Got it. Many thanks. I may still play with my Windows settings. Also an online thanx to Dave Mergen for helping me figure out the world of AI. I don't know why I had such a hard time figuring out that stuff. Tom F.
On last thing you need to attend to is the Windows Startup
This area can be very dangerous if you do not know what you are doing but the bottom line is you need to see what is starting with Windows and kill it unless it must boot for game and system support. It can be done perminantly by getting rid of start programs like they did here:
http://www.simviation.com/cgi-bin/yabb2 ... 09/285#299don't do that yourself without someone guiding you who know what they are doing!!!
Or you can use MSCONFIG in the RUN box and under the startup tab, uncheck everything that is not needed for the system to boot which allows you to recheck it to enable later if you make a mistake or want something to start when you are not using it for games. You do not want to disable sound driver and other critical support. After you uncheck items in MSCONFIG will get a warning on Windows boot the system is running in a different mode, just select to not see the message again.
My list was huge (12-15 items) before I learned what I could get rid of and what had to stay, now it boots only 4 things.
AV and firewalls like Norton will crush a system even when its disabled. If you use Norton products, you will be fighting an uphill battle in getting the system free for game use.
AVG - Avast for freeware or NOD32 for payware AV are the best and if you are running WindowsXP SP2, dont use any firewall products, just the Windows firewall properly configured. With SP2 those 3rd party wirefalls do nothing but suck the life out of your system and provide little or no upgrade in protection for the type of use a typical user does. Unless you are a bank or some type of secrect agent running a 3rd party firewall is nonsense. Those security companies worked the public over real good years ago to scare them into using the junk firewalls. Many of them monitor you, like Norton, and send a report home so they are really spyware.
A good AV and the Windows firewall is all you need with a spyware program like Spybots Search and Destroy installed. Windows defender and a few others like spysweeper are ok, but those boot with Windows where spybots uses a simple browser plugin and does not kill your CPU cycles like the other programs.
You cant just unistall norton, it never goes away without a Windows reistall.
good luck
EDIT:
almost forgot!
If you are running a dual core AMD With XP SP2, you need to do this:
http://www.simviation.com/cgi-bin/yabb2 ... 795837/0#0 good luck!
by Falcon Fixer » Mon Apr 02, 2007 2:19 pm 
