- Joined
- Oct 4, 2001
- Location
- Milton Keynes, U.K.
Tweaks-The Definitive Guide:
A lot of you out there are trying to squeeze just that extra bit of power out of your system, whether it’s to hit 10k, or 5k this guide will help.
Warning, editing your Registry could cause errors within the Windows’ subsystem and may cause data corruption and possibly lead to you needing a re-format, please BACKUP your data.
Now down to business:
Now the basics.
PC’s always run faster after a re-format and clean Windows install, however this doesn’t mean that you have to keep re-formatting, just don’t install programs which you never use, have another machine to test out the programs first. This way your registry won’t clog up.
Standard procedures are:
Clean the registry, Scandisk once a week, Defragment once a week, run disk-clean-up as well.
Obviously try to run PC’s at there fastest overall settings (memory latency’s etc) as this will increase your overall performance. I would also recommend you test for stability by “Burning-in” your PC.
This may sound drastic but all it stands for is running a component at maximum stress for a long period of time, if no errors occur then you may proceed to overclock.
“Burning-in” your PC has also been reported to increase stability at a speed once unattainable, but why?
It rather controversial and complicated but it boils down to the degradation of Transistors, simply put making 50% of the transistors in your CPU a bit worse, and making the other 50% a lot better.
This is explained very thoroughly Here (all credits go to Pinky for this link.)
The Method of this burn-in is to run at the highest Voltage, at the lowest temperature (as they are dependant of each other) with the lowest clockspeed (lower heat).
“The higher the voltage, the higher the effect, the higher the temperature, the lower the effect”.
It doesn’t always work but it does sometimes, my Radeon 8500 went from 280Mhz Core to 300Mhz Core after a weeks burning.
Remember though that all systems are unique, two rigs with identical components never run the same, heat, speed, stability, and so on.
Benchmarking Tweaks.
3DMark has become the standard for many people to benchmark their systems and test them for stability (“Burn-In”) following its success Futuremark® created many other Benchmarking programs to target individual aspects of PC performance, they will be listed here as well.
The following Tweaks allow maximum performance to be gained using 3DMark as well as many other benchmarking programs.
3DMark Downloads/Drivers.
[urk=[URL]http://www.futuremark.com/download/?3dmark05.shtml]3DMark[/URL] 2003[/url]
3DMark 2003 - DirectX 9
3D Mark 2001 SE - DirectX 8
3DMark 2001 - SE Patch (upgrade to SE version)
PCMark 2002
3DMark 2000 v1.1 - DirectX 7
Video 2000
3DMark 99 MAX - DirectX 6
DirectX 9
DirectX 8
DirectX 7
Dx Misc
Sisoft Sandra 2005
Powerstrip – Universal, overclocks any video card
Ati Overclocking
Ati Drivers Official Beta
Specialised Ati Drivers
Ati ROM files
Ati Flash
Ati BIOS' for 9500/9700 cards - fixes non-overclock issue.
Nvidia Overclocking
Nvidia Drivers
Nvidia Refresh Rate Fix
Kryo Overclocking
Voodoo Overclocking
Voodoo Drivers
Maxtrox Drivers
Hercules Drivers
Via Drivers – AMD only
More Via Drivers
Abit Files
Asus Files
DFI Files
ECS Files
Epox Files
Chaintech
Shuttle Files
Soltek Files
Supermicro Files
Tyan Files
Tweaks/Misc Downloads.
Tweaking Compilation
Tweak UI
Fast Boot /Fast Resume Design
Microsoft PowerToys for Windows XP
Tweaking Downloads
A huge index of Windows Tweaks!
Innovative Tweaking Tool
Great list of Windows Tweaking Downloads
Great Download Sources.
http://files.aoaforums.com
www.clockingfiles.cjb.net
www.download.com
www.the-ctrl-alt-del.com
www.reactorcritical.com
www.3dchipset.com
www.driverfiles.net
www.majorgeeks.com/
If you cannot find the latest drivers for any Hardware you have, go to Driverguide, it offers a good service once you sign-up (free) to find drivers quick and efficiently.
Volt Mods.
9700 Volt Mod
8500 Volt Mod-Sophisticated Version
8500 Volt Mod-Pencil Version
8500 Volt Mod-Simple
9000-Pro Volt Mod
G4-4600 Volt Mod
G4-4400 Volt Mod
G4-4200 Volt Mod
G3 Ti-200/Ti-500 Volt Mod
G3 Original Volt Mod
OCforums Volt Modding section
Now assuming you’ve just cleaned up your system or re-formatted your HDD, install the drivers in the following order, after each run disk defragmenter.
1. Via 4 in 1 Drivers (These are only for Via Chipset Based Motherboards)
Defragmenter
2. DirectX 9.0C (Windows XP has 8.1 pre-installed, SP has 9.0C pre-installed)
Defragmenter
3. Video Drivers
Defragmenter
4. Other drivers, once more run disk defragmenter.
The defragmenting keeps all the files in there optimal positions on the disk which means everything is loaded with precision and maximum speed, now and for later benchmarking.
When running 3DMark run your desktop at 60hz, turn of vertical synchronization (may cause artifacts) and change the OpenGL settings, Direct3D and so on to “Best performance”. (Right-click to find out what each option does in turn)
Repeat all the tests twice, as this can yield a slight performance gain, mainly due to the second run of each test being run more from the CPU's cache.
Run your AGP at 8x/4x (if you can with stability, if not try DA or FF in the driving mode value), enable AGP Fast-Writes and test all the other options for maximum speed. Video-caching produces different effects on different rigs so experiment with them on or off.
On a lot of systems nowadays people are using upwards of 512MB or RAM, if you are there’s a desirable option that can now be turned off to access more overall system performance.
This is Virtual memory, you see when Windows runs out of RAM it is forced to use Virtual memory which utilises your Hardrive’s temporary file as RAM, this is much slower than RAM and is not desirable. If you have 512MB of RAM or over then Virtual Memory can be disabled and system speed increases will result.
To do this simply:
1. Right-click on My Computer and select properties,
2. Go to Advanced Tab,
3. Click on Performance Settings,
4. Click on Advanced Tab,
5. Go to Virtual memory and click on change,
6. Select your drive, click on no paging file and then click on ‘set’.
Repeat step 6 for all of your Hardrives.
When running Benchmarking I would also recommend you close all programs running in the background, first of all close everything in your taskbar, next press Ctrl + Alt + Del and in the Dialog box that appears (Win Me and below users) close everything apart form Explorer and Systray, if you are running XP or 2000 then you will see a name next to each process, your name and the Systems name. Close everything with your name next to it apart from explorer.
I also recommend running the NTFS file system for Windows XP, to change the file system of your drives requires a re-format; this can be done in Windows with exception to your main-drive. To format your main-drive to the NTFS file system simply boot off of the Windows XP CD-ROM and choose NTFS Format.
The reason why I use NTFS is it is faster, more secure and more efficient at utilising space on larger hardrives.
Are you running any PCI cards? If you are take them out! (Unless you are running a PCI video card of course)
You see 3DMark does not use any PCI cards, but they steal CPU cycles slowing your Benchmark down, Sound Cards are especially guilty of this, you’d be surprised how much of a difference to your score this makes!
You may also (when you have your PCI cards in for normal use) want to change your PCI latencies if your Motherboards BIOS lets you, you see the latency dictates how long a particular device can hold onto the PCI bus for, if you have just one device then a higher figure is desirable (around 100) but if you have multiple devices then you don’t want one card holding up the bus too long so a lower number of around 15-30 is more desirable, I use Sisoft Sandra 2002 to test these differences in performance.
I also recommend you disable anything you are not using in the BIOS, onboard items > especially on older boards.
You may also notice how sometimes there are options such as ‘onboard Modem’ in your BIOS and yet you have no onboard Modem? Well disable them anyway, simply because they are reserving IRQ’s and wasting resources.
You can also delve into disabling IRQ’s which you don’t use, but be careful here, serious system errors can occur so remember your Default settings!!
Hardrive Performance
Most Modern drives today are coming shipped with Acoustic and Power Management features enabled for quieter operation and reduced power consumption of the drives, this works by reducing the Speed of the Head Seeks when the drive is in Normal Operation.
This may be all well except for one thing: It reduces overall data transfer rates for the drives when it is enabled.
Here you can download the Manufacturer's utilities to disable these features, resulting in improved Transfer rates of your Hardrive:
Maxtor
Acoustic Management
Power Management
IBM
Acoutic and Power Management
Samsung
Seagate
[url=ftp://ftp.seagate.com/techsuppt/seagate_utils/cgreen21.zip]Power Management
There are no such utilities available at this time for:
Western Digital, Fujitsu, and Quantum Drives.
The Western Digital and Fujitsu drives do not have a publically downloadable manufacturer supported utility, however some drives may ship with such a utility, and in Fujitsu's case, the computer shipped with the drive may have its own custom utility, Toshiba is a good example.
Finally I have searched the web and found the very best Windows tweaks to get those few extra marks out of your system.
http://www.winguides.com/downloads/registry.exe
Registry guide
http://www.tweaktown.com/document.php?dType=guide&dId=120
Windows XP optimization guide Part 1
http://www.tweaktown.com/document.php?dType=guide&dId=145
Windows XP optimization guide Part 2
Now last but not least make sure you backup your files before editing them!
Notes:
The tweaks work on all Windows versions.
Defragmenting is a lot faster with Windows XP, and it is necessary to make you system run at optimal speed, so don’t skip it!
This post is written as simply as possible, if anyone has trouble understanding or processing the information please don’t hesitate to ask me and I will decipher any technical jargon.
Good Luck and HAPPY TWEAKING!
Nick Cade-Westcombe
'Maximus Nickus'
Updated by: @md0cer 10/19/05
A lot of you out there are trying to squeeze just that extra bit of power out of your system, whether it’s to hit 10k, or 5k this guide will help.
Warning, editing your Registry could cause errors within the Windows’ subsystem and may cause data corruption and possibly lead to you needing a re-format, please BACKUP your data.
Now down to business:
Now the basics.
PC’s always run faster after a re-format and clean Windows install, however this doesn’t mean that you have to keep re-formatting, just don’t install programs which you never use, have another machine to test out the programs first. This way your registry won’t clog up.
Standard procedures are:
Clean the registry, Scandisk once a week, Defragment once a week, run disk-clean-up as well.
Obviously try to run PC’s at there fastest overall settings (memory latency’s etc) as this will increase your overall performance. I would also recommend you test for stability by “Burning-in” your PC.
This may sound drastic but all it stands for is running a component at maximum stress for a long period of time, if no errors occur then you may proceed to overclock.
“Burning-in” your PC has also been reported to increase stability at a speed once unattainable, but why?
It rather controversial and complicated but it boils down to the degradation of Transistors, simply put making 50% of the transistors in your CPU a bit worse, and making the other 50% a lot better.
This is explained very thoroughly Here (all credits go to Pinky for this link.)
The Method of this burn-in is to run at the highest Voltage, at the lowest temperature (as they are dependant of each other) with the lowest clockspeed (lower heat).
“The higher the voltage, the higher the effect, the higher the temperature, the lower the effect”.
It doesn’t always work but it does sometimes, my Radeon 8500 went from 280Mhz Core to 300Mhz Core after a weeks burning.
Remember though that all systems are unique, two rigs with identical components never run the same, heat, speed, stability, and so on.
Benchmarking Tweaks.
3DMark has become the standard for many people to benchmark their systems and test them for stability (“Burn-In”) following its success Futuremark® created many other Benchmarking programs to target individual aspects of PC performance, they will be listed here as well.
The following Tweaks allow maximum performance to be gained using 3DMark as well as many other benchmarking programs.
3DMark Downloads/Drivers.
[urk=[URL]http://www.futuremark.com/download/?3dmark05.shtml]3DMark[/URL] 2003[/url]
3DMark 2003 - DirectX 9
3D Mark 2001 SE - DirectX 8
3DMark 2001 - SE Patch (upgrade to SE version)
PCMark 2002
3DMark 2000 v1.1 - DirectX 7
Video 2000
3DMark 99 MAX - DirectX 6
DirectX 9
DirectX 8
DirectX 7
Dx Misc
Sisoft Sandra 2005
Powerstrip – Universal, overclocks any video card
Ati Overclocking
Ati Drivers Official Beta
Specialised Ati Drivers
Ati ROM files
Ati Flash
Ati BIOS' for 9500/9700 cards - fixes non-overclock issue.
Nvidia Overclocking
Nvidia Drivers
Nvidia Refresh Rate Fix
Kryo Overclocking
Voodoo Overclocking
Voodoo Drivers
Maxtrox Drivers
Hercules Drivers
Via Drivers – AMD only
More Via Drivers
Abit Files
Asus Files
DFI Files
ECS Files
Epox Files
Chaintech
Shuttle Files
Soltek Files
Supermicro Files
Tyan Files
Tweaks/Misc Downloads.
Tweaking Compilation
Tweak UI
Fast Boot /Fast Resume Design
Microsoft PowerToys for Windows XP
Tweaking Downloads
A huge index of Windows Tweaks!
Innovative Tweaking Tool
Great list of Windows Tweaking Downloads
Great Download Sources.
http://files.aoaforums.com
www.clockingfiles.cjb.net
www.download.com
www.the-ctrl-alt-del.com
www.reactorcritical.com
www.3dchipset.com
www.driverfiles.net
www.majorgeeks.com/
If you cannot find the latest drivers for any Hardware you have, go to Driverguide, it offers a good service once you sign-up (free) to find drivers quick and efficiently.
Volt Mods.
9700 Volt Mod
8500 Volt Mod-Sophisticated Version
8500 Volt Mod-Pencil Version
8500 Volt Mod-Simple
9000-Pro Volt Mod
G4-4600 Volt Mod
G4-4400 Volt Mod
G4-4200 Volt Mod
G3 Ti-200/Ti-500 Volt Mod
G3 Original Volt Mod
OCforums Volt Modding section
Now assuming you’ve just cleaned up your system or re-formatted your HDD, install the drivers in the following order, after each run disk defragmenter.
1. Via 4 in 1 Drivers (These are only for Via Chipset Based Motherboards)
Defragmenter
2. DirectX 9.0C (Windows XP has 8.1 pre-installed, SP has 9.0C pre-installed)
Defragmenter
3. Video Drivers
Defragmenter
4. Other drivers, once more run disk defragmenter.
The defragmenting keeps all the files in there optimal positions on the disk which means everything is loaded with precision and maximum speed, now and for later benchmarking.
When running 3DMark run your desktop at 60hz, turn of vertical synchronization (may cause artifacts) and change the OpenGL settings, Direct3D and so on to “Best performance”. (Right-click to find out what each option does in turn)
Repeat all the tests twice, as this can yield a slight performance gain, mainly due to the second run of each test being run more from the CPU's cache.
Run your AGP at 8x/4x (if you can with stability, if not try DA or FF in the driving mode value), enable AGP Fast-Writes and test all the other options for maximum speed. Video-caching produces different effects on different rigs so experiment with them on or off.
On a lot of systems nowadays people are using upwards of 512MB or RAM, if you are there’s a desirable option that can now be turned off to access more overall system performance.
This is Virtual memory, you see when Windows runs out of RAM it is forced to use Virtual memory which utilises your Hardrive’s temporary file as RAM, this is much slower than RAM and is not desirable. If you have 512MB of RAM or over then Virtual Memory can be disabled and system speed increases will result.
To do this simply:
1. Right-click on My Computer and select properties,
2. Go to Advanced Tab,
3. Click on Performance Settings,
4. Click on Advanced Tab,
5. Go to Virtual memory and click on change,
6. Select your drive, click on no paging file and then click on ‘set’.
Repeat step 6 for all of your Hardrives.
When running Benchmarking I would also recommend you close all programs running in the background, first of all close everything in your taskbar, next press Ctrl + Alt + Del and in the Dialog box that appears (Win Me and below users) close everything apart form Explorer and Systray, if you are running XP or 2000 then you will see a name next to each process, your name and the Systems name. Close everything with your name next to it apart from explorer.
I also recommend running the NTFS file system for Windows XP, to change the file system of your drives requires a re-format; this can be done in Windows with exception to your main-drive. To format your main-drive to the NTFS file system simply boot off of the Windows XP CD-ROM and choose NTFS Format.
The reason why I use NTFS is it is faster, more secure and more efficient at utilising space on larger hardrives.
Are you running any PCI cards? If you are take them out! (Unless you are running a PCI video card of course)
You see 3DMark does not use any PCI cards, but they steal CPU cycles slowing your Benchmark down, Sound Cards are especially guilty of this, you’d be surprised how much of a difference to your score this makes!
You may also (when you have your PCI cards in for normal use) want to change your PCI latencies if your Motherboards BIOS lets you, you see the latency dictates how long a particular device can hold onto the PCI bus for, if you have just one device then a higher figure is desirable (around 100) but if you have multiple devices then you don’t want one card holding up the bus too long so a lower number of around 15-30 is more desirable, I use Sisoft Sandra 2002 to test these differences in performance.
I also recommend you disable anything you are not using in the BIOS, onboard items > especially on older boards.
You may also notice how sometimes there are options such as ‘onboard Modem’ in your BIOS and yet you have no onboard Modem? Well disable them anyway, simply because they are reserving IRQ’s and wasting resources.
You can also delve into disabling IRQ’s which you don’t use, but be careful here, serious system errors can occur so remember your Default settings!!
Hardrive Performance
Most Modern drives today are coming shipped with Acoustic and Power Management features enabled for quieter operation and reduced power consumption of the drives, this works by reducing the Speed of the Head Seeks when the drive is in Normal Operation.
This may be all well except for one thing: It reduces overall data transfer rates for the drives when it is enabled.
Here you can download the Manufacturer's utilities to disable these features, resulting in improved Transfer rates of your Hardrive:
Maxtor
Acoustic Management
Power Management
IBM
Acoutic and Power Management
Samsung
Seagate
[url=ftp://ftp.seagate.com/techsuppt/seagate_utils/cgreen21.zip]Power Management
There are no such utilities available at this time for:
Western Digital, Fujitsu, and Quantum Drives.
The Western Digital and Fujitsu drives do not have a publically downloadable manufacturer supported utility, however some drives may ship with such a utility, and in Fujitsu's case, the computer shipped with the drive may have its own custom utility, Toshiba is a good example.
Finally I have searched the web and found the very best Windows tweaks to get those few extra marks out of your system.
http://www.winguides.com/downloads/registry.exe
Registry guide
http://www.tweaktown.com/document.php?dType=guide&dId=120
Windows XP optimization guide Part 1
http://www.tweaktown.com/document.php?dType=guide&dId=145
Windows XP optimization guide Part 2
Now last but not least make sure you backup your files before editing them!
Notes:
The tweaks work on all Windows versions.
Defragmenting is a lot faster with Windows XP, and it is necessary to make you system run at optimal speed, so don’t skip it!
This post is written as simply as possible, if anyone has trouble understanding or processing the information please don’t hesitate to ask me and I will decipher any technical jargon.
Good Luck and HAPPY TWEAKING!
Nick Cade-Westcombe
'Maximus Nickus'
Updated by: @md0cer 10/19/05
Last edited by a moderator:
