnableSuperfetch) to load programs 15% faster,etc. I got this from another site.

EnableSuperfetch Tweak

Myth - "Enabling this improves performance in Windows XP as it does in Windows Vista."

Reality - "This myth was started when the Inquirer irresponsibly ran a bogus letter without doing any fact checking. Windows internals guru Mark Russinovich said this won't work, the "Superfetch" string isn't even in the Windows XP kernel. You can confirm this yourself by checking with the strings.exe utility. This makes it impossible for it to do anything since no "Superfetch" command exists. Windows cannot execute a nonexistent command and will simply ignore it. Anyone who says this works is not only lying but a fool." - Source

Which you can find the page at http://mywebpages.co...ml#Optimization

[ROM-DOS]

Quote

Great work Rom-Dos ... although one of these tweaks do not work and are a myth... which is the (EnableSuperfetch) to load programs 15% faster,etc. I got this from another site.

EnableSuperfetch Tweak

Myth - "Enabling this improves performance in Windows XP as it does in Windows Vista."

Reality - "This myth was started when the Inquirer irresponsibly ran a bogus letter without doing any fact checking. Windows internals guru Mark Russinovich said this won't work, the "Superfetch" string isn't even in the Windows XP kernel. You can confirm this yourself by checking with the strings.exe utility. This makes it impossible for it to do anything since no "Superfetch" command exists. Windows cannot execute a nonexistent command and will simply ignore it. Anyone who says this works is not only lying but a fool." - Source

Which you can find the page at http://mywebpages.co...ml#Optimization

ArcticWolf  ~ the couple of articles ( http://bink.nu/Article4556.bink and
http://www.edbott.co...ves/000863.html ) are pointing out and referencing the same un-quotible and basically un-substantiated remark that Mark Russinovich may have said, . . .but do you think he or microsoft would really admit to it? ~ I don't think so.

. . .as Rick Says: [on Ed Bott's blog] ~ August 8th, 2005 at 5:31 pm
"I agree that not finding the string in the kernel is damning, but does that absolutely guarantee that the technology does not lay dormant in XP in some other way? I wish Mark had gone that extra step. At the very least, MS should weigh in on this. I’m not sure how to explain away the sizeable number of people who try this and meet with success…it’s a few too many for comfort."

. . .all I can say, if it even 'seems' to work ~ why not use it!

. . .it seems to work!

There’s a pretty interesting thread about it here:
http://www.dslreport...=flat~days=9999

. . .having set Superprefetch in my Registry, I've notived my boot-up time almost cut in half (less than 30 secs) and more Commit Charge added to Ram. ~ that's good enough for me to believe! . . .it may take a few reboots or start-ups to notice the diff.

[ROM-DOS]

WOW ~ I would like to take this opportunity ~ at the 5000th hit mark! ~ to thank everyone for their interest and support in ~ * Performance Tuning and Services *, especially CA3LE, tdawnaz, and cholla.

I remember,back in the day (when I went from Comcast HS to Dial-Up), petitioning TMN for a Dial-Up Forum section and trying to figure out why I had "the fastest Dial-Up speeds on the net", which eventually ~ lead me to gather up all the "tweaks" I've used, thinkin' it might help others (and maybe, justify my speeds ~ lol).

I've recently created a new site w/ Google's Page Creator called ~ Link & Park & Ride ~ w/my ~ XP Performance Tuning Guide ~ which I would also like to credit TMN with it's inspiration (what else would I've done w/GPC? ~ without having something to share ~ lol).

. . .anyway, THANKS again ~ everyone ~ and happy tweaking

                  <img src="http://imagehouze.com/uploader/files/126/applause.gif" alt="applause.gif" />


edit: typo...

[cholla]

Hi to everyone:I moved the anti the tweaks in this sticky & the response to them to General Discussion.I thought they were cluttering up the sticky.If you want to post to them or read them they are here:
http://www.testmy.ne...0;boardseen#new