Help explain this WIN XP Tweak

gizbug

Platinum Member
May 14, 2001
2,621
0
76
Unclear if this tweak is beneficial, read pros/cons for both.
Anyone care to comment?

http://www.tunexp.com/tips/maintain_you...r/easy_way_to_adjust_largesystemcache/

---- Normally, the tweak I've seen asks you to go into HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory 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:

* Right-click My Computer.
* Select Properties.
* Click Advanced.
* Choose Performance.
* Click Advanced again.
* Select either Programs or System Cache under Memory Usage.

Programs = 0 for the registry tweak equivalent
System Cache = 1 for the registry tweak equivalent
* 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).
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Zugzwang152

Lifer
Oct 30, 2001
12,134
1
0
From the linked Microsoft doc:
When you enable System cache mode on a computer that uses Unified Memory Architecture (UMA)-based video hardware or an Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP), you may experience a severe and random decrease in performance. For example, this decrease in performance can include very slow system performance, stop errors, an inability to start the computer, devices or applications that do not load, and system instability.