Optimizing WIN XP Install for Gaming

[Starbuck1975]

A recent motherboard failure is forcing me to consider a new build...the thing is, I have never really configured my OS for gaming, even though that is primarily what I use my PC for.

I anticipate doing a new build in the next month or so, and will probably use WIN XP again...not ready to make the Vista leap.

So...is there a resource out there that lists various WIN XP config steps for optimized gaming? I also have a few specific questions:

1. In a recent PC Gamer, the Hard Stuff section recommended setting up one WIN XP profile for gaming...and installing all of your games in this profile, and leaving the main profile for typical office use software...do drivers carry over across multiple profiles, or do you need to configure drivers inside each profile?

2. I have never tried this, but to keep the install clean, is it possible to install games to a different physical drive than the OS...for instance, can I just install the OS, and utilities, to say the physical C:/ drive, and then install games only to a different physical drive? Or do games need to reside on the same drive as the OS?

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: Starbuck1975
A recent motherboard failure is forcing me to consider a new build...the thing is, I have never really configured my OS for gaming, even though that is primarily what I use my PC for.

I anticipate doing a new build in the next month or so, and will probably use WIN XP again...not ready to make the Vista leap.

So...is there a resource out there that lists various WIN XP config steps for optimized gaming? I also have a few specific questions:

1. In a recent PC Gamer, the Hard Stuff section recommended setting up one WIN XP profile for gaming...and installing all of your games in this profile, and leaving the main profile for typical office use software...do drivers carry over across multiple profiles, or do you need to configure drivers inside each profile?

I've personally never heard of doing such a thing, and itll probably be more trouble than its worth. Dont go crazy disabling services or anything - the only thing you really need to do is make sure that theres not a lot of extraneous stuff running in the background like browsers and taskbar programs. If you've got enough memory, you probably dont even need to worry about that. Despite what you read in tweak guides (and I've written them myself), there is very, very little you can change from the default that will make any appreciable difference.

2. I have never tried this, but to keep the install clean, is it possible to install games to a different physical drive than the OS...for instance, can I just install the OS, and utilities, to say the physical C:/ drive, and then install games only to a different physical drive? Or do games need to reside on the same drive as the OS?

Sure, just choose a different folder on the other drive to install them. Just keep in mind that even though theyre on another drive, if you ever reinstall windows, youll still usually have to reinstall the games to get everything back into the registry.

 

[toadeater]

Originally posted by: Starbuck1975
1. In a recent PC Gamer, the Hard Stuff section recommended setting up one WIN XP profile for gaming...and installing all of your games in this profile, and leaving the main profile for typical office use software...do drivers carry over across multiple profiles, or do you need to configure drivers inside each profile?

http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/xpprofiles.htm
http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm

 

[KoolDrew]

Despite what you read in tweak guides (and I've written them myself), there is very, very little you can change from the default that will make any appreciable difference.

:thumbsup:

Ignore "tweaking" guides. Including the blackviper links above.

 

[BD2003]

Yeah, for the love of baby jesus, do not tweak services. Theyre all things that sound like they use a ton of CPU and Memory resources for things you might not think you need, when in reality theyre things that use very, very little CPU/memory, and often underlie things that you need very much despite their descriptions. A clean XP boot takes like 120mb of memory, disabling "unnecessary" services can shave that a few MB, but when you have 2gb+ memory, is an extra 20mb of insurance that everything is working right really going to kill you?

I used to run a script that closed down all my "unnecessary" programs before gaming, and it saved me a good 100mb of memory, but even that became pointless when I upgraded my memory. Memory is SO cheap nowadays - you can either buy another 1-2gb stick for a few bucks, or spend hours tweaking your system, and the extra memory is by FAR more worth your time.

 

[flexy]

Originally posted by: KoolDrew

Despite what you read in tweak guides (and I've written them myself), there is very, very little you can change from the default that will make any appreciable difference.

:thumbsup:

Ignore "tweaking" guides. Including the blackviper links above.

whow...thats really incompetent. for a "gamer pc" i would disable A LOT of services. the statement "there is nothing to tweak" is just plain wrong. This does not only include services.

edit: depending on hardware, memory etc..etc...of course. A service which uses 100k certainly doesnt matter if you have 4gb...but on a 1gb machine (as is my old XP PC) it certainly does.

You also certainly want to disable "background" tasks like indexing, in XP pagefile optimization is INDEED still advisable (set to fixed size)...and of course your proper defragger, be it perfectdisk or diskeeper.

 

[flexy]

Originally posted by: BD2003
Yeah, for the love of baby jesus, do not tweak services. Theyre all things that sound like they use a ton of CPU and Memory resources for things you might not think you need, when in reality theyre things that use very, very little CPU/memory, and often underlie things that you need very much despite their descriptions. A clean XP boot takes like 120mb of memory, disabling "unnecessary" services can shave that a few MB, but when you have 2gb+ memory, is an extra 20mb of insurance that everything is working right really going to kill you?

I used to run a script that closed down all my "unnecessary" programs before gaming, and it saved me a good 100mb of memory, but even that became pointless when I upgraded my memory. Memory is SO cheap nowadays - you can either buy another 1-2gb stick for a few bucks, or spend hours tweaking your system, and the extra memory is by FAR more worth your time.

you have a point saying "buying memory" right now is the best advice. Nevertheless XP does not only use 120MB memory. How did you even come up with this?

 

[Crusty]

Originally posted by: flexy

Originally posted by: KoolDrew

Despite what you read in tweak guides (and I've written them myself), there is very, very little you can change from the default that will make any appreciable difference.

:thumbsup:

Ignore "tweaking" guides. Including the blackviper links above.

whow...thats really incompetent. for a "gamer pc" i would disable A LOT of services. the statement "there is nothing to tweak" is just plain wrong. This does not only include services.

edit: depending on hardware, memory etc..etc...of course. A service which uses 100k certainly doesnt matter if you have 4gb...but on a 1gb machine (as is my old XP PC) it certainly does.

You also certainly want to disable "background" tasks like indexing, in XP pagefile optimization is INDEED still advisable (set to fixed size)...and of course your proper defragger, be it perfectdisk or diskeeper.

Can I see some performance tests that show a significant improvement?

 

[nerp]

Unless your box is already limping along and due for an upgrade, disabling services won't make any major difference in games, and even if there is a difference, it's hardly worth mentioning, really. The biggest culprits to performance are resource-intensive resident applications, such as many antivirus, spyware and spam programs. Not to mention many media apps, toolbars, ebay helpers, system monitoring programs, etc.

 

[flexy]

starbuck,

in regards to your question re "physical drives". Certainly you can since 99% of applications and games ask you for the location where to install them. So a real physical drive solely for OS and one for apps/games is indeed a good idea although probably a waste. (Thinking about 2GB max for XP..leaves a lot of spare on teh first drive

Just do not install on a separate PARTITION (on same physical drive). XP has something called "prefetch" which optimizes file access..and this does NOT work across partitions.

TO be honest, what i did (and still do). (this is btw also the MS recommended way)

You can indeed throw everything on ONE drive. On my drive i make a subfolder "Data", and this subfolder then holds eveything else, games, apps etc. But still on the same physical drive, NO seperate partition, mind you. This has the advantage that the OS can rearrange and optimize everything and still can use filesystem prefetch.

add: Although your apps on second physical drive might benefit you again in other aspects. Dedicated drive for OS might be a waste, but then nothing interferes with loading system files etc.

 

[KoolDrew]

but on a 1gb machine (as is my old XP PC) it certainly does.

No, it doesn't. If a service is not being used and room needs to be made for more important services/tasks, room will be made. There will be no performance difference messing with services.

in XP pagefile optimization is INDEED still advisable (set to fixed size)...

Most people would be better off leaving the pagefile alone, and certainly not setting it to a fixed size.

Unless your box is already limping along and due for an upgrade, disabling services won't make any major difference in games, and even if there is a difference, it's hardly worth mentioning, really. The biggest culprits to performance are resource-intensive resident applications, such as many antivirus, spyware and spam programs. Not to mention many media apps, toolbars, ebay helpers, system monitoring programs, etc.

:thumbsup:

Just do not install on a separate PARTITION (on same physical drive).

Good advice actually. Far too many people use quite a few different partitions on the same physical drive, which will generally just increase average seeking distance. The only time I'd ever use more than one partition on a single drive is if it were a very large drive and created a seperate data partition. Effectively moving data that is used infrequently away from OS and applications, which is accessed much more frequently. So in theory it may help performance and if for any reason you want to reinstall the OS, you can leave the data partition alone.

 

[ChronoReverse]

Do not set a fixed pagefile size. Set it to System Managed Size and then reboot. The default will be the size of your RAM which is what you'd probably set it to anyway. Then IF you somehow fill it up (which you shouldn't EVER) it'll resize it instead of crashing. Frankly you shouldn't even consider putting it on another spindle since you shouldn't EVER heavily access the pagefile.

This is exactly the reason why so many of these "tweaks" are ridiculous.


As for how much memory Windows XP uses, do you really think the 32MB from the default Windows services you can maybe save is going to help for any modern game on a modern system?

Furthermore, all but 9MB is actually paged away (as it should be) in a default XP installation. Even so, the total commit is less than 100MB.
http://img178.imageshack.us/img178/5267/memorysp6.jpg

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: ChronoReverse
Do not set a fixed pagefile size. Set it to System Managed Size and then reboot. The default will be the size of your RAM which is what you'd probably set it to anyway. Then IF you somehow fill it up (which you shouldn't EVER) it'll resize it instead of crashing. Frankly you shouldn't even consider putting it on another spindle since you shouldn't EVER heavily access the pagefile.

This is exactly the reason why so many of these "tweaks" are ridiculous.


As for how much memory Windows XP uses, do you really think the 32MB from the default Windows services you can maybe save is going to help for any modern game on a modern system?

Furthermore, all but 9MB is actually paged away (as it should be) in a default XP installation. Even so, the total commit is less than 100MB.
http://img178.imageshack.us/img178/5267/memorysp6.jpg

Yep - windows XP is about 7 years old by now - its hardly resource intensive by todays standards. Those tweaks may have had some purpose 5 years ago when 256mb machines were nearly top of the line and memory was expensive, but in this day and age, its just plain and simple a total waste of time.

Simple guide:

Install XP.
Install latest drivers.
Use control panel to turn off anything you dont need - system restore etc.
Play.

 

[Nothinman]

whow...thats really incompetent. for a "gamer pc" i would disable A LOT of services. the statement "there is nothing to tweak" is just plain wrong. This does not only include services.

What's incompetent is trying to increase performance by disabling services that aren't affecting performance at all in the first place. Sure they'll affect bootup times since they'll all be starting up then but that's about it.

edit: depending on hardware, memory etc..etc...of course. A service which uses 100k certainly doesnt matter if you have 4gb...but on a 1gb machine (as is my old XP PC) it certainly does.

No, it doesn't. Because if you never use that service it'll get evicted from memory and if you do use the service chances are you don't mind spending the 100K to make it available.

You also certainly want to disable "background" tasks like indexing, in XP pagefile optimization is INDEED still advisable (set to fixed size)...and of course your proper defragger, be it perfectdisk or diskeeper.

The indexing service in XP doesn't actually index anything by default IIRC and "pagefile optimization" is an oxymoron so don't touch it.