Slashdot Mirror
Windows Accelerators - Do They Really Work?
danila asks: "Today I came across an intriguing review of Windows tweakers on a Russian technology news site. Among the plethora of traditional registry tweakers, the review mentioned Hare 1.5.1. The developers promised nothing less than up to 300% speed increase, 10% FPS increase in 3D games, automatic RAM preservation and even a wizard that automatically cleans and optimizes Windows. It also had AntiCrash 3.6.1 a program to prevent up to 95.8% of Windows crashes. Understandably, I was both intrigued and suspicious since it sounded too good to be true." Has anyone tried this piece of software with any degree of success? How successful are other "windows accelerators" at improving Windows performance?
"After a little research I found that download.com didn't have it and there are precious few reviews of this revolutionary software online, but that it was endorsed by McAfee and that developers touted conformance with Microsoft's interface guidelines as an important feature.
Still suspicious, I gathered all my courage and installed both programs (silently preparing for something like Bonsi Buddy or XXX Toolbar) on my Win2k Pro machine (P4 1.6/512Mb). Truth be told, after several minutes I was blown away. Obviously I can't tell how well every promised features works, but disk caching (and pre-fetching) that Hare does is outstanding and display performance improved enough to scare me - windows were opening, minimizing and redrawing without the delay I was accustomed to.
The question is -- is it real or was I fooled by some clever placebo tricks? And if it is real, why isn't the Web full of success stories involving Hare and AntiCrash? Why isn't everyone installing them on every Windows machine in the world? And a rhetorical question -- why doesn't Microsoft incorporate some of the features into its operating systems."
Still suspicious, I gathered all my courage and installed both programs (silently preparing for something like Bonsi Buddy or XXX Toolbar) on my Win2k Pro machine (P4 1.6/512Mb). Truth be told, after several minutes I was blown away. Obviously I can't tell how well every promised features works, but disk caching (and pre-fetching) that Hare does is outstanding and display performance improved enough to scare me - windows were opening, minimizing and redrawing without the delay I was accustomed to.
The question is -- is it real or was I fooled by some clever placebo tricks? And if it is real, why isn't the Web full of success stories involving Hare and AntiCrash? Why isn't everyone installing them on every Windows machine in the world? And a rhetorical question -- why doesn't Microsoft incorporate some of the features into its operating systems."
Not that I like Macs all that much, but clock speed - when comparing the Intel x86 architecture with that of the PowerPC - doesn't mean much. I'm sure we could build a really neat processor that works at a 3.6 GHz clock speed and have it run slower than a 3.0 GHz.. oh wait.. Maybe you should research the hardware before you start bashing it with nonsensical crap.
Let's talk about something useful, like accelerating Linux... i mean, this is Slashdot, right?
I'm a chainsmokin' alcoholic sociopath, so-ci-o-path
The funny thing about any modern video card (as in, made in or after 1994) is that it has hardware acceleration for a lot of things. Including font rendering, blitting bitmaps, etc.
It also tends to have stuff like 8 to 16 pipelines. (Think: 8 to 16 pixels moved at the same time, for a total of 256 to 512 bits moved at a time.) It also sucks data through a much wider pipe than the CPU, has faster RAM, and has a metric buttload of cache.
Each pipeline is also hardware optimized for its job, and _much_ faster than _any_ software loop.
So I'll just laugh at people who think their silly data move tricks are going to outperform a 9800XT's hardware acceleration. No, really, it's so idiotic, it's downright hillarious.
That's one of the major problems with programming: writing some silly optimization that doesn't even work, is for a lot of people more fun than actually doing the job. They just have to do some idiocy like using an Exception for flow control, or using float registers instead of the damn GPU.
And the more speed they _lose_ in the process (not unusual to see a 10x to 100x speed _drop_), tbe more they're convinced they've gained 300%. They haven't actually measured it (in which case they'd see it's actually _lost_ speed), but they just "know" it.
They're so l33t that everything they touch turns gold, after all. No point in actually measuring, when you already know it's got to be faster.
And God knows there's no shortage of them infatuated enough to post their "cool tricks" on some web site, or make a l33t "windows accelerator" utility out of it.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
"stereotypical bullshit" is pretty funny. I'm certainly able to comprehend the options - It's when a 1337 d00d like you talks about running a crack for a game (read your original post, smart guy, you never said "I bought this game and then I cracked it because..."), there's usually one reason: you borrowed it from a buddy and want to play it w/o paying.
You're also a hypocrite: You claim that you, the mature teenager that you are, can "comprehend all the different options", while later in the same, run-on paragraph, you claim that I'll be voting for the "other guy".
Where's your "all options" comprehension here, genius? Do you even realize that there are more than 2 people running for President this year? Good job jumping to that conclusion. I guess when one can't vote, one doesn't bother to pay much attention. Go back to playing your cracked games, you nitwit.