Updated: August 6, 2008--------------------------------
Microsoft has published a
Vista Performance Guide. It does require SP1 for Vista to be installed. There are a couple of thigns in the guide that might be helpful, but ignore the SuperFetch and ReadyBoost claims on how they improve performance. The performance gains come at the expense of other applications that depend on memory being available to use that is suddenly being used by the operating system.
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As of today, I am now on a Vista Ultimate based computer. The last week, I have been trying to get things settled down enough to get this computer to play the game well.
Along the way, there are some things I discovered. What I would like to accomplish in this thread is to come up with a streamlining list of things people can do to help them get the most out of their computer and the game.
I really expect this to be a thread of discovery, more than anything else, even though I have worded it as a tutorial, as that is the eventual intent.
With that, let's get started! The computer I am working with has the following specifications
Operating System: Vista Ultimate
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6300
Memory: 1GB DDR2 PC6400 (no giggles please; this seems what OEM's are shipping)
Video Card: ATI X1600XT w/256MB of video RAM (better than most OEM video cards, but definately, in the lower 50% of performers)
Hard Disk: 400GB SATA 2.0 (it was laying around doing nothing)
Sound Card: Onboard cheapo Realtek (again, most OEM use cheapo sound chips)
Network: Onboard cheapo Realtek (OEM's like cheapo network adapters as well)
After a fresh installation of Vista Ultimate, and not doing anything, Aces High II would yeild about 50FPS, when in the tower and drop quickly into the 30's if I tried to do anything at all. This will be improved upon.
After going through and cleaning up errant processes, I have gotten Vista down to using around 330MB of system RAM. I am sure there is more to be gained, but I think this is a good place to start. The default memory usage after a clean installation of just the operating system was around 900MB. This will vary based on various drivers you have installed.
The drivers used all came with Vista, except for the sound card/chip (I installed it from the CD which came with the motherboard). As it happens, the ATI driver with Vista does not come with the ATI control panel, which is actually a good thing due to the overhead of the ATI Catalyst Control Center (even when it is not running).
The goal with the hardware was to get something fairly representative of what OEM's ship with Vista. Now, on with the tweaks.
NOTE: The following is completely up to the user to do. If you chose to use any of the following suggestions, you do so at your own risk. 1) Right-click on the task bar, select the "Start Menu" tab, and switch to "Classic View". This changes the "Start" menu and makes it easier to get to some things. It will also place a few more icons on your desktop, which were hidden before.
2) Under the "Notification Area", uncheck the "Hide inactive icons". Only check "Clock" and "Volume" under the System icons list. The more icons you display in the task bar, the more overhead there is, particularly if the icon changes.
3) At this point in time you might notice a couple more icons on your desktop. Right-click on the "Computer" desktop icon. Select "Properties" from the menu that comes up.
From the left menu list, select "Advanced System Settings". From the "System Properties" panel, select the "Advanced" tab, then press the "Settings" button in the "Performance" section (should be the first one).
Now, check the "Adjust for best performance" option. Press the "Apply" button. Things will change dramatically on your desktop. Do not worry, you can always add various items back in at this panel. Do so now, and press the "Apply" button as you make each change to see what it does.
4) Now, get back to your desktop. Things should look a lot like Windows 2000 did. Now, to finish up the cleanup with the desktop. Open the "Control Panel", then select the "Classic View" option. Now you can open the "Administrative Tools" icon. Open the "Services".
Now, I cannot stress enough, this section can be risky. Just be careful and take your time.In this section, there is a list of possible services Vista will run. Some are already running, some are stopped, some run once, and some never run. It all depends on the software you have loaded. I should also note, there are several different versions of Vista available. Not all will contain the same set of services.
Find the "Themes" service in the list, which ships with all versions of Vista. Once you find that line item. Double-click on it. A menu pane will open up. In the "Service Status" section, press the "Stop" button. Next, set the "Startup Type" to either "Manual" or "Disabled". Then press the "OK" button.
Now, everything above had to do with the desktop and windows appearance. It also reduced the memory footprint of the operating system considerably and reduced the overhead for the video subsystem. It may not be pretty, but the goal is to make the operating system take as little resources as possible to get the job done.
Depending on which version of Vista you have, you might have noticed Vista seems to spend a lot of time accessing the hard drive and filling up the available memory of your computer. You can watch this action by opening the "Task Manager" (Ctrl-Alt-Del) and selecting the "Performance" tab. Watch the "Physical Memory" section. The effects are most noticeable after a fresh reboot.
Vista has several services which eat up memory very quickly. One of the processes causes an inordinate amount of disk activity. It is the services in Vista where we will start next.
