Anyone up for some exchange of gaming tips? (Now I said tips not cheats) Like for me I have a way that I learned from a friend that I use to optimize my system for gaming so that I get the most FPS possible. So I will get us started with that helpful information.

This is a list of Windows XP services and other things that you can disable to get better performance out of your system by freeing up resources.

Services are programs that run when the computer starts up and continue to run as they aid the operating system in functionality. There are many services that load and are not needed which eat up memory space and CPU time. Disabling these services will free up system resources which will speed up your overall computer experience. I recommend that you sort through the list and read the descriptions to decide if you need that service depending on what you want to do with your computer. Remember, you can always turn the service back on if you find that you need it. Below is the procedure to turn off a service. It is a good idea to make a list or take some screen-shots of the current status of your services that way if anything happens you can always have something to go by to turn them back on.

Besides services that can be disabled there are also many programs that run in the taskbar that are not needed. A couple of these that you might have are your video cards quick access icon, Quick-Time and any instant messenger programs. Many other programs install a quick access icon to the taskbar, but most of these do not need to be running in the background slowing down your performance. To remove them from the task bar start by clicking start>run and type msconfig and click the startup tab and un-check anything that you do not need. You can always re-enable anything you decide you need. (It is best to disable these task-bar items in the registry but I will not get into that so you can't hold me responsible if you delete an entry that was needed.)

The only thing I have running in my task-bar is my anti-virus program. But if you are running a software firewall you may need to have it run for it to protect your system.

To disable a service do the following:
Click the Start > Select run.

Then type services.msc in the box or go to control panel and click Administrative Tools and then click Services.

Here is a list of services that most gaming machines don't need.

Alerter
Application Layer Gateway Service** (only if firewall is not used)
Application Management
Background Intelligent Transfer Service
ClipBook
COM+ System Application
Computer Browser
Distributed Link Tracking Client
Distributed Transaction Coordinator
Error Reporting Service
Fast User Switching Compatibility ** (only if fast user switching is not used or the machine have one user only)
Help and Support
IMAPI CD-Burning COM Service** (only if do you not use the cd-rw xp record support)
Indexing Service
Internet Connection Firewall (ICF) / Internet Connection Sharing (ICS)
IPSEC Services
Logical Disk Manager Administrative Service
MS Software Shadow Copy Provider
Messenger**(This is not MSN messenger or windows messenger)
Net Logon
NetMeeting Remote Desktop Sharing
Network DDE
Network DDE DSDM
Network Location Awareness (NLA)
NT LM Security Support Provider
Performance Logs and Alerts
Portable Media Serial Number
Print Spooler ** (only if the pc do not have or use a printer)
Protected Storage
QoS RSVP
Routing and Remote Access
Remote Desktop Help Session Manager
Remote Procedure Call (RPC) Locator
Remote Registry
Removable Storage
Secondary Logon
Security Accounts Manager
Server
Smart Card
Smart Card Helper
SSDP Discovery Service
System Restore Service
TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper
Task Scheduler
Telnet
Themes
Uninterruptible Power Supply
Universal Plug and Play Device Host
Upload Manager
Volume Shadow Copy
Windows Image Acquisition (WIA)
Windows Installer
Windows Management Instrumentation Driver Extensions
Wireless Zero Configuration
WMI Performance Adapter
Windows Time

You can also disable your wallpaper and disable your screensaver to free up a little more resources.

My one and only tip is to shoot at anything and everything that moves. :angrygame

Great post, Foe

This one is simple, easy, and gets overlooked a lot: Run anti-spyware/malware programs frequently and defrag regularly. Spyware will eat up your system resources, and that will slow down your rig. Personally, i scan my system for spyware at least once a day and i defrag every 1-2 weeks.

Well these particular tips arent necessarily improving your play, this is more like decreasing everyone elses performance. I devised a list of a few tips on how to make everyone else suck, legitimate of course.

Anger: An easy way of decreasing performance is to make them angry. People cannot make decisions nearly as efficiently when their mind is clouded by anger. This can be accomplished by taunting someone when you kill them or team killing them.

Annoyance: When people are annoyed with you, they might go out of their way to kill JUST YOU which will make them more vulnerable to others. This can be accomplished just by saying stupid stuff randomly until someone mentions that they hate something.

Psych Out: A good pregame trash talk can sometimes do the trick. When people are intimidated, this can sometimes reduce their quality of gameplay. When people have no confidence in themselves or their team, they usually cannot play well. This rarely works, but if it does, the effects are deadly.

This is just a few things I learned from playing many online games.

Defrag Defrag Defrag! Installing huge games, and playing some of them (BF2 for one!!) creates havoc on a hard drive...defragging your hard drive with a good program (like Diskeeper 10) keeps your files in a nice, tidy little line so your computer can access them efficiently. Also, I run ccleaner quite a bit (www.ccleaner.com) to clear out dead registry links and such. The best part is it's free! A program I also run on my computer and any computer I build is TuneXP. Its a great little optimizer program that I got from a page at IGN (I'll post the direct link when post toolbar gets fixed). But, to point you in the right direction, the "guide" I got it from is somewhere at the IGN sites under Battlefield 2 Optimization Guide (something to that tune).

Here are the steps that I take when putting a fresh install of WindowsXP or tweaking anyones computer (like I had to do today...)...


Step 1.

Update your damn drivers!! Make sure that your video drivers are currently up-to-date. Nvidia drivers are at 81.97 at the moment and ATI's are something along 5.13 or so (I don't have an ATI card, so I really don't pay attention to when they release new drivers. Make sure that you get the driver specifically made for your operating system. You have Win2000/XP, get that specfic driver, you have WinXP MCE...get the MCE driver, etc... You can find the current Nvidia and ATI drivers at their respective websites here and here

Step 2.

DEFRAG!! Before you frag, defrag that hard drive I personally use Diskeeper10 which you can find here (you can try it for free for 30 days, or buy it. I think its worth it). You can also use the Windows default defragging program in your start menu (Start->All programs->Accessories->System Tools->Defragment) Though not as good as Diskeeper, it still does what its supposed to do: arrange everythign in a nice and neat order for your computer to mess up later .

Step 3.

Optimize that rig!! There is a program I like to use called TuneXP. You can get it here (don't worry, its free ). Here's the "guide" that I use, straight from IGN.com

Quote: Originally Posted by IGN.com TuneXP will allow you to tweak plenty of hidden settings that normally lay deep within the Windows registry. Not only should your Battlefield 2 and general gaming performance increase by using this, but so will your general day-to-day Windows usage as well. There are lots of things to change here so we'll walk you through them one-by-one. Note that TuneXP has excellent documentation, so you can always pick Help->Documentation and go through things that way. But we'll attempt to explain what's going on here and what you should do. Also note that you'll have to restart after making these changes, but hopefully that'll be faster in the future after applying these tweaks. Memory and File System Accelerate DLL Unloading This will clear DLLs from memory faster than Windows normally does. It's possible that you'll see a small gain in Battlefield 2's performance if you run a bunch of other apps beforehand, but we recommend leaving this off as it'll likely impact general system usage more than it would help you with Battlefield 2. Recommendation: Disabled Clear Pagefile on Shutdown This'll will cause your virtual memory file to be erased when you shutdown. It may make booting and early usage after a boot faster, but it'll make shutting your system down take longer. Use it if you like, but we'll just go ahead and recommend you leave it alone. Recommendation: Disabled Disable Page Executive This will load some Windows system files into RAM instead popping them into the pagefile (see above.) You'll need at least 512MB of RAM to use this but Windows should respond faster afterwards. Recommendation: Enabled if you have at least 512MB of RAM Faster Shutdown Battlefield 2 performance won't be impacted, but this is a nice tweak. It shortens the closing time allowed for applications which can speed up the Windows shutdown time significantly. Recommendation: Enabled File Allocation Size Tweak The allocation size for memory files will be tweaked. It should give you a small increase in general usage, though impact on Battlefield 2 may or may not be noticeable. Recommendation: Enabled Optimize Prefetch Without getting too confusing this tweaks the way Windows pre-loads DLLs. It should give a bit of an overall system performance increase. Recommendation: Enabled Increase NTFS Performance Every file in Windows has a "Last Accessed" timestamp on it. If you have no need to know this (most people likely don't) then enable this tweak to remove it. Files that are read will no longer have to be timestamped, so disc performance will increase. Battlefield 2 will likely load slightly faster, though since the game takes a while to decompress huge files it may only make a tiny dent in the load time. Still, it's good for your overall system performance. Recommendation: Enabled IO Page Lock Limit This optimizes the way large programs are handled in RAM. Select which option matches your amount of memory. Recommendation: Match RAM size Clear Prefetch Folder We recommend you run this now to clear out some cached files created by Windows. It's probably good to run this every now and then as well, but you'll have to remember to do so. Recommendation: Use it two to four times a month Defrag Boot Files This tweak will stick the files needed to boot Windows together on the drive, speeding up your bootup time. Not really any Battlefield 2 performance gain here, but it's quite nice. Recommendation: Enabled Disable Zip Folders If you have your own third-party zip application that handles compressed files, such as WinZip, go ahead and choose this. It will disable Windows' built-in zipping utility which will save you valuable system resources. Recommendation: Enabled Ultra-Fast Booting This is a two-part tweak that basically combines the Defrag Boot Files option with a disc defragmenter. As it says it'll help boot times which, while nice, won't really help Battlefield 2. Run this one overnight and be happy. Recommendation: Run Overnight Hardware Enable UDMA-66 As its name says, it'll enable UDMA-66 support for people with those drives. Unless you're only running Serial-ATA drives, go ahead and turn this on. Recommendation: Enabled Increase CPU Priority This will put a priority on whatever the main task that's running happens to be. It may not help all that much, but enabling this on a low-end system may help a bit. Mid-range to high-end guys probably won't see much of a difference, and it may actually slow things down otherwise. But you low-end guys, try running this while you're playing Battlefield 2 and see if it helps out. You'll want to turn it back off afterwards if you're system is negatively impacted otherwise, though. Recommendation: Enabled during play for low-end systems Increase USB Polling Interval The USB polling interval is the amount of time Windows waits to read from a USB device, i.e. possibly your mouse and/or keyboard. Unless you're running on a laptop and want to conserve battery power, leave this off or it may impact mouse response. Recommendation: Disabled Speed-Up Windows IRQ Handling This tweaks the way Windows deal with the system bus IRQ. We don't really need to explain it, just turn it on and you'll be happy. Recommendation: Enabled The rest of the options here are probably better left alone for now as they won't help Battlefield 2 at all or possibly even your system. The one exception is the Themes option under the Services tab. You can disable themes to speed up Windows, but it'll revert XP's look back to that of Windows 2000. No curved windows, no red X button, none of that nonsense. If you can live without all that, go ahead and disable themes. You can always turn them back on if you prefer. Full guide here

Step 4.

KEEP CLEAN!! I download two programs that work very well together in ensuring that your computer stays in tip-top fighting condition. These programs are Ad-Aware Personal SE and Crap Cleaner. Ad-Aware removes nasty spyware and adware programs from your computer (Bonzi Buddy is not your friend, no matter how much he tells you). Crap Cleaner is a neat little utility that takes away unused, useless, and temporary files. The first time you run it, you will literally free up about 200-900MB of space, depending on how much crap you have on it. Also, it will remove dead registry links from your registry that Ad/Remove Programs doesn't do. WARNING: CCleaner will remove your saved passwords, so you will have to retype those in again.

Step 5.

SUCK IT UP!! Your machine may have been "kick-ass" three years ago, but chances are it can't do squat with todays games. You may have to upgrade. This could be costly (depending on how much upgrading you plan on doing). You may only need to upgrade your RAM size (512MB doesn't cut it anymore for gaming I'm afraid, at least in my opinion, 1GB will do you fine though). This you will have to research more on your own because everyones needs/wants/abilities is different.

Step 6.

OPTIMIZE THE GAME!! The default settings are there for a reason . Chances are those are the settings that will work best and look the best on your set-up. Fiddle around with different settings to get smoothest gameplay with the best eye-candy your system can withstand. Of course, after fiddling with it, you may have to resort to Step 5 and suck it up .

I think that about does it for my "optimization guide". Game on fellow gamers, Game on!

Nice guide Foe.

I always use GameXP to tune my gaming systems, its quick and easy and does the job

http://www.theorica.net/gamexp.htm

MORE COFFEE!!!!:biggergri:issues:

A question about services.msc: Is there any way to have different profiles that utilise different services setups on one user account, or would i have to associate a particular setup with a particular account?

What i'd like to do is have one services configuration for gaming, one for benchmarking, and one for general use. I'm just sketchy on whether or not i would have to create a new user account that utilises each setup or if i could create different setup profiles that i can load from one account. From what i've been reading in the OS help files, it looks like i would have to create different user accounts to do this, and before i did that, i wanted to ask the opinion of folks who know more about it than i do

droe
I think you have to associate a different account with a different setup, but let me check and find out for sure.

Few more tips,

*Always keep reloading ur weapon (U never want to run out of bullets when shooting at someone)

*If the game has a sprint use it to get to where you want to go, more game times equals more kills. Also if u sprint u can run throu tripwires without blowing up.

*Spectate other players once in a while, u might learn something.

*When sniping sometimes it's best to stay on a ground level floor of a building, everyone always looks at second floor first.

*Take advantage of gernades, if people are in a room toss one in and let them come out to u.

Well thax all i can think of right now.:angrygame