Using a generic IDE interface to your drives rather than drivers tuned to your chipse so you're not getting DMA and other fancy stuff. Same reason your 3D performance is going to suck ass until you put the proper drivers in.chinoquezada said:
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Performance-oriented Windows tweaking debunked
- Thread starter Fresh Daemon
- Start date
ameoba said:
That depends entirely on the chipset. For instance, with Nforce you really don't want to install nVIDA SW drivers in most cases the generic MS IDE drivers actually work better. And you still get full UDMA mode done correctly.
As to the guy talking about disabling themes, i find it humerous in most cases older guys talk about doing that like it's some sort of badge of honor. It's not the "disabling" of themes that get's you snappier windows it's the side performance items that go with themes that slow then down. You can still use the "themes" but just uncheck items for better performance. Also when i service computers for lay people and i find them telling me that they use the old "classic" windows theme because it's snappier - i then change thier paltry 60 Htz refresh rate to 85 and use the reg tweak (or TweakUI) to speed up the menue then they can actually use nice looking themes and have it be "snappy". Clearing prefetch and temp files helps too. I'm tired of these "badge of old OS honor" types that seem to think you can't have a snappy windows unless you are running a classic theme or by disabling themes. It's not true. It's usually a result of an improper OS setup, unless the system is really old.
That totally disregards the fact that safe mode won't use DMA, regardless of the driver. You're just missing the point. Safe mode only loads minimal drivers, regardless of what driver you're using.zone_86 said:
As for the rant, it's usually "older OS" folks that tend to recommend staying at defaults since it'll introduce less chance for errors. Older and wiser and all that. It's the newer kids on the block that tend to want to push every button available.
Well i gues i did miss the point then. But i do know what safe mode loads. I see it every single day in my shop. I should have read all of the posts as i did not know you were actually referring to safe mode alone.
As far as older folks liking default windows because it's safe (windows classic) that may be somewhat true, but i find it has more to do with the overall knowledge of the windows environment than of the age the person. You don't get any more errors with the XP theme than you do with a classic theme. It's just a bit slower. An analogy would be someone complaining of 4 FPS loss in game by using onboard sound verses an Audigy 2 card with real hardware accel. More often than not i have debunked the classic is faster theory by just applying speed tweaks or by disabling some of the fancy drop shadows and the like, but even then the difference between classic and full on XP theme is not big at all when you consider the average system today and it's ability to overcome the very small difference. Sure classic is still a bit faster, but once XP has been moderately tweaked for speed most of that difference is made up. Windows can be perfectly snappy with the XP themes.
As far as older folks liking default windows because it's safe (windows classic) that may be somewhat true, but i find it has more to do with the overall knowledge of the windows environment than of the age the person. You don't get any more errors with the XP theme than you do with a classic theme. It's just a bit slower. An analogy would be someone complaining of 4 FPS loss in game by using onboard sound verses an Audigy 2 card with real hardware accel. More often than not i have debunked the classic is faster theory by just applying speed tweaks or by disabling some of the fancy drop shadows and the like, but even then the difference between classic and full on XP theme is not big at all when you consider the average system today and it's ability to overcome the very small difference. Sure classic is still a bit faster, but once XP has been moderately tweaked for speed most of that difference is made up. Windows can be perfectly snappy with the XP themes.
I'm only 16 and am pretty much against all this tweaking garbage as I have expressed in the past. The people who don't understand how the OS works are the ones that do all this stupid "tweaking." The people who know what everything does knows the effects, therefore don't even bother.
djnes said:
no. just normal speed tweaks, but for older workstations that are slower generally. other os tweaks would be leveled admin rights that have nothing to do with os environmrnt speed. generally the typical enthusiast even at a lower level has at least 512MB of decent ram, and a fast motherboard with a better than average video card, and usually doesn't need too many speed tweaks. even with XP and all the candy on.
holyroller1
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zone_86 said:
What??
You really aren't, or never have been a sys admin have you? LOL
holyroller1 said:
by the way a55clown - the enthusiast part is in contrast as opposed to the network in that post. They are mutually exclusisive of the other. Meaning that normal home XP users don't need many tweaks to make XP operate quickly- as BV and others would have you believe. If you trim things down to BV's level you have hardly anything left, and you may lose functionality of things you may actually need.
Actually we were asking about what are those "tweaks" that "professional networks" need in absolute necesity?zone_86 said:
BTW: It is not cool to call your fellow [H]ardBrother an a55clown... And the use of l337 speak only adds insult to injury...
chinoquezada said:
Pay attention because i won't respond any further in the thread. Period. First, Assclown is not '1337 speak'. I don't 'do' 1337 speak. Second, said tweaks you inquire about are for older workstations where the windows e n v i r o n m e n t would be slow typically. Absolutely necessary? No. But for windows to operate with good crispness yes on older workstationss with older processors. In the beginning of the OP's post you also heard about disabling services as it related to Black Vipers site. Most of the OS tweaks that are non GUI i do on running sevices. TCP/IP - NeBios - Wins resolution, admin shares, etc.. It's not all about GUI. Some of it is necesarry for layered protection. Some is done through novell on my end as well. Third, the assclown remark was in response to the poster holyroller's remark. Jusified. Period.
Edit: You know what... a55clown. or "assclown" probably is a bit rough. I apologize to Hollyroller for that
. I'll just change assclown to [H]ardheaded.. It's not really been my syle to ever post anything 'back' that is insulting like that in a retort. So, to [H]ollyroller1, apologies from my end.holyroller1
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zone_86 said:
You speak a lot like me when I was say, 15, LOL. A55clown, LOL!!!!
You made a VERY specific statement. Let me remind you of your statement:
"Such as a professional networks where tweaks are absolutely necesarry."
You made the statement, we called you on it. No straw man shit here buddy. I want to know what professional networks NEED such tweaks on a workstation by WS basis. I know of at least 20 IT professionals that would beg to differ with you about the tweaking of workstations in a so called professional network setting.
So, give me some of these tweaks that you have implemented in live production environments that were necessary. What did these tweaks accomplish? Lets start with recent Windows OSs like NT4 and work up from there for times sake. That should about cover the timeframe of experience you claim to have.
P.S. Here is a little proverb, I have forgotten where I picked it up:
Tis better to remain quiet and appear to be ignorant than to open ones mouth (type) and remove all doubt, paraphrased of course.
I don't think so Hollyroller1. And you should take your own medicine - you made a dorkster/idiotic post without knowing anything about what i do. Would you have rather me call you an asshat stright up? Ok, your an asshat. You aren't 'calling' me 'on' anything at all. Period. I could care less how many IT techs you know would bet to differ, Period. End of story. End of thread for me. Period..
There are no "speed tweaks" done on a corporate network. That's why I asked for an explanation, rather than assuming you were clueless. However, you've given no explanation, and really aren't backing up you're point in any way. I've been doing sys admin work for 8 years, across three companies, and I have no idea what you could possibly be referring to. In the corporate environment, stability is the key.
This is really true for tweakers. They ride the bleeding edge of stability to get more performance.djnes said:
Go into the OC or memory forums and ask them failing prime/memtest to obtain a higher OC is acceptable.
zone_86, you got called out on a statement. It was explained in detail what people wanted you to back up. Put up or shut up, your hijacking the thread otherwise (notice the lack of OPs input since the bitching)...
There are some good posts here, and it irks me to no end to see people thread crap on a post where someone spent TIME and EFFORT into actually backing up a claim.
edit: kooldrew, you tend to be an exception to that rule.
Fresh Daemon
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It's from Mark Twain. Just an FYI.
One, yeah, stability is key, absolutely, but to say that speed tweaks both GUI and network can't and should not be done. Poppycock.. No speed tweaks on networks? Depends on the network and global workstation os. NT and 2000 are already optmiized for networking. Some of the tweaks that can be done as for fast explorer review refresh, increasing TCP/IP parameters tcp window size for getspeed.net @ 64240 or 32120 in decimal under DWORD, system policy review refresh (for admin side), getting rid of the network alerter (if needed), improving disk caching, increasing CFA size, creating a seperate process for shell and explorer file manager, page file automation clearing reg tweak, stiffen TCP/IP stack for better defense, disabling DCHP client (leaving enabled for ICS or for dsl & cable), totally depending on the os used and network - disable ipsec (service) , manages ip policy, (better packet security), disable net logon if no remote admin is to be done, disable secondary logon. if NT, disable NT LM-SSP, hand icon gone. cache logons global, hide servers from browse list (icl - drives if need be), tweak IIS con. settings, gui... disable thumbnail cache (and no icon view bitmaps in thumbs view, smoothscoll out, disable recycle bin (Use NOD - instant deletion), delete my comp from worksation view, personalized menues off. various MTU cable or DSL speed values (reg), set DIR buffer value @ 65000 from 14000. Another NT speed tweak network side is to disable the automatic updating of timestamps when directories are accessed as it slows down big volumes alot.
This is very much a short list. some GUI, some network, some access. Really just a tid bit. I could go on for 20 pages of variances from NT, to 2000 (much the same), to the rare XP Pro network. But i won't. I didn't hijack the thread. Hollyroller1 did with his stupid comment.
This is very much a short list. some GUI, some network, some access. Really just a tid bit. I could go on for 20 pages of variances from NT, to 2000 (much the same), to the rare XP Pro network. But i won't. I didn't hijack the thread. Hollyroller1 did with his stupid comment.
No orginization I have worked at, ranging in size from 5-15,000 has EVER used any of those tweaks.
Nor do I see anything in that list that fits the description of "a professional networks where tweaks are absolutely necesarry". None of those are "necessary", optional at best. Several do nothing on XP (as you noted), so it's much less usefull "these days". I really can't believe you bothered including NT.
Want to discuss DOS tweaks too?
Some of those may provide a little security, you can argue till the cows come home on disabling this and that as being a security benefit. However, anything that can be stopped at the OS level can be stopped at the firewall, making it optional.
Nor do I see anything in that list that fits the description of "a professional networks where tweaks are absolutely necesarry". None of those are "necessary", optional at best. Several do nothing on XP (as you noted), so it's much less usefull "these days". I really can't believe you bothered including NT.
Want to discuss DOS tweaks too?
Some of those may provide a little security, you can argue till the cows come home on disabling this and that as being a security benefit. However, anything that can be stopped at the OS level can be stopped at the firewall, making it optional.
holyroller1
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Fresh Daemon said:It's from Mark Twain. Just an FYI.
Thanks a bunch Fresh. It's been ages..
holyroller1
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zone_86 said:
zone_86 - "disable net logon if no remote admin is to be done"
This statement proves you know NOTHING about "professional" networks, or even basic principles for that matter. This jumped out as I was scan reading your ignorant response. I didn't even continue looking at your response after seeing this.
Sir, and I use the term loosely, the more you speak the less knowledge you appear to have about so called "professional networks." I suggest you take the advice from my last post. The more you speak the more I believe you are an immature punk who just likes to throw insults for lack of a decent vernacular.
Sure, I don't "KNOW" what you do or what the extent of you knowledge really is, but I can connect the dots and draw an accurate conclusion from previous statements in this thread.
Just an FYI, your experience pails in comparison to half of my career within large (F500 scale) corporate networks. However, this isn't a J@hnson measuring contest and for all you know I am also some 15 year old, pimple faced geek (no offence to teenage pimple faced geeks everywhere, youre our future
) as you appear to be.To be honest I have not touched a workstation for the purposes of compensation for many years. That said I could be way off base as I don't deal with them directly. I can tell you beyond a shadow of any doubt than none of the large companies where I work or have worked in the past have implemented such time consuming wasteful procedures on WS's as you suggest.
ESPECIALLY not the net logon service LOL!!!
Hey Larry. "What?"
Why can't any of our users logon to the domain this morning? "Oh, i decided to speed up our workstations so I disabled the netlogon service on all of them. I learned these really cool tweaks from this really L77tzors site. It really helps, I promise."
LOL, sorry I couldn't help it.
Bullshit is all I have to say you can never tell me the freeing up system resources doesnt help speed the system up. And dont even try to tell me after I free up about 60mb of system ram that it doesnt help... sorry dude your wrong simple as that.
Shane said:
The fact is that an unused service will use no CPU cycles and if memory is needed for other things will be paged out. If there is not a need it won't be paged out, but then who really cares? With modern day computers there really isn't any real-world performance gain. It is almost always nothing, but placebo effect.
RAM = Random Access MemoryShane said:
It is not static. The memory locations used constantly gets paged to your local pagefile (in Harddrive) if a need arises for more Memory from an active program...
Simple as that. Free Ram size doesnt really matter, only your systems memory handling capabilities. (Something which Windows XP does pretty efficently)
Most of those and many other tweaks would never be done on a very large company job, but on smaller networks where i can, and have permission to - be flexible (like a small midas shop or a small insurance office which i recently did) . Me... 15 Hollyroller1 LMAO. Hardly. Just like you i was laid off in the past and i am about your age (your 32 right?), but i though you were relaxing on severance as of a year ago? That would mean you had been an admin as of... a tad over a year ago. Surely you have some hands on experience there. No?
Netlogon NT: Depending Hollyroller1, on the network. I remove NAM21NT under Novell (if the network is on Novell). Then SAMSRVDll is replaced with the MS version - then i reboot the BDC to aviod data being redirected into the eDirectory. I also remove NAM21NT from the PDC DEPENDING ON THE NETWORK ( i may also remove the eDirectory. There is a reason i mentioned netlogon being removed. I just didn't explain it to you. Why should i. Enough has been said - more than enough for me to chuckle for more than two weeks. You are definitely a serious bozo dude. Good stuff.
Netlogon NT: Depending Hollyroller1, on the network. I remove NAM21NT under Novell (if the network is on Novell). Then SAMSRVDll is replaced with the MS version - then i reboot the BDC to aviod data being redirected into the eDirectory. I also remove NAM21NT from the PDC DEPENDING ON THE NETWORK ( i may also remove the eDirectory. There is a reason i mentioned netlogon being removed. I just didn't explain it to you. Why should i. Enough has been said - more than enough for me to chuckle for more than two weeks. You are definitely a serious bozo dude. Good stuff.
holyroller1
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zone_86 said:Most of those and many other tweaks would never be done on a very large company job, but on smaller networks where i can, and have permission to - be flexible (like a small midas shop or a small insurance office which i recently did) . Me... 15 Hollyroller1 LMAO. Hardly. Just like you i was laid off in the past and i am about your age (your 32 right?), but i though you were relaxing on severance as of a year ago? That would mean you had been an admin as of... a tad over a year ago. Surely you have some hands on experience there. No?
Netlogon NT: Depending Hollyroller1, on the network. I remove NAM21NT under Novell (if the network is on Novell). Then SAMSRVDll is replaced with the MS version - then i reboot the BDC to aviod data being redirected into the eDirectory. I also remove NAM21NT from the PDC DEPENDING ON THE NETWORK ( i may also remove the eDirectory. There is a reason i mentioned netlogon being removed. I just didn't explain it to you. Why should i. Enough has been said - more than enough for me to chuckle for more than two weeks. You are definitely a serious bozo dude. Good stuff.
Once again you open your mouth and remove all doubt. Once again you take clips from the net and end up making NO sense. I thought we were talking about WORKSTATIONS not PDC's BDC's ADDC's whatever.
And once again you resort to name calling and posting stuff that has NOTHING to do with your original claim.
Keep going buddy, dig deeper, and deeper.
holyroller1
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zone_86 said:
You still have not accounted for your original statements.
You are a genious. LOL!! The further we get into the conversation the less you make sense. It is amazing.
Actually, if you consider yourself beneficial to the comunity, you would be trying to make sense.zone_86 said:
And to be picky.
1. You started saying professional networks. (which came thru as big corporate networks)
2. Second you said networks with NT systems on them. (which came thru as nearly impossible nowdays...)
3. Third you stated small semi professional networks, like a "small midas shop" and "an insurance office"
(where you really have no point in using every single drop of bandwith and security on them since their attack threat isnt that high anyway...) (and could harm more than help...)
4. Fourth you haven't explained anything much after that. (If you discount your e-wang dance off with holyroller1...)
Fresh Daemon
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That's called the placebo effect.
I'm not. I'm having a go at someone because they are making unsubstantiated claims.
That may be something I'll look into. However, I don't know about you, but I don't use my computer for benchmarking swapfiles, I use it for gaming, web surfing, video, photoshop, etc. Therefore, I'm interested in the impact that tweaking will have on these tasks rather than on an abstract measurement. This is like the hard drive benchmarks for raw data which seem huge but don't seem to make any difference at the application level, or like the Sandra memory benchmarks which promise massive improvements in bandwidth (memory like OCZ Platinum is supposed to deliver more than twice the performance of value RAM, IIRC) but which don't end up making a difference of more than 3-4 FPS to a game.
This, to me, is the worst aspect of benchmarking: paper increases in performance that do not affect performance in real-world tasks in any measurable way.
You want me to time opening windows??? I would think that the variation in the speed at which I could press stopwatch buttons would mask any performance increases. Unless you know of a way in which I can measure this speed using the computer itself (as my human eyes and hands are too variable), let's stick to realistic performance measures.
OTOH, if you do know of a good way to do this, let me know and I will run it and add the data.
From where do you draw that impression?
The network tweaks discussion is off-topic and outside the scope of the original post. I'm trying to develop this into some sort of reference through peer review and revision, so if we could keep it on-topic as much as possible that would be good.
Well I believe Phoenix mentioned a benchmark that opens office programs seeing how long it takes to load the set. I suppose something like that would get the job done.
But like he mentioned all the fancy shit can be turned off with out the service it self having to be disabled. So on a service level I may have been mistaken. If you want o run the tests though I would be interested in seeing the results.
But like he mentioned all the fancy shit can be turned off with out the service it self having to be disabled. So on a service level I may have been mistaken. If you want o run the tests though I would be interested in seeing the results.
It wasn't even much of an argument. It was more that zone_86 spouted some BS without bothering to really wonder if it made sense or not. As more and more people asked for a description or an explanation, we've all had to put our boots on and grab our shovels. Most threads like this turn into dung heaps, just because some refuse to bother with facts. It amazes me how people like Shane above still insist on arguing the point, without understanding how services actually work.
That's why the stickies exist!
That's why the stickies exist!
Zone_86, you remind me of another user with "zone" in their name when they first came here...
Anyways, I strongly recommend you do some more reading on the subject. Do some searching on "preemptive multitasking" "paging" and "virtual memory" in technet. At the very least you should always consider that your position is wrong, and give youself an option to learn...
Anyways, I strongly recommend you do some more reading on the subject. Do some searching on "preemptive multitasking" "paging" and "virtual memory" in technet. At the very least you should always consider that your position is wrong, and give youself an option to learn...
Super Mario
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There are more reasons to disable services besides just performance gains. Disabling services strictly for performance is not a smart idea. However, it is a good idea to disable services if you just flat out do not want them running. I know some of the features services provide can be disabled without actually disabling services, but disabling the service as well ensures that IT WILL NOT start if you don't want it to.
There are features I hate and I will disable the services just to make sure they don't start. Some services will start even if you disable the feature. So I disable the service to make sure the service can't start.
So there is logic in disabling some services if you know what your doing. For all of you who constantly insist disabling services is a bad idea and if you know what your doing, you wouldn't disable any service. That is just complete arrogance.
Give me one example of how disabling the themes service does anything other than prevent the bloated ceye candy interface from running?? ANother words, tell me how disabling the themes service could break a critical function of the OS. The bottom line, iut doesn't.
There are features I hate and I will disable the services just to make sure they don't start. Some services will start even if you disable the feature. So I disable the service to make sure the service can't start.
So there is logic in disabling some services if you know what your doing. For all of you who constantly insist disabling services is a bad idea and if you know what your doing, you wouldn't disable any service. That is just complete arrogance.
Give me one example of how disabling the themes service does anything other than prevent the bloated ceye candy interface from running?? ANother words, tell me how disabling the themes service could break a critical function of the OS. The bottom line, iut doesn't.
holyroller1
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Super Mario said:
This is absolutely correct. The issue is there are those those who believe in disabling these services for the purpose of performance gains.