Hi all,
I just thought i might put up a post with some performance tweaks to get some more grunt from your vista RC1 OS. Overall I was able to get my a considerable perfomance increase and now vista runs as quick or quicker than XP and is just as stable (or as stable as one could expect from any windows OS, lol)
1. Disble Indexing
My god, the amount of CPU hogged by this feature in the first couple of days of having it installed. Turn it OFF. the end result is slower search speeds, but that is offset by a huge performance boost. To disable indexing go to computer, select your drive properties and uncheck "index ths drive for faster searching".
From what i hear, the indexing service will quiet down after a couple of days of use, but that can only be said for people wh don't move, install or delete alot of files on a daily basis. Unfortunalely i do, so i would rather be able to do that quickly than look for my files a bit quicker
2. Optimizing your appearance for speed.
Some people like eye candy. i choose to not bother with it until a final release when it is properly implemented. to give you the basic vista visual style without all the eye candy go to control panel->system->advanced system settings.
then go to the advanced tab then performance->settings. select custom and uncheck everything except for "use visual styles on windows and buttons" this will maintain the basic vista theme, but get rid of menu and mouse shadows, windows animations and all of that.
3. Startup and recovery options
While still in the advanced tab of the system properties, go to startup and recovery->settings.
If you only have vista as an OS uncheck everyhting except for "time to display recovery options when needed". If you have a dual boot system leave "time to display list of operating systems" checked otherwise you will only be able to boot into vista.
under system failure, uncheck everything and set "write debugging information" to 'none'.
4. Increasing performance on Nvidia cards
Vista installs a generic WDDM driver for your nvidia card on installation. These drivers are surprisingly better than the Nvidia 96.33 drivers. So here is the story on that. The Nvidia 96.33 drivers support both DirectX and OpenGL. As a result of the OpenGL support, the drivers aren't fully optimized for either. The windows drivers on the other hand do not support OpenGL, but provide better performance on DirectX games. I have heard of cases of 30fps increases on Half-Life 2 by uninstalling the Nvidia drivers.
So the bottom line is, if you want openGL and don't mind the performance hit, go with the Nvidia drivers, if you are willing to sacrifice your OpenGL games, keep the windows drivers and get performance close to XP on your DirectX games.
If you want to uninstall your Nvidia graphics card driver just go to control panel->device manager. look for your display adapter, go to properties and under the 'driver' tab click on 'roll back driver'.
5. Disbling services
This is guaranteed to cause a flame war. People don't think it improves performance and many have killed their system by doing such things. I have had to reinstall XP a few times doing this until i figured it out of course. Your system might be different, so disabling all of these might kill your internet connection or something, but not your system.
Just to give you an idea of what I am running here are my specs
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3000+ overclocked from 1.8Ghz to 2.25Ghz
RAM: I gig generic DDR 400 overclocked to DDR 500
MOBO: Gigabyte K8 NSC-939 nforce3 250Gb chipset
GPU: Nvidia Geforce FX 5900 Ultra softmodded to 5950 Ultra overclocked from 450/850 to 490/980 running dual display configuration
2x Sony DRU-810A Dual Layer DVD-RW
Western Digital 160 GB IDE HDD
Western Digital 80 GB IDE HDD
Internet: Integrated Marvell Yukon Gigabit ethernet controller and D-Link DSL 502-T router
Audio: Integrated AC 97 7.1 surround
Pretty average overall, but if your system has a similar internet connection then you should be able to disable all of these services without problem.
If you are connected to a LAN, use dial-up, need a remote connection and/or use media center for TV or radio I don't recommend doing anything I have suggested, or if you are brave, read the service descriptions first and make up your own mind. I have disabled all of these services on my PC and the only effect for me is less windows notifications bothering me.
DO NOT DO THIS IF YOU ARE UNSURE ABOUT ANYTHING
I won't be held responsible if you kill your computer or yourself in the process. But if it works, I will gladly take the credit
Open your services window by typing "services.msc" without quotes into a run box (windows key + R). disable the following services by double cliking on the service and selecting 'disable' as the startup type:
Computer Browser
Diagnostic Policy Service
Distributed Link Tracking Client
DNS Client
Function Discovery Provider Host
Function Discovery Resource Publication
IKE and AuthIP IPsec Keying Modules
IP Helper
Ipsec Policy Agent
Microsoft .NET Framework NGEN v2.0.50727_X86
Microsoft Software Shadow Copy Provider
Offline Files (can impact offline file viewing performance)
Peer Name Resolution (can impact some of the new windows live apps)
Peer Networking Identity Manager
Portable Device Enumerator Service (will impact connected devices, e.g mp3 players etc)
Protected Storage
ReadyBoost (ReadyBoost is meant to use removable flash drives as virtual memory to improve performance, but I can't get the option with mine so off it goes)
Remote Access Auto Connection Manager
Remote Access Connection Manager
Routing and Remote Access
Secondary Logon
Server
System Event Notification Service
Tablet PC Input Service (unless you have a tablet PC)
Task Scheduler
TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper
Telephony
Terminal Services
WebClient
Windows Error Reporting Service
Windows Event Log
Windows Media Center Extender Service
Windows Media Center Receiver Service
Windows Media Center Scheduler Service
Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service
Windows Search
Windows Time
Overall this will reduce the amount of running processes and free up that all important memeory.
6. Disable UAC
This won't improve performance, but i get the shits with having to confirm nearly every action i do under vista. It gets annoying when your configuring your system and it is constanly going black and asking me if i really want to open the control panel. Of course i do, I just clicked on it!! Anyway enough of my rant, here's how to get rid of it
Open a run box (windows key + R) type "msconfig" without quotes. Go to the tools tab. scroll down to the "disable UAC" and click launch a console will open telling you it went well if indeed it went well. If you feel the need to turn it back on just scroll down to "enable UAC" in the same dialog and click launch again.
Anyway that's all for the moment. Restart your PC and you should see the difference. what you should expect is a faster, smoother running OS with less eye candy and intrusive windows notifications
Also if the mods think a thread like this is a good idea, could you please sticky it.
Cheers
I just thought i might put up a post with some performance tweaks to get some more grunt from your vista RC1 OS. Overall I was able to get my a considerable perfomance increase and now vista runs as quick or quicker than XP and is just as stable (or as stable as one could expect from any windows OS, lol)
1. Disble Indexing
My god, the amount of CPU hogged by this feature in the first couple of days of having it installed. Turn it OFF. the end result is slower search speeds, but that is offset by a huge performance boost. To disable indexing go to computer, select your drive properties and uncheck "index ths drive for faster searching".
From what i hear, the indexing service will quiet down after a couple of days of use, but that can only be said for people wh don't move, install or delete alot of files on a daily basis. Unfortunalely i do, so i would rather be able to do that quickly than look for my files a bit quicker
2. Optimizing your appearance for speed.
Some people like eye candy. i choose to not bother with it until a final release when it is properly implemented. to give you the basic vista visual style without all the eye candy go to control panel->system->advanced system settings.
then go to the advanced tab then performance->settings. select custom and uncheck everything except for "use visual styles on windows and buttons" this will maintain the basic vista theme, but get rid of menu and mouse shadows, windows animations and all of that.
3. Startup and recovery options
While still in the advanced tab of the system properties, go to startup and recovery->settings.
If you only have vista as an OS uncheck everyhting except for "time to display recovery options when needed". If you have a dual boot system leave "time to display list of operating systems" checked otherwise you will only be able to boot into vista.
under system failure, uncheck everything and set "write debugging information" to 'none'.
4. Increasing performance on Nvidia cards
Vista installs a generic WDDM driver for your nvidia card on installation. These drivers are surprisingly better than the Nvidia 96.33 drivers. So here is the story on that. The Nvidia 96.33 drivers support both DirectX and OpenGL. As a result of the OpenGL support, the drivers aren't fully optimized for either. The windows drivers on the other hand do not support OpenGL, but provide better performance on DirectX games. I have heard of cases of 30fps increases on Half-Life 2 by uninstalling the Nvidia drivers.
So the bottom line is, if you want openGL and don't mind the performance hit, go with the Nvidia drivers, if you are willing to sacrifice your OpenGL games, keep the windows drivers and get performance close to XP on your DirectX games.
If you want to uninstall your Nvidia graphics card driver just go to control panel->device manager. look for your display adapter, go to properties and under the 'driver' tab click on 'roll back driver'.
5. Disbling services
This is guaranteed to cause a flame war. People don't think it improves performance and many have killed their system by doing such things. I have had to reinstall XP a few times doing this until i figured it out of course. Your system might be different, so disabling all of these might kill your internet connection or something, but not your system.
Just to give you an idea of what I am running here are my specs
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3000+ overclocked from 1.8Ghz to 2.25Ghz
RAM: I gig generic DDR 400 overclocked to DDR 500
MOBO: Gigabyte K8 NSC-939 nforce3 250Gb chipset
GPU: Nvidia Geforce FX 5900 Ultra softmodded to 5950 Ultra overclocked from 450/850 to 490/980 running dual display configuration
2x Sony DRU-810A Dual Layer DVD-RW
Western Digital 160 GB IDE HDD
Western Digital 80 GB IDE HDD
Internet: Integrated Marvell Yukon Gigabit ethernet controller and D-Link DSL 502-T router
Audio: Integrated AC 97 7.1 surround
Pretty average overall, but if your system has a similar internet connection then you should be able to disable all of these services without problem.
If you are connected to a LAN, use dial-up, need a remote connection and/or use media center for TV or radio I don't recommend doing anything I have suggested, or if you are brave, read the service descriptions first and make up your own mind. I have disabled all of these services on my PC and the only effect for me is less windows notifications bothering me.
DO NOT DO THIS IF YOU ARE UNSURE ABOUT ANYTHING
I won't be held responsible if you kill your computer or yourself in the process. But if it works, I will gladly take the credit
Open your services window by typing "services.msc" without quotes into a run box (windows key + R). disable the following services by double cliking on the service and selecting 'disable' as the startup type:
Computer Browser
Diagnostic Policy Service
Distributed Link Tracking Client
DNS Client
Function Discovery Provider Host
Function Discovery Resource Publication
IKE and AuthIP IPsec Keying Modules
IP Helper
Ipsec Policy Agent
Microsoft .NET Framework NGEN v2.0.50727_X86
Microsoft Software Shadow Copy Provider
Offline Files (can impact offline file viewing performance)
Peer Name Resolution (can impact some of the new windows live apps)
Peer Networking Identity Manager
Portable Device Enumerator Service (will impact connected devices, e.g mp3 players etc)
Protected Storage
ReadyBoost (ReadyBoost is meant to use removable flash drives as virtual memory to improve performance, but I can't get the option with mine so off it goes)
Remote Access Auto Connection Manager
Remote Access Connection Manager
Routing and Remote Access
Secondary Logon
Server
System Event Notification Service
Tablet PC Input Service (unless you have a tablet PC)
Task Scheduler
TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper
Telephony
Terminal Services
WebClient
Windows Error Reporting Service
Windows Event Log
Windows Media Center Extender Service
Windows Media Center Receiver Service
Windows Media Center Scheduler Service
Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service
Windows Search
Windows Time
Overall this will reduce the amount of running processes and free up that all important memeory.
6. Disable UAC
This won't improve performance, but i get the shits with having to confirm nearly every action i do under vista. It gets annoying when your configuring your system and it is constanly going black and asking me if i really want to open the control panel. Of course i do, I just clicked on it!! Anyway enough of my rant, here's how to get rid of it
Open a run box (windows key + R) type "msconfig" without quotes. Go to the tools tab. scroll down to the "disable UAC" and click launch a console will open telling you it went well if indeed it went well. If you feel the need to turn it back on just scroll down to "enable UAC" in the same dialog and click launch again.
Anyway that's all for the moment. Restart your PC and you should see the difference. what you should expect is a faster, smoother running OS
with less eye candy and intrusive windows notifications Also if the mods think a thread like this is a good idea, could you please sticky it.
Cheers
