[Fresh Daemon]

"Something is bunk, then it's de-bunked." -- Jerry Seinfeld

Black Viper (amongst others) runs a Windows tweaks page offers many changes and customizations that users can make to MS Windows in the name of greater performance. BV recommends that many active-by-default Windows services be set to manual activation or disabled altogether, to save on memory useage and CPU cycles.

I have taken two systems with clean installs of Windows XP and reviewed these tweaks. Both are lower-end systems that should theoretically benefit most from this treatment, neither has the prefix “giga” in either its CPU speed or RAM capacity.

Part I: Low-end system

First up is the PII-300 system, in fact a PII-233 overclocked to 300MHz, with 160MB of RAM and an nVidia TNT2 PCI graphics card. This system is not really capable of being a useable XP box. We'll see if BV can help make it into one.

First I measure RAM utilization in Task Manager, then I run some components of PCMark 2004 since this system lacks the hardware capability to run portions of the test. As peak commit charge while running this suite is about twice the physical RAM, if performance can be improved it should show here. Each benchmark was run three times and the results averaged, with a reboot in-between to prevent caching skewing the results.

I also ran 3DMark 2001SE in the same average-of-three manner, although not all tests were completed since, again, the computer isn’t capable. Then I ran Quake II timedemos, best-of-three FPS on demo1.dm2. 3DMark and Quake II were run at 640x480x16 to avoid a possible graphics card bottleneck.

Before the results, a note on usability. The "Power User" level is a misnomer since it actually disables many services a power user might want or need, such as the IMAPI CD-burning service, the logical disk manager, the Themes (the pretty interface, which I happen to prefer to the mid-90s look), and the Windows firewall. This also poses a security risk. Since I was not running a 3rd-party firewall (didn’t want to waste the RAM), once I had gone to the Power User tweak level the computer was vulnerable. I simply unplugged the Ethernet cable from this point on, although it wasn’t necessary at the Barebones level because a computer thus configured isn’t actually capable of using any kind of network. Don’t imagine that the services BV disables to achieve his Power User and Barebones configurations are unnecessary or useless for the desktop user, they’re not, and memory savings here definitely come at the expense of functionality.

RAM useage

This shows RAM used on first booting the system and consulting Task Manager. The Manager does consume a little overhead, but it’s the same across the board. I also show the saved RAM, the percentage improvement, and the value of that saving, calculated at about 8.7 cents per MB (Newegg offers 1GB of Corsair value RAM for $89.75).

Fresh installation: 90.6MB
Safe tweak level: 85.4MB (5.2MB saved or a 5.74% improvement, 7.5% more available, value: 45 cents)
Power User tweak level: 66.1MB (24.5MB saved or a 27.04% improvement, 35.3% more available, value: $2.13)
Barebones tweak level: 57.2MB (33.4MB saved or a 36.87% improvement, 48.1% more available, value: ($2.91)

This does look good as a percentage. However, bear in mind that on a system with 2GB of RAM the absolute saving will be practically identical. On the 160MB box, getting 33.4MB back amounts to 20% of total physical RAM, but with 2GB, it’s a piddling 1.63%. At current prices, just buy more RAM, especially considering the massive loss in functionality to achieve that 1.63%.

PCMark results (File Compression & File Decompression in MB/s)

These types of operations tend to show performance increases with better latency and speed in benchmarks. Let’s see how the different configurations fare, along with percentile improvement over an untweaked system.

Fresh installation: 0.494/3.036
Safe tweak level: 0.482/3.025 (-2.43%/-0.36%)
Power User tweak level: 0.474/2.990 (-4.22%/-1.54%)
Barebones tweak level: 0.486/3.011 (-1.65%/-0.83%)

The tweaks are an abject failure here, yielding an extremely slight but across-the-board decrease in performance. It’s not for certain that it is the tweaks which have made the performance worse since the changes are so small and inconsistent, however, we can certainly say that they have made absolutely no improvements.

PCMark results (File Encryption & Virus Scanning in MB/s)

Fairly standard desktop tasks. Let’s see how the tweaks can help performance here.

Fresh installation: 3.521/181.629
Safe tweak level: 3.487/187.717 (-0.98%/+3.35%)
Power User tweak level: 3.520/184.549 (-0.03%/+1.61%)
Barebones tweak level: 3.486/179.930 (-1%/-0.94%)

Again, we see absolutely infinitesimal changes, but not overly favourable to tweaking and unsupportive of the idea that freeing up more RAM automatically increases performance - the configuration with the most free memory was the worst performer.

PCMark results (Grammar Check in KB/s)

Another pretty standard task.

Fresh installation: 0.395
Safe tweak level: 0.385 (-2.6%)
Power User tweak level: 0.383 (-3.13%)
Barebones tweak level: 0.381 (-3.67%)

More infinitesimal numbers that definitely wouldn’t be noticed by the end-user, however, here we actually have a trend: more tweaking makes performance progressively worse, although not in proportion to the RAM saved, so again the results don't really support any conclusion other than that services tweaking does not have a positive effect on performance.

PCMark results (Image Processing in MPixels/s)

Image processing tasks are supposed to like lots of RAM. Let’s see how freeing up a little more helps.

Fresh installation: 1.615
Safe tweak level: 1.616 (+0.06%)
Power User tweak level: 1.570 (-2.87%)
Barebones tweak level: 1.596 (-1.19%)

Again, nothing noticeable. Tweaking proved to be a complete waste of time here as well.

3DMark results (Car Chase, Dragothic, Lobby)

Here are the recorded framerates, along with the average % change in performance (sum of the % changes/3).

Fresh installation: 4.0/3.1/10.1
SafeSafe tweak level: 3.9/2.9/10.0 (-3.49%)
Power User tweak level: 3.9/3.0/10.2 (-1.63%)
Barebones tweak level: 3.9/3.0/10.0 (-2.3%)

Again, the tweaks seem to have a negative effect, but not a consistent one. The only clear messages here are that tweaking does not help, and also that this system seriously sucks at 3D graphics.

Quake II FPS

An old game, but within the capabilities of this system.

Fresh installation: 25.4
Safe tweak level: 25.7 (+1.18%)
Power User tweak level: 25.57 (+0.67%)
Barebones tweak level: 25.47 (+0.28%)

Although this may look like a triumph for tweaking, absolutely nobody, ever, is going to notice 0.3fps (the biggest increase). Nor are the results consistent. In fact, these kinds of results could very easily be caused by something else in the system and not tweaking at all.



The conclusion at this point is obvious: tweaking doesn't help real-world performance at all, at least, not in gaming or any of the common desktop tasks tested here. In fact, it seems to be an overall net loss. Don't bother, if you need more RAM, buy some.




Part II: Mid-range system

OK, so this system isn't exactly mid-range, but it can run XP comfortably. It's a PIII-667 with 640MB of RAM and a GeForce DDR card. It's a brand-new installation of XP SP2, untouched except for the 71.89 nVidia drivers and the installation of the required benchmarking suites and programs.

RAM useage

Fresh installation: 93.7MB
Safe level: 86.7MB (7MB saved, 7.5% reduction or 1.2% more available RAM, value: 61 cents)
Power user level: 70.0MB (13.7MB saved, 14.6% reduction or 2.5% more available, value: $1.19)
Bare-bones level: 61.7MB (22MB saved, 23.5% reduction or 4% more available, value: $1.91)

The absolute and percentile RAM savings here are even less than on the low-end system. The PIII box uses more memory because it has more attached hardware, but even so, it seems the more RAM you have (and the more peripheral hardware), the less these tweaks are worth.

Before I get into the benchmarks, I ran 5 tests on each one (with a reboot in between each) on the same system configured in the exact same way. This is to give you some idea of the margins of normal variation. They are listed as min/max/avg/% variable. Scores after tweaking within these rough boundaries cannot be ascribed to the tweaks, but rather to the anomalous behaviour of a highly complex system such as a modern computer.

PCMark 2004: 956/1023/987 -3.24/+3.65%. The PCMark scores show the greatest variation.
3DMark 2001SE: 2375/2414/2395 -0.84/+0.79%. 3DMark is a lot more consistent.
Quake III: 64.3/64.5/64.4 -0.16/+0.16%. This is the least variable of the benchmarks. A Quake III benchmark run should vary by more than 0.1-0.2 FPS before being ascribed to outside influence.

PCMark 2004

Fresh installation: 1019
Safe level: 1041 (+2.16%)
Power user level: 1044 (+2.45%)
Bare-bones level: Did not complete (system too crippled at this point), but the individual results are similar.

Tweaking appears to offer a performance increase here, but it is so slight that it falls well within the boundaries of normal variation. There is no conclusive proof that tweaking has helped performance at all.

3DMark 2001 SE

Fresh installation: 2363
Safe level: 2379 (+0.68%)
Power user level: 2414 (+2.16%)
Bare-bones level: 2409 (+1.95%)

The Power-user and Bare-bones configurations appear to offer some performance advantage outside of the normal tolerances. However, the inconsistency of these results suggests that it's not due to saving RAM and CPU cycles, or else the bare-bones system should have performed better than the power-user one, not worse.

Quake III Arena 1.32, OCAU's slayer demo

Fresh installation: 64.4
Safe level: 64.7 (+0.47%)
Power user level: 64.2 (-0.31%)
Bare-bones level: 63.9 (-0.78%)

Again, inconsistent and unnoticeable results. As before, nobody will ever notice 0.3fps, and the more services are disabled, the worse the performance gets, not the better.



In conclusion to Part II, the idea that services tweaking can actually produce useful and noticeable performance gains is proven wrong again. In no way are these tweaks worth the time or the sacrifice in functionality.


Part III: "Swap files", Themes and other miscellany

Now we come to BV's non-services recommendations.

First off, he discusses "swap files" (by which he means page files). His recommendations, from the worst performance to the best:

1) The Default: A dynamic swap file on the same partition and physical hard drive (usually C as Windows.
2) A dynamic swap file on a separate partition, but on the same physical hard drive as Windows.
3) A static swap file on a separate partition, but on the same physical hard drive as Windows.
4) A dynamic swap file on a separate hard drive (and preferably, controller) from Windows and frequently accessed data.
5) A static swap file on a separate hard drive (and preferably, controller) from Windows and frequently accessed data.
6) No swap file at all. Some software may fail. You also need "much" memory to do this. Greater than 512 MB, but I recommend 2 GB.

He has actually run some benchmarks himself, and has noticed no difference in FPS. However, his methodology isn't that good. With the load he places on the system he can't even be certain that the pagefile is even being used, and if it's not being used, it's performance won't impact FPS at all.

I went back to System 1, because it's much easier to waste 160MB of RAM than 640MB. On bootup, I loaded Task Manager, 2 instances of Internet Explorer (Google home page), Windows Movie Maker (no file loaded), Outlook Express, and 4 instances of Paint, each with a 1152x864 24-bit BMP file loaded.

Total load is about 185MB, so we know for sure that we're hitting the pagefile. This is borne out in benchmarks. The same system without any extra load gets around 25FPS in a Quake II timedemo, at exactly the same settings with this load, it gets around 20.

On to the benchmarks. Three runs of each were run and the results averaged.

Test 1: Default (dynamic, Windows-managed pagefile on system partition

Quake II: 20.5FPS
3DMark 2001 SE: 279
PCMark 2002: 739 CPU, 416 Memory, 194 HDD

Test 2: Dynamic, Windows-managed pagefile on a different partition of the same disk

Quake II: 20.3 (-1%)
3DMark 2001 SE: 279 (0%)
PCMark 2002: 738/416/193 (-0.1%/0%/-0.5%)

Distinctly underwhelming. Nothing that could be perceived.

Test 3: Static pagefile (1000MB, as recommended by BV) on a different partition of the same disk

Quake II: 20.1 (-2%)
3DMark 2001 SE: 279 (0%)
PCMark 2002: 737/421/189 (-0.3%/+1.2%/-2.6%)

Absolutely nothing noticeable again.

Test 4: Dynamic pagefile on a different hard drive

Quake II: 20.2 (-1.5%)
3DMark 2001 SE: 279 (0%)
PCMark 2002: 737/409/195 (-0.3%/-1.7%/+0.5%)

On this supposedly higher-performance configuration, the memory gain and HDD loss of the last configuration are both gone. This would seem to indicate that we're seeing variations within the benchmark's margins of error rather than actual performance differences. Anyway, there's still nothing noticeable.

Test 5: Static pagefile (1000MB) on a different drive, using a different controller channel

Quake II: 20.1 (-2%)
3DMark 2001 SE: 279 (0%)
PCMark 2002: 737/421/189 (-0.3%/+1.2%/-2.6%)

Results absolutely identical to (3). Nothing worthwhile.

I didn't test configuration (6). Windows is not supposed to run without a pagefile, and even BV acknowledges that he encounters glitches, crashes, sound problems, programs refusing to load and so on. If it's not useable, what's the point?

Anyway, pagefile tuning for performance is useless. There are no gains to be had here. About the only thing it may be worth doing is to move the file to another partition, but that's to lessen fragmentation, not for performance.



Passwords

From BV's site:

This is only valid for Windows XP Home: Do this NOW!! Everyone on XP Home, by default, has Administrator privileges and the User name is "Owner." If I know that, so does everyone else on the planet. Change the name and / or password your account. If anything, password it. NEVER have an account unprotected! EVER!

From STaSh, AT forum member:

Passwords are fine, but since most people will probably use a password like 'password' this tidbit actually LOWERS the security of the system. Why? Because BY DEFAULT, accounts with no passwords are not allowed to connect over the network. Only to the console. If you are not worried about physical access (like most people who use XP Home), an account with no password is very secure.

Clear enough?



Get rid of System Restore Service and Indexing Service.

System Restore Service can be invaluable, if you like to use the latest drivers, change hardware, try out new software and so on. Yes, it will use hard disk space. Hard disk space costs about 50 cents per gigabyte. What do you care? Even if it uses a full gigabyte (which I doubt), I'd pay 50 cents for peace of mind.

Indexing Service is not started automatically anymore. If you don't like it and don't need it, don't use it, and it will never bother you.



Automatic Updates

From BV himself:

I turn off Automatic Updates... I highly recommend you DO NOT disable this function.

Alright?


Themes

BV recommends disabling them. As Parts I and II show, there's no performance gain to be had from disabling them. If you like the pretty looks, just use them. You won't notice a difference on any system less than 5 years old, and anything older shouldn't run XP anyway.





That's all. Please share this review, since BV encourages people to do potentially harmful acts in the name of performance that can't be realized. Help to stop him. Post it on other forums, show it to your friends, and so on. Heck, mail it to BV. Maybe he'll give up and go back to ranting about hamburgers. As technically inclined people, you know it's us who usually end up fixing the borked installs of family members, friends and newbies who end up breaking their Windows installations trying to do this stuff, so let's take a little preventative action and save ourselves some work!

[Grande Juan]

Welcome tro... new member, I'm sorry you have no use for BV window tweaks. I on the other hand have found it to be a very usefull site. Definantly would not recomend novices mess around to much with their windows install though. Good luck with your campaign also.

[Fresh Daemon]

Welcome tro... new member

Hardly a troll, my friend, but it's good to see that you have such a pleasant attitude towards people you've never met but will prejudge based on the number of posts they have.

I on the other hand have found it to be a very usefull site.

I expect you will follow up with your benchmarks, which will paint an objective and very different picture to mine?

Funny thing about snake oil is that some people believe in it no matter how much evidence is thrust in their faces. Cognitive dissonance.

[Grande Juan]

Originally Posted by Fresh Daemon

I expect you will follow up with your benchmarks, which will paint an objective and very different picture to mine?

I suppose I could, hardly see the point though, I only use them to help obtain real world performance gains withen one system, not comparing apples to oranges.

[Grande Juan]

Originally Posted by Fresh Daemon

Hardly a troll, my friend, but it's good to see that you have such a pleasant attitude towards people you've never met but will prejudge based on the number of posts they have.

You must admit thats what it seems like, not prejudging, I read your entire post, judging by content not number of posts.

[Fresh Daemon]

I suppose I could, hardly see the point though, I only use them to help obtain real world performance gains withen one system, not comparing apples to oranges.

That's exactly what I did, and there are the results. No real world performance gains.

You must admit thats what it seems like, not prejudging, I read your entire post, judging by content not number of posts.

Ah, so you think this is a short and frivolous post designed only to excite people? You allege that I spent hours running benchmarks so that I could make people angry?

Perhaps it's you that is trolling, my friend.

[BrutalDrew]

Definantly would not recomend novices mess around to much with their windows install though.

I hate when people think they know what they are doing with these "tweaks". If you really knew what you were doing you wouldn't be disabling services and using other useless "tweaks" in the first place.

About the only thing it may be worth doing is to move the swap to another partition, but that's to lessen fragmentation, not for performance.

This will increase your average seeking distance, thus decreasing performance.

Most of the advice on BV's site is really innaccurate and/or totally unnecessary. Most of his tweaks do absolutely nothing performance-wise, and much more accurate and detailed information about services and can be found at microsoft.com.

The bottom line is that BV is a moron and he knows it. There is no possible way he didn't get a message by now since thousands of angry people who do have a clue must have e-mailed him over the years. He is only keeping the site up because shutting it down would mean admitting that he is a moron.

[Oni]

Ok, the little jabs about trolling stop now. If you want to disagree with what has been posted, do so in a civil maner, and back up your claims.

This will be your one and only warning. Any more, and the reprimands will go out.

[David]

I would appreciate it if we didn't start referring to members as 'morons'. They are not here to defend themselves. Discussing his results in an objective manner (as done by the original poster) is however welcomed.

Personally, I'm quite happy with how my system runs and don't see the need to tweak it for an extra 0.0000001% performance boost.

[9mmCensor]

Originally Posted by Fresh Daemon

Black Viper (amongst others) runs a Windows tweaks page offers many changes and customizations that users can make to MS Windows in the name of greater performance. BV recommends that many active-by-default Windows services be set to manual activation or disabled altogether, to save on memory useage and CPU cycles.

That's all. Please share this review, since BV encourages (you just said he "recomends") people to do potentially harmful acts in the name of performance that can't be realized. Help to stop him. Post it on other forums, show it to your friends, and so on. Heck, mail it to BV. Maybe he'll give up and go back to ranting about hamburgers. As technically inclined people, you know it's us who usually end up fixing the borked installs of family members, friends and newbies who end up breaking their Windows installations trying to do this stuff, so let's take a little preventative action and save ourselves some work!

Looks like you have a bias.

"Passwords
From BV's site:
Quote:
This is only valid for Windows XP Home: Do this NOW!! Everyone on XP Home, by default, has Administrator privileges and the User name is "Owner." If I know that, so does everyone else on the planet. Change the name and / or password your account. If anything, password it. NEVER have an account unprotected! EVER!

From STaSh, AT forum member:
Quote:
Passwords are fine, but since most people will probably use a password like 'password' this tidbit actually LOWERS the security of the system. Why? Because BY DEFAULT, accounts with no passwords are not allowed to connect over the network. Only to the console. If you are not worried about physical access (like most people who use XP Home), an account with no password is very secure."

No. Having no password takes no work to crack. Having a (even simple) one, is harder to crack, than none at all.

[zip22]

but i think hes talking about accessing through a network. if you have no password, you cannot (by default) do it. when you create a password, it is allowed. so no password = no access. easy password = open access and simple password cracking.

i have no idea about the legitimacy of this claim, i'm just trying to explain the way it is written

[David]

Originally Posted by 9mmCensor

Looks like you have a bias.

"Passwords
From BV's site:
Quote:
This is only valid for Windows XP Home: Do this NOW!! Everyone on XP Home, by default, has Administrator privileges and the User name is "Owner." If I know that, so does everyone else on the planet. Change the name and / or password your account. If anything, password it. NEVER have an account unprotected! EVER!

From STaSh, AT forum member:
Quote:
Passwords are fine, but since most people will probably use a password like 'password' this tidbit actually LOWERS the security of the system. Why? Because BY DEFAULT, accounts with no passwords are not allowed to connect over the network. Only to the console. If you are not worried about physical access (like most people who use XP Home), an account with no password is very secure."

No. Having no password takes no work to crack. Having a (even simple) one, is harder to crack, than none at all.

Having no password means no remote access. Meaning that if you are not expecting someone to physically gain access to your PC, setting no password is more secure.

[Fresh Daemon]

Stoney Creek, Ontario Canada

Hey, I'm from St. Catharines! You're only about 20 minutes away.

The bottom line is that BV is a moron and he knows it.

Napoleon Bonaparte said, "Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity." I don't think he is a moron, but he certainly is unaware of scientific method. The most important thing is to begin with a hypothesis and to either prove or disprove it. He began with the hypothesis that tweaking Windows services, swapfiles etc. would improve performance. He set up the conditions for his experiment, but never actually carried it out and just assumed that whatever the results were, they'd support his hypothesis.

All I did was to take the finishing steps and actually carry out his experiment and measure it against his original hypothesis, which was proven wrong.

Looks like you have a bias.

Yes, I'm biased against unscientific, subjective advice that is potentially destructive and leads to no measurable gain. He's basically the same as quacks and charlatans in the 19th Century or people selling penis enlargement techniques and tools.

Anyway, a bias or prejudice is an idea held without supporting evidence or in defiance of supporting evidence. I have plenty of supporting evidence. Therefore, it's not a bias, it's a scientific conclusion.

but i think hes talking about accessing through a network. if you have no password, you cannot (by default) do it. when you create a password, it is allowed. so no password = no access. easy password = open access and simple password cracking.

Exactly. XP Home accounts without a password are inaccessible over a network. That is more secure than an account that is accessible with a password like "password".

[Jimbob7]

I think the only real use for disabling services is if you running a rig with a low amount of ram and running Windows XP, my mate used to run a P2 233 with 64mb ram with XP disabling a lot of services helped him a huge amount. Or you are benching 3DMark something like that. If you are just gaming etc, you might as well leave them running, a lot less hassel that way, especially if you don't know what you are doing.


Your post was nicely written, i'm sorry you got a bad responce.

[Grande Juan]

I can think of a couple of sevices I'm not interested in AIM for one, software firewall and other security alerts that just pop up in the middle of gaming causing lag and games to drop to windows for others. Maybe I just don't know how to manage windows. Anyway I have always considered windows, any version to be a bloated cow, that I use anyway because its easy. Thus said I try to trim up the bloated cow using various tweaks some from microsoft some from Black Viper, not all of them work, some actually hurt performance. I've never personally or ever will recomend BV tweaks to someone else although I may try them myself.

As an overclocker I can appreciate the data given by Fresh Daemon, he obviously spent some time doing his homework. On the other hand I question the ethusiastic nature in which he denounces someone elses work.

[Fresh Daemon]

I can think of a couple of sevices I'm not interested in AIM for one

AIM isn't part of Windows.

On the other hand I question the ethusiastic nature in which he denounces someone elses work.

I'm not interested in your personal attacks or your unverified anecdotes. Either refute the data, or don't. When you see me "questioning the enthusiastic nature in which you defend Black Viper", only then do you get to make insinuations like that.

However, all the results above prove that BV's tweaks are less than worthless, and neither he nor you can actually provide any evidence to the contrary. The only benchmarks he bothered to run in his entire page showed absolutely no difference before and after his tweak.

[Grande Juan]

Sorry for the typo, I of course meant windows messenger. I'm also sorry you consider my responses a personal attack, not meant to be such, so sorry. I will now go bury my head in the sand.

[Fresh Daemon]

Windows Messenger doesn't run by default in SP2. Nor does Indexing. Security Center, System Restore and Automatic Updates are easy to turn off without ever touching the services.

Regardless, you must understand the difference between attacking evidence or logic (which you haven't done), and instead attacking the person making the argument, which you have, and although it's not exactly a scathing attack you do imply that I have some hidden motive in debunking Black Viper's website.

[Fresh Daemon]

my mate used to run a P2 233 with 64mb ram with XP disabling a lot of services helped him a huge amount. Or you are benching 3DMark something like that.

In the first case, Windows XP is not a good choice of OS. To get it to run using these tweaks would have to make it so functionally disabled that it would be less useful than Win2K or even Win98.

Benchmarks are a different matter. BV's tweaks seem to be able to eke out another 0.5-2.5% in 3DMark, but in game benchmarks they seem to lose the exact same amount. I know a lot of people are benchmark junkies, but personally I agree with the good review websites like Anandtech who use actual games for benchmarking (Anandtech's series on the 7800 cards doesn't include any synthetic benchmark results).

Your post was nicely written, i'm sorry you got a bad responce.

Thank you!

[9mmCensor]

Originally Posted by Fresh Daemon

Regardless, you must understand the difference between attacking evidence or logic (which you haven't done), and instead attacking the person making the argument, which you have, and although it's not exactly a scathing attack you do imply that I have some hidden motive in debunking Black Viper's website.

Then why the special attention to Black Viper?

[Super Nade]

Folks,

The only way I see this issue settled would be with some real numbers

Lets set up a list of tests each one of us can run, and we can compare notes in this thread. Please include screen-shots when ever possible.

Tests:
3DM01 /05
Pi 1M
PCMark
Real time Game fps (just report the average you see when playing a game)

Instead of this back and forth sniping, get to work!



S-N

[Fresh Daemon]

Then why the special attention to Black Viper?

Because his site is the most popular and most-cited example of this nonsense.

[tenchi86]

Nice post. I don't right now have time to go through all the results. Seems like a well put together comparison though. Personally I like the BV site, I have never actually been there to try his stuff. Though I have tweaked some of the stuff he covers myself. Which after running some test came to see those services don't slow you down much anyway. The reason I like his site though is it gets people involved in there pc. Makes them start to think more about how it all works, and what they can do to make it work better.

[Albigger]

This seems to have taken a great deal of time to compile, so thank you for putting together these results.


Having said that, I would like to bring up two issues:
First, it would be nice to see more results from a wider variety of programs (isn't that always nice though). I understand how much time this takes (hence why I haven't decided to do this myself) but it would be nice to see results from other benchmarks (Super Nade suggests a few more - could easily visit the system/benchmarking part of the forum for more ideas) or things like programs' "time to load" or windows startup time.

Second, both of these systems were clean installs with no more than the testing programs installed on them. It would be interesting to see if the same experiment had any effect on a PC loaded with programs and processes running (such as a 'typical' PC of an OCForum member) or even such a loaded down system with much spyware, crap, etc... (the 'typical' PC that OCForum members 'fix' for their friends and family). Although it could be argued that if the PC is loaded with spyware etc... that services are of the least concern.


Anyway, nice job again doing the experiment and compiling results, this has at the least made me seriously doubt these usually recommended tweaks and at the most (if I have time) perform my own testing.

[El<(')>Maxi]

I agree with your conclusions, there is very little to be gained running most of these "tweaks". Some are valid on some level but it really depends on your system itself. After hours and hours of bench testing I can tell you that a system running the exact same settings often gives different results on each boot-up. Successive applications (bench tests) opened after the initial test run slower than if they had been run first upon boot.

With all the different variables in play it is indeed difficult to zero in on a change(s) that makes a definite impact unless the difference is impossible to miss. Take the page file tests for example. Coming from an IT background I can tell you that a page file on the main OS partition can have a significant impact on system performance given the right conditions. A server running multiple server services will run better with a pagefile placed on a different physical drive. Does this effect most home users? Probably not unless they have limited Ram and apps are forcing disk paging.

In any case playing around with Windows tweaking is one way to learn about advanced OS components even if they don't work. For the guys that do manage to mess up their OSes, I'm sure there have been numerous re-installs courtesy of BV. Still they probably learned something.

[TollhouseFrank]

some of us also like to turn things off because that means less memory bandwidth being used that is sucking away powah from F@H. It ESPECIALLY effects the guys with P4's runnin' the QMD's on F@H. Even a 1-2% increase in speed helps out A LOT with F@H.

Part of it is also habit from the Win95-ME days when i'd scrimp and save everything I had of 64Mbs of RAM to keep it runnin' smooth. I'd trim down Windows till it barely ran, so that I had free RAM, and its a habit that still sticks with me to this day, even though i've got a GB and dont' hafta worry about it.

[Quest For Speed]

Very nice comparison. I agree with the results. I have followed the BV guide and found no noticable real world improvement.

[jcw122]

Just Get Linux Already!

JK!

[stolen]

interesting results

[Mr.Guvernment]

...Most of his tweaks do absolutely nothing performance-wise, and much more accurate and detailed information about services and can be found at microsoft.com.

i foudn this out after some time - when i first found his site i thought it was great but to trim off 20-40mb of RAM usage on a boot seems to be the only benefit of his tweaks and with most systems using 512+, it really isnt worth the time.