windows xp optimisations for audio pc's
Djant
this section is very much in the alpha stages at the moment since i have
only just started compiliing it. useful information on windows xp is
starting to appear now as techies experiment with it and some decent tweaks
are now appearing...so here we go. if you find anything useful which is not
listed, please mail me with the link...thanks oh, and this page is not
really in any order at the moment so don't be put off if the first few
tweaks are a bit basic...
as always, before you start tweaking, ensure your pc is running correctly:
1. make sure you have no IRQ conflicts or memory range conflicts, if you
have, your system will not run smoothly and may not even work at all for
some things. you can check this by looking at the properties of each device
and checking for anything being written about conflicts.
2. make sure you have reliable drivers for everything. xp, like win2000 has
a lot of commonly used drivers so you won't need many except for your audio
hardware. the most recent drivers are not necessarily the best. check the
known bugs/issues list. try the driverguide along with the manufacturers
website. if you built the system yourself, make sure you've installed the
motherboard driver(s).
tweaks:
3. disable unnecessary 'startup' items. this, as in win 9x can be done by
clicking the start button, then run and typing msconfig. now go to the
'startup' tab and un-tick any items you don't feel you need. this method is
totally undoable (as long as the option doesn't stop windows from loading
properly) - just excercise a bit of caution but of course, you'll have
backed up all you files before you started tweaking anyway won't you?
4. windows xp now self-optimises to some extent. it attempts to monitor your
usage patterns and optimises the file system accordingly (every three days
upon system inactivity). at boot-time, it will pre-fetch some of the data
which is often used directly after boot-up which should speed up your
application loading time.
5. windows xp, like 2000 uses 'services'. these are individual windows
components which are specialised to run various functions. unnecessary
services can be disabled to preserve memory and processor power:
go to 'start' > 'run' and type services.msc - this should bring up the
services screen. set all services which aren't disabled to 'manual'. now
restart your machine (it will take longer to boot for just this time) and go
back to the services screen after a minute or so. any services which are not
started after you have used your audio applications should be ok to disable,
but you can leave them on 'manual' just incase. any services which are
started should be set to 'automatic' so that windows will start them when it
boots. do excercise caution though...and always back up you files before
tweaking...you should disable the services for any windows components you
have disabled as windows probabaly won't do it.
there are several 'generic' services that you probably won't use and should
therefore be able to disable such as:
'portable media serial number' - unless you have a portable music device
that you plug in to your pc.
'print spooler' - if you don't do any printing from your audio install you
can disable it.
'help and support' - windows alleged "help".
'telnet' - unless you use it, and if you don't know what it is, trust me,
you don't use it...
'error reporting' - as you'd expect, it's windows error reporting.
'task scheduler' - lets face it, it's awful but it now does some of the
aforementioned data pre-fetching. personally, i'd turn it off.
'indexing service' - for the microsoft 'search for files...' function
'fast user switching' - as the name implies...
'internet connection/firewall sharing' - if you don't use the net or share a
connection/firewall on this install, disable it.
6. as with all new-ish microsoft os's, xp has the oh-so-useful 'automatic
update' feature. you must disable this or prepare to lose takes...you've
been warned:
go to 'start' > 'settings' > 'control panel' > 'performance and
maintainance' > 'automatic updates' and select 'turn off automatic updating,
i want to update my computer manually'.
7. windows xp, like me has the debateably useful 'system restore' function
which backs up your system files periodically to try to ensure that you can
never kill your machine by dodgy installs etc etc. in my experience, system
restore is a bad thing as it uses a surprisingly large amount od resources
and causes a lot of disk activity which, while supposedly only running
during system inactivity, actually runs quite a large percentage of the
time. in a true audio system, it should be disabled, you can still make
restore points manually if you want to anyway...
right-click on 'my computer' and choose 'properties'> 'system restore' and
choose 'turn off system restore on all drives'.
8. boost overall system performance by increasing the irq priority of the
cmos real-time clock by doing this:
copy this:
REGEDIT4
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Contr
ol\PriorityControl]
"IRQ8Priority"=dword:00000001
and paste it into a text editor such as notepad or wordpad. save the file as
whatever name you want, perhaps boost_irq_priority with a .reg file
extension e.g. boost_irq_priority.reg - you can now close the text-editor
and simply double-click on the file you just created to enter the
information into the registry.
to undo this tweak, repeat the procedure but copy this instead into the text
file:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Contr
ol\PriorityControl]
"IRQ8Priority"=dword:00000000
you should find that your overall system performance increases from this
tweak.
9. make sure your DMA capable devices are run in DMA mode which uses much
less cpu power...right-click on 'my computer' select 'properties' > 'device
manager' and find and expland the entry named 'IDE ATA/ATAPI device
controllers'. now click on 'advanced settings' and check each channel and
each device on that channel. you should set the devices which are DMA
compatible (most new-ish devices are) to 'DMA if available'.
10. add the following line to your system.ini file after the [386 Enh] tag
so it looks as follows:
[386 Enh]
ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1
this makes the system use RAM more often rather than the virtual memory.
this improves system performance since RAM is much faster than the
hard-disk. (note: do not use this option if you have less than 128MB of RAM
installed) (Go to 'start'>'run' and type system.ini - a notepad will be
launched containing the system.ini file. add the above line after [386 Enh]
so it looks as above. there will be other lines in the section you're adding
to, just add it before them. now save the changes you made and close the
notepad - as ever, you will have to restart for the change to take effect).
also add or edit the entry after the [vcache] tag in system.ini so it
appears as follows:
[vcache]
MinFileCache=16384
MaxFileCache=16384
this limits the amount of your system memory (RAM) that windows uses as a
buffer or cache when reading from or writing to disk drives to 16MB instead
of the cubase default of 1/4 of your system RAM/Memory which is often too
high.
if the [vcache] tag does not exist in your system.ini, add it after the [386
enh] tag and it's contents so i looks as above.
11. audio machines always benefit from removing acpi (advanced computer &
power interface) as windows then has less control of your pc. go to control
panel > system > hardware > device manager > click on computer then double
click on Advanced Computer and Power Interface (ACPI) pc. click on the
drivers tab, then on update driver. don't let windows install automatically,
choose to select the driver from a list. select 'standard pc' then install
the drivers and allow the pc to reboot.
also, go to control panel > system > hardware > device manager > click on
computer then double click on standard pc (there may be 2 of them, do this
on both).
12. if you are experiencing pop/crackles from your soundcard, try optimising
windows performance for background tasks. it is not reccomended to alter the
performance options program-by-program as this has been known to cause
problems - be careful of altering program priorities with RME audio cards,
their website has the proper information on it as regards priorities. (go to
'Control Panel' > 'System' >' Advanced' and select 'Best performance for
background services' - or similar).
13. don't set your display resolution and bit depth too high, experiment
with different settings starting from 16 bit 800 x 600 and working upwards
with a reasonably complex song until the re-draws get slower then set it
back to it's previous setting (when re-draws were acceptably quick). don't
set your display to 256 colours as most new graphics cards do not accelerate
this number of colours meaning your processor will have to do the work
instead. rme advise that you keep the colour-depth at 16 Bits though this is
not always the best setting.
14. make sure hardware graphics acceleration is on FULL. this takes some
load off your processor (right-click on the desktop and select 'properties'
from the menu. now click on 'settings' then 'advanced' then
'troubleshooting' now set the 'hardware acceleration' slider up to full).
15. turn of visual effects. these consume unnecesary amounts of cpu time.
(control panel > system > advanced > performance settings > visual effects.
Select custom, de-select all options and apply).
16. set windows theme to 'classic' (right click on desktop, select
properties, windows theme - first option).
17. as always, the less icons and the less complex your background images
(desktop and cubase), the less 'background' cpu cycles and memory will be
used.
18. make sure that only one user is logged on at a time. individual user
accounts may be handy but windows actually leaves the programs and utilities
for each user open until that user closes them.
19. for us audio-users, the picture viewer in win xp should not be
necessary, it can be unregistered (removed from windows but not uninstalled)
by typing the following from a command prompt:
regsvr32 /u shimgvw.dll
20. is error reporting annoying you? you can enable or disable it by going
to to 'control panel' > 'system' > 'advanced'. now click on 'error
reporting' and choose either 'enable' or 'disable'.
21. want to disable windows apm? (automatic power mode) it may increase
system stability since windows will not then be in control of the power
section of your motherboard. on the other hand, you may want to enable apm
if you don't suffer a performance hit since your pc will then turn off when
you request it to from windows. either way, you can change the setting by
right clicking on my computer then clicking on 'properties'. now choose
'hardware' then 'device mangager'. next click on 'view' and then on 'show
hidden devices'. double-click on 'nt atm/legacy interface mode' and a new
screen will appear, you can now choose to enable or disable apm from the
menu at the bottom of this screen.
22. want to remove microsoft messenger? here's how...
find the file c:\windows\inf\sysoc.inf (replace c: with whatever you windows
install path is if it's not on drive c) and open it in a text-editor such as
wordpad. find the section which reads:
msmsgs=msgrocm.dll,OcEntry,msmsgs.inf,hide,7
and remove the word 'hide' so it reads:
msmsgs=msgrocm.dll,OcEntry,msmsgs.inf,,7
now save the file and go to 'control panel' > 'add/remove programs' and you
will be able to uninstall messenger.
this method should work for most windows applications/utilities which are
listed in sysoc.inf.
23. got xp pro? you can access lots of hidden features. just click the start
button then go to 'run' and type gpedit.msc - you will now be presented with
the 'group policy mmc' window. explore the tree structure to see all the
tweaks you can make...