Getting the most out of XP?

[Beery]

Apologies for the double post, but the 'tweaking' forum doesn't seem to get many hits.

I used to have Win98, and over the years I found a number of websites devoted to tweaking the system to get better gaming performance.  Are there any sites devoted to doing the same for XP?  I'm not really interested in overclocking or modem speeds for multiplayer, since I don't play games online, and having just bought the 'puter, I'm not too interested in opening the case and messing with the machine's insides.

Does anyone know some websites that go over simple configuration settings for windows, or any useful downloads for turning a home desktop machine into a superfast gaming rig?

Thanks.

[Brett_Henderson]

For reasons too numerous to post,, I can only give one bit of advice to a FS2002 user:

"Lose XP and stick 98SE or ME on there"

Here comes the hate-mail

[WebbPA]

Brett,

I was just mercilessly flamed ay another forum for suggesting that all the people whining about XP just dump it and get 98 - so get ready.

But I believe that 98 is just a better gaming platform, not necessarily a better general purpose platform but I'm happy with it.

Anyway, to help Beery, who seems inclined to stick with XP, I would suggest ExtremeTech.com.  And if you really want to get tweaked you'll have to dig into the BIOS.  Try a Google search for Windows XP BIOS tweaks.

The last time I checked the tweaking forum had a sticky post with some general purpose advice - shut down other apps, scandisk, defrag, that sort of stuff.  All good advice.

[BFMF]

But I believe that 98 is just a better gaming platform, not necessarily a better general purpose platform but I'm happy with it.

Why MS claimed XP was a better gaming enviroment, i'll never know

[Fozzer]

..Long live Win '98... ... ... ...!
..from all of us gamers out here.... ...!

Cheers...
Paul.
(England).

P.S. ...heads down lads... ...!

[RollerBall]

My mind is boggling

Don't know anything about XP Home 'cos I use XP Pro (having previously used 98, ME and FS2000 Pro)

XP Pro is great - very stable and quick. Best Windows OS I've ever had.

Win98 and Win ME are v bad memory managers in comparison to Win2000 Pro and Win XP Pro. I could go and make a cuppa tea while ME was loading FS2002 on my machine - and doing any painting or scenery work with it where you have to keep re-starting the system to see your work was more frustrating than ..... well, betta be careful what I say becos of all the younger readers!!

Unless you only have a donkey processor in your PC - and then it doesn't matter what system you run becos FS2002 will always be cr*p (ie all sliders and settings not on max) - then do yourself a favour and invest in the technology that gets the best from yr system. FS98 and ME surely won't!!

[Beery]

Seems I opened a can of worms with this one.  Whether I like it or not, I'm stuck with XP for now.

I'm really interested in finding tweaks to get XP running faster.  I once found a great site that helped me get my old Win98 system to run about twice as fast through making a few changes to various Windows options, cleaning up files that run in the background, using Cacheman, etc.  That's really what I'm looking for.

Is there a Cacheman program for XP?

[FSTipster]

If you pop over to www.guru3d.com you can pickup TweakXP - XP version of the old gem.

[cabj3]

Ha, Ha, people with slow cpu's and low cheap memory better stick with 98 first or second whatever, note this you can get all of the tweeks you want but you still want fix the problem with memory management, hell microsoft can't fix it fools. people wake up XP is the best yet for new hardware and software

[Beery]

Please let's not get into a pointless debate about whose OS is better.

[Oso]

http://www.annoyances.org/

http://www.answersthatwork.com/

http://www.ntfs.org/forum/index.php

hope these help.

[Brett_Henderson]

Well,, if we get right down to it,,, Windows(any version) is first and foremost a file mangement OS. Heck, displaying a desk-top at 800X600 pushes Windows to it's "graphical" limit.

Enter the biggest "patch of a repatched patch" : DirectX

Instead of EVER just designing an OS for gaming... we got "DirectX" and all the joys that came with it

[BFMF]

I have noticed recently that WinXP has a few memory leaking problems :-/

[Beery]

Okay, please forgive a little rant here:

Again, let's not get into a pointless debate about which OS is better.  One person believes that WindowsXP is worse than Win98, and another thinks that Windows in general is prone to crashes.  These issues are IRRELEVANT to the thread topic, and don't mean anything to a person who has XP, who is not going to change to a different OS, and who wants to find websites that will help him get XP to work more efficiently for him.  While I'm all for free-ranging and spirited debate, it's disheartening to find people changing the focus of a help-request thread into a meaningless backbiting session.  If folks want to debate Windows vs. Linux, or Win98 vs. WinXP, they should (in my humble opinion) please start another thread for that discussion.  When one finds, via the email notification system, that one's request for help has received numerous replies, it's kinda annoying to find that two out of three responses are from people with an axe to grind regarding something completely irrelevant to the discussion topic.  :-/

P.S.  Thanks to all the folks who have taken the time to respond with relevant info.  :D

[colly74]

Ok this site http://www.blkviper.com/index.html you see a picture of pretty boy on ever page :-/ but the Windows Service Configurations page is good. Out of 89 services, 36 are set to Automatic as DEFAULT, but, we MAY only need 8 running, less services running=more processing power for games,also you could try this site http://www.the-silver-lair.pwp.blueyond ... cripts.htm and here http://www.tweakxp.com/tweakxp/ .