Optimising an aging pc

[DBS]

Here are a few tricks to get alittle more performance from an aging pc.

· Close all background programs not necessary including your virus scanning software before a gaming session.
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· Set your virtual memory to a fixed amount 1.5 times the memory installed on your machine.(My Computer/performance/virtual memory.
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· Defragment your hard drive to keep things in order once a month.
· Nowadays be sure to have at least 512 mb of system ram. Win 98 there is a flaw with amounts over this so don’t waste your money. If you have a newer os it has been corrected.
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· To gain frames per second in a game turn off antialising and turn down anisotropic filtering . You will lose quality but game performance. It is a trade off and for online twitch games (UT,Q3, etc) any system lag will add up to a poor game experience.
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· Also remember if you game is studdering one solution is to lower the resolution to free up more video memory . Most games still look pretty good at 800x600 and you will see a great performance gain.
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· Also changing from 32 bit color to 16 bit color will degrade the quality some ( some games more than others) and this helps a lot in fast games where you do not want to turn off some of the bells and whistles.
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· You graphic card is a critical component in a computer gaming machine. Don’t go on the cheap here as the results will likely be substandard. You should at least have a GeForce 2 or equiv card and I would say even that tech is pretty old nowadays. Most games today are using pixel shaders which a GeF 2 ,GeF 4mx do not have. The other side of this is a slow processor can not fully utilize the top of the line video card as at that point the processor is the bottleneck and you spent top dollar on the card. If you have an aging processor go down a notch or two from the top. The Geforce 4 4800, ATI Rad 9800 etc are powerful cards at a good price.
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More will post with more advice and knowledge and by no means am I an expert. Hope it helps some as I am nursing an older system myself.

[E.T.]

Many good points here DBS.

[1] I learned the hard way regarding effects of antivirus software [caused both loading & performance ticks].

[2] The issue of exceeding 512 ram w/Win98 [point of "diminishing returns"

[3] Graphic card being critical hardware to upgrade, its where I should have prioritized expenditure on my old system [which I miss :( ]

I want to state relative to this subject that replacing my old system with a new one was not all that I thought it would be. The biggest gain experienced on my new system [for me] is the stability of the OS [XP]
I have had but a few CTD & zero freezes w/XP.
In second place is the uprgrade of optimized GPU. I see spectacular things in old games I never knew existed!
My dissapointment was in expectations of CPU performance; I multiplied mhz speed by over five times![& boubled/upgraded ram to 512Rd] Other than marginal FPS in game, contrasts in speed is marginal. [Except for boot up time, which is almost instant!]

While I love my new system, your advice would have gone far on my old one. Changing OS to XP & spending big on GPU & drivers would have extended the life of my old P3. :D

E.T.

[Aku]

I got the most out of my old machine for five years by getting it to run as clean as possible. After te last of my upgrades, it was a P3 600 with a GeForce 2 and 416 RAM, WIN98. The only things it started on the boot were explorer and systray. I kept the drive defragged ran cacheman to optimize the memory settings, set display to 16 bit, and ran just about everything at 800x600. I partitioned the main drive, put Windows off by itself, and all the games and other apps on the other drive (and on a second physical drive). It ran great and was virtually crash-free for years.

[moya]

There are also quite a few good detailed guides available over at www.tweaktown.com

See this link for the full list:

http://www.tweaktown.com/document.php?dType=guide

I recommend browsing through the two WinXP guides (From Reformat to Relax, From Relax to Righteous) which were very helpful for me.

[Suicides-by-Steve]

<div class=\"smallfont\">There are also quite a few good detailed guides available over at www.tweaktown.com

See this link for the full list:

http://www.tweaktown.com/document.php?dType=guide

I recommend browsing through the two WinXP guides (From Reformat to Relax, From Relax to Righteous) which were very helpful for me.</div>

Heh, I think DBS submitted this as a How-to article Moya... now don't show him up! LOL ;)

[E.T.]

<div class=\"smallfont\">Here are a few tricks to get alittle more performance from an aging pc.
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More will post with more advice and knowledge and by no means am I an expert. Hope it helps some as I am nursing an older system myself.
[/font]</div>

Hey DBS, are you still running the "ole" P3. 800mhz?
Take all your profits from your ebay game $ell off [lol], & buy that new system, what hardware are you dreaming about [AMD or Intel etc]?

[DBS]

I earn enough to keep me in software by selling older software but since I seem to always be looking for the next great game the cash never collects too long. I am probably going AMD next time to save on cash and looking to upgrade around the HL2/DM 3 events coming soon.

[moya]

<div class=\"smallfont\">

Heh, I think DBS submitted this as a How-to article Moya... now don't show him up! LOL ;)</div>

LOL, oops, sorry! There's also the fact that most of the "Hints and Tips" and "Cheats" forums could be replaced by www.gamefaqs.com, but we won't get into that!