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System Optimization Guide for Gamers
Mr.Tweak writes "We have written a comprehensive System Optimization Guide targeted toward Gamers looking to get the most out of their systems for all of today's latest highly demanding PC games. Take a few minutes of your life and read this System Optimization Guide for Gamers where TweakTown promises you will find something of use which will have you gaming at full speed in no time."
I used to spend days tweaking my settings, getting the latest drivers, etc... SCREW IT!
The only way to really get performance is to get good hardware. No amount of tweaking your old Geforce 2mx is going to get the same performance as a Geforce 4 ti4200 even with the worst system settings... Prove me wrong people!
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Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
(I couldn't read the article...slashedoted already)
Unless its an super easy reversable change forget the tweaking stuff on Windows.
Its just to easy to screw up your system. A less than optimal system still plays WC3 fine on good hardware. Trying to squeeze another 5% smoothness out during 5% of the gameplay isn't awe inspring. What is worse is that you could screw up your system or driver and then you have a non-functional game machine. Reinstalling Windows isn't fun when you were expecting to meet up with friends and play some WC3.
Hardware has more of an influence on performance than mucking with frindge software elements. For my game machine, I just want it to work. If I have to tweak something then I'm better off replacing what is flaking out.
The worst stunt I ever pulled was running a p133 at 200 mhz INSIDE A FREEZER (with mucho duck tape to let the relevant cables going in and out without losing insulation). It worked for quite a while. I realized it was rather pointless although it made for a few laughs to the few people who even know what overclocking was. I decided it's really not worth my time when I figured that it's often cheaper to buy the next better processor than spend god knows what in cooling devices.
That said, it remains my honest opinion that anyone who wants to cool down things inside his pc case and puts glowstrips and/or neon tubes in it (increased heat) is a moron and should be laughed at. What's next, a Stirling engine running as a kinetic cooler on top of the heat exchange?
So they have written a manual for non technical people to really screw up their systems?
I can feel the pain already.
1. They reccomend futzing around in the bios. BIOS is a no no even if you know what you are doing. Most people who really know hardware stay outta the BIOS unless it is absolutely necessary. The standard settings are usually the best, and unless you need to free an IRQ, or change the boot device, leave it alone. Anyway these days BIOS kinda maintain themselves. Flashing the BIOS as well, Christ on a rubber crutch, don't get me started. Unless you really need some feature don't do it.
2. Overclocking? With AMD high ends running at such low prices why? The cost spent on all the fancing cooling devices can be used to just buy a better CPU. I dont overclock, admittedly I did drop 35bucks on all copper heatsink with heat pipes, to cool the new Athlon, but i think it looks cool,(like anyone is ever gonna see it anyway). LAst thing you need to do is get some newbie burning up his chip/board/ setting the curtains on fire, voiding his warranty.
I think this whole article is really bad advice for the non technical person. Because any tech worth his salt would not advise any of this stuff for a few more FPS.
I would say the best advice is quality hardware and don't pinch pennies when buying it. Aside from the ultra high end video cards, stuff is really cheap these days.
Here is my guide to a good system. I judge it by having the case cover on and how often do I have to get in there and open it up. New computer three months old, burn in 3 days, I havent had the case off since. And I am a hardware nut.
This whole tweaking thing is like the ricers. Just spend the money that you would have dropped on fans,pumps, copper, heatsinks, on the high end stuff to begin with.
Puto
Imagine the support calls.
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
Kids, don't try this at home.
All I want is a kind word, a warm bed and unlimited power.
"I recommend only one account (the Administrator) for fastest performance... If you have only one User account (as recommended above) and you leave your password field blank you shouldn't be prompted for a username and password each time you bootup XP. This is the fast way to bootup."
So only have one account, the Administrator account, use it all the time, and don't put a password on it. Great advice.
This article might matter if you're a student who inherited your family's old PC and want some hope of playing new games on it. Otherwise, it's irrelevant. You can buy a nice 2.4GHz Pentium 4 with a GeForce 4 for under $1000. Actually, you can go below $800 pretty easily right now, if you keep your current monitor. PC performance has been leveling out lately, and the capabilities of what now sells for $800 have barely been scratched.
I'm a game developer. I used to do high-end 3D game development on a P2-450 with 128MB of memory. I shipped commercial products on that system. It was a tad slow, but that was more because of swapping than anything else. Then I moved up to a P3-866 with 256MB. Now that was a nice system: very fast, no swapping, no complaints at all. Again, I shipped commercial products on that system, and meanwhile the gamer kiddies were all moaning about how you can't survive without anything below 1.5GHz or whatever. Heck, Dell advertising claims that a "low end" 1.8 GHz P4 is good for internet browsing and email. Then I moved up to the typical 2.4GHz system that everyone is buying these days. I can't really tell the difference. Compile times are faster, but they were pretty quick anyway.
Bottom line: If a game runs crappily on a system like this, then the developer should be put out of business. There's no excuse. Why mess with this stuff anyway, when you can buy the hassle-free game console of your choice for significantly less than a Radeon?
As a zealot tweaker, I disagree that tweaking is useless. First off, if someone thinks they are going to double the speed of their system with some tweaks, thats ignorance. Tweaking serves two purposes for games: performance and quality. You know how often you can goto a support forum for a new game and see people saying, "Why does ___ run so slow?" and they dont realize they have all of the default game graphic settings on, which probably including shadows, realtime lighting, antialiasing, anistropic filtering and such. Understanding what these settings do can GREATLY improve your experience. No, this is not like buying a Radeon 9700, but thats $320, and this is free w/ a little time. Saying that tweaking is useless is like saying that recompiling your kernel is pointless if it works. Don't whine about people bothering to make the most of their hardware, no one is forcing you to do the same.
"What can a thoughtful man hope for mankind on Earth, given the experience of the past million years? Nothing." -Bokonon
I quit being a nerd after working in IT for several years. Now, I really want to spend as little time in front of a computer as is humanly possible. I can't stand the damn things. I'm still a geek, but a different kind of geek.
Pretty worthless article to slashdotters. The jist of the article is: (1) Find out your equipment; (2) update your drivers and Windows.
What happened to the days of the computer cowboys? When did everyone lose their enthusiasm, their drive for computers?
When we grew up and had to make our living off them. When we had to spend long periods of time at freinds homes or parties fixing terribly mangled setups.
Or, more specifically, when we started to get a life.
The Internet is generally stupid