smoother running SH3 (increase FPS)

[WOD]

Here is the link to FreeRam XPpro
http://www.yourwaresolutions.com/

I think this one is one of the best freeware memory optimizers and much better than many full price products.

[Kpt. Kozloff]

you're welcome von Zelda

[irish1958]

I have used FSautostart for several years and have never had a problem with it. I use it on my laptop and it makes all the difference in the world for SHIII. Without it, I can't run the game; with it, it does fine.
I haven't tried the RAM cleaner, but I will try it and compare.

[codmander]

maxmem also good



http://www.analogx.com/contents/down...tem/maxmem.htm

[matttm]

Try this trick if you have 1GB+ RAM.

Go into:

My Computer - Properties

Select Advanced tab

Select Settings in Performance group

Select Advanced tab

Select System Cache in Memory Usage group

Select Ok and exit out. Reboot

This speed up the loading in Oblivion massively and NYGM 2.4 loads sweetly as well.

Matt

Originally Posted by matttm

Try this trick if you have 1GB+ RAM.
Go into:
My Computer - Properties
Select Advanced tab
Select Settings in Performance group
Select Advanced tab
Select System Cache in Memory Usage group
Select Ok and exit out. Reboot
This speed up the loading in Oblivion massively and NYGM 2.4 loads sweetly as well.
Matt

Thanks for the tip. I've just set it to System Cache even though I don't really know what that does. Some technical insight would be nice.

[Zantham]

Originally Posted by von Zelda

Thanks for the tip. I've just set it to System Cache even though I don't really know what that does. Some technical insight would be nice.

Did someone say "technical"??

Adjusting the Memory Usage setting between Programs and System Cache is basically telling Windows how to prioritize its memory. Windows can do caching to hard drive, and it can do caching to RAM. Obviously RAM is much faster than hard drive. When set to Programs, XP sets aside 8MB of RAM for caching. Set it to System Cache allows XP to use all available RAM (minus 4MB) for caching. This caching is dynamic, so you wont run out of memory. This setting allows XP to load its entire kernel into RAM as well, which can really speed up how responsive XP reacts. This setting can provide boosts even with as little as 512MB or even 256MB RAM, but to really benefit you need 1GB+ as von Zelda says. You will really notice the biggest difference with the System Cache enabled if you have to exit Sh3 for some reason and later reload the game (without a reboot inbetween).

If you're REALLY geeky, you can do as I do and run part of SH3 off of a RAM drive. I load a GWX campaign savegame in less than 30 seconds on my laptop . I have 3GB of RAM, RAID0 hard drives, and use a 1GB RAM drive and no paging file to accomplish this.

[scalelokt]

Originally Posted by matttm

Try this trick if you have 1GB+ RAM.

Go into:

My Computer - Properties

Select Advanced tab

Select Settings in Performance group

Select Advanced tab

Select System Cache in Memory Usage group

Select Ok and exit out. Reboot

This speed up the loading in Oblivion massively and NYGM 2.4 loads sweetly as well.

Matt

So just curious, should you only select system cache when playing games or can you leave it set there permanently? What are the advantages and disadvantages?

[Lightning61]

I personally wouldn't advise large system cache for a Windows system running games, since the cache for the system is resident in memory, and if the game tries to access those addresses you get the big crash.
I recently tested gaming on W2K server edition, (which has large system cache enabled by default), and with all the same tweaks I use in W2K Pro SH3 would not run well at all.
The main conflict was the sound card drivers trying to access memory already in use by the system cache.
This issue may be totally machine and/or sound card specific, but I don't feel it's worth the risk.

I'm not trying to rain on anyone's parade here, this is just my opinion. :hmm:

[Zantham]

It's safe to leave it set to System Cache. System Cache will try to load programs that are running into memory and leave them there (even after you exit), so that the program runs more responsive. It is dynamic, meaning that as other programs require the memory XP will automatically shrink the cache so as to avoid memory conflicts. If you have poorly programmed drivers (in my experience SiS drivers cause the most problems) you can run into memory issues in which case you may not be able to use the System Cache. You will most notice the effects of System Cache if you run a program you have already used before, as long as you havent rebooted in the meantime. For example, you played SH3 for a while, exited the game to eat lunch, then went back in, it should load noticeably faster the 2nd time, especially if you have lots of RAM and havent run other programs in the meantime.

A program I use in troubleshooting many computers is Autoruns. It used to be by SysInternals which was bought out by Microsoft. It can display any startup program in pretty much all locations. It can be found here:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sys.../autoruns.mspx
Also, here is a good reference for a whole lot of ways to maximise performance in XP.
http://www.tweakxp.com/performance_tweaks.aspx
Note that some of these are controvertial as to whether they really do much to help or not. Tweaking your system is mostly only useful to people with minimal system requirements. For example, when I first loaded Oblivion onto my laptop, my system achieved around 30fps in general. I had a ton of background stuff running (desktop enhancements, widgets, all kinds of junk, no antivirus tho). I then decided to tweak my XP, so I set up a dual-boot, shut off all unneeded services and startup items, applied most of the performance tweaks out there, etc etc and reloaded Oblivion. Guess what....I still only got about 30 fps walking the same test route as i had before in Oblivion using the same graphics settings as before.
So I tried the same thing on a friend's desktop...he could barely play the game on the lowest settings in Oblivion. So I optimized his system as I had mine, and reloaded the game....it turned out that the game ran a bit faster....except in parts where there was heavy graphics usage (ie: water, fog, lots of activity...), where it still slowed to a crawl.
So to make a really long story short.....how much performance you might gain by doing all these tweaks in this thread really depends a lot on your computer vs the requirements of the game. A computer that is min spec...is still going to be min spec no matter how you tweak the software

btw: sorry for the long post but this seems to be a fairly well-read topic with lots of good advice in it

edit for clarification