Try a 'CLean Boot' if you have performance issues

[Tracer 0]

Ok i posted this in 'General' and it's died a death over there, so if a mod would please delete it. Thankyou

I had bad,bad texture loading probs with Oblivion when the game started to 'sprout' Oblivion Gates all over the land! My game would stutter and then crash!

I found out that MS suggest a 'Clean Boot' to reduce the intensive background progs that run -sometimes needlessly and reduce the page file size.

The page file get's huge on todays machines due to so many processes running; V.Scanner,spy ware progs etc,etc.

This amounts to a lot of background processes hogging RAM and most notably, the CPU.

Clean Boot works a treat with ArmA and any game that's massively intensive (for me any way, you have nothing to lose by trying it)

So without further ado;

I would suggest disconnecting yourself from the net (put your modem in stand by or pull out your router plug) as it may disable your firewall etc. Or follow 'The computer is connected to the Internet' part of the Clean Boot method.

Anyway, here's what to do:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/331796

Note You may experience a temporary loss of some services functionality when you follow these steps. Restoring the settings restores the functionality.

1. Click Start, click Run, type msconfig in the Open box, and then click OK.

2. On the General tab, click Selective Startup.

3. Under Selective Startup, click to clear the following check boxes:

• Process SYSTEM.INI File

• Process WIN.INI File

• Load Startup Items

4. On the Services tab, click to select the Hide All Microsoft Services check box, and then click Disable All.

5. Click OK, and then click Restart.

To resort back to your 'normal' machine just select 'Normal Startup' at the top and presto! your machine is as it was.

See how you get on?

Oh and if a mod would make this a sticky it would be cool since it is officialy from MS

[troop 0]

As an alternative, Google for

'EndItAll 2'

(fully configurable once; what to exit, kill, lock, ect. )

benefit: No reboot required for the same 'clean' effect.

(~16-20 essential processes left running)

Reboot required only for normal startup (with all programs)

and no fiddling with msconfig. You save one.

I love this prog (prepare for gaming immediately)

ymmv

[fasad 1]

A better alternative is to remove all unnecessary programs and services permanently, but that is a bit beyond the scope of these forums.

[Tracer 0]

Yes but the idea is to put something (Clean Boot) that's officialy supported by MS and is also for diagnosing problems or conflicts as well as freeing up a much larger pagefile than

EnditAll2. Edintall2 doesn't do that as it doesn't go anywhere near as deep as Msconfig and only closes 'running processes'

Msconfig (Clean Boot) kills deeper and of course processes can be killed permanently, just like Enditall2

Remember this is for everyone to try and not feel like they will knacker their machine since it's MS endorsed, unlike Enditall2 which hits those that are not sure with a nice little disclaimer

Quote[/b] ]You can crash windows or lose data

hardly installs confidence for the average 'joe' does it?

[ck-claw 1]

used this 'tip' when i had a go at bf2(yeah i know!! having trouble sleeping now)!!

and it made bf2 run hell of a lot smoother!!!

[Messiah 2]

cheers for this, will give it a go

[neildood 0]

Smartclose is another great program that will end background tasks you no longer need (leaves me with 19 processes running from 29).

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/smartclose.html

[desertfox 2]

I can only recommend to read the MS knowledgebase article.

A clean boot will do a lot for performance.

When I bought Arma, I formatted my C drive the day before and set up WXP from the scratch. After installing ArmA it ran smooth like chinese silk.

Now, a few months later, and with a dozen more programs installed, it partitially lags like jack. All because of god knows how many system processes, and some HDD fragmentation on top of that.

[Tracer 0]

Thankyou Desertfox -at last someone sees what this is about

People are getting confused with simple running processes  that you close manualy (when you press Alt+Ctrl+Del and close them or use EndItall2)

Sorry guys your way,way off!

As Desertfox has said, read the knowledge base properly and give it a go if you find games sluggish etc.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/331796

[ck-claw 1]

used this 'tip' when i had a go at bf2(yeah i know!! having trouble sleeping now)!!

and it made bf2 run hell of a lot smoother!!!

Did that not back you up aswell???

[Jack-UK 0]

Seeing as the thread has been unstickied i'll stick this in my Hardware tips and tricks thread, im sure this information will be well appreciated.

[Hostilian 11]

I run CCleaner occasionally (aka CrapCleaner).

Its freeware and doesnt have any spyware (that I know about).

It cleans old unused registry entries etc..

Google it and see what you think - though be careful what you choose to delete when you're running it.

#C