Am running Windows XP with an old Athlon 2GHZ and 512MB ram ... Can't really be asked to invest more money in this machine, but would like to have it a little quicker to play a few 'newish' games ... I've already set XP to best performance but that is about as much as I know about performance tweaking
I've seen that the bios would allow me to overclock to 2.4GHZ (2400MHZ) Could I risk that without killing the whole thing ?
Anyone experts here ?
Many thanks
Boris
Swallow a boiled egg whole.. that normally increases performance..
then subscribe..
Don't advise on over-clocking cpu. If you do get an industial fan to cool it
down, otherwise you'll get a chip-melt...
hmmm.. chip-melt...
Have a look at what program run in the background, anything you
recognise and think is pointless, take out to free some ram..
hmmm.. ram..
Whilst at a college, we were doing a course on Linux. Another student said that he got much better performance for gaming, if he ran online high end graphics applications, such as games, from the CLI in Linux. He reckoned his machine handled some games comfortably if ran like this whereas they fell apart in Windows. In this case, you don't have the GUI munching up valuable resources in the background.
Only one problem, whereas this worked with online games you'll have to get Linux friendly games and bin all of your Windies ones. 😛
More than anything else, buy more RAM. You can't just magically make the system faster. The CPU is fine, just increase your RAM for the latest crop of games to run properly. I've seen 1GB sticks for under $100. I would suggest adding at least 512mb more ram to the system. Depending on your motherboard, that can be had for $30-40.
Originally posted by calicycoThat's a blooming good point. More RAM is a good solution for a cheap price. It's even cheaper than that now. You can get PC3200 Ram for £50 a Gig. Older types, even less.
More than anything else, buy more RAM. You can't just magically make the system faster. The CPU is fine, just increase your RAM for the latest crop of games to run properly. I've seen 1GB sticks for under $100. I would suggest adding at least 512mb more ram to the system. Depending on your motherboard, that can be had for $30-40.
Originally posted by calicycoYes, increasing the ram should give you much better speed because Windows has to buffer data to the hard drive a lot more when you are only running 512k. However, here's some other tips for increasing computer speed:
More than anything else, buy more RAM. You can't just magically make the system faster. The CPU is fine, just increase your RAM for the latest crop of games to run properly. I've seen 1GB sticks for under $100. I would suggest adding at least 512mb more ram to the system. Depending on your motherboard, that can be had for $30-40.
* Update your motherboard bios! Especially on an older machine. Increasing the memory on an older machine w/o updating the bios will not increase your performance. It's a glitch in older systems.
* Defrag your hard drive. Since Windows has to use it to buffer data, it can really slow your system down if it' fragmented.
* Turn off all that extra crap WinXP wants to run (you said you did this already).
* If you have two hard drives and are looking for maximum performance, remove one of them. Your computer will work much faster with only one hard drive if you have enough space on it.
I do not recommend pushing the processor and that goes for pushed hard drives too. Use the default settings for these components.
Originally posted by arrakisDitto all of the above, except you can overclock maybe 10-15% and
Yes, increasing the ram should give you much better speed because Windows has to buffer data to the hard drive a lot more when you are only running 512k. However, here's some other tips for increasing computer speed:
* Update your motherboard bios! Especially on an older machine. Increasing the memory on an older machine w/o updating the bios will not i ...[text shortened]... ocessor and that goes for pushed hard drives too. Use the default settings for these components.
get away with it but you should use the temp. monitor and closely
watch the cpu temp. Overclocking works but the cpu gets hotter
if you push it too far and can cook.
Originally posted by jimslyp69SETI Institute's performance charts also showed better performance for linux boxes over windows, in their distributed search-for-aliens screensaver ...
Whilst at a college, we were doing a course on Linux. Another student said that he got much better performance for gaming, if he ran online high end graphics applications, such as games, from the CLI in Linux. He reckoned his machine handled some games comfortably if ran like this whereas they fell apart in Windows. In this case, you don't have the GUI mu ...[text shortened]... with online games you'll have to get Linux friendly games and bin all of your Windies ones. 😛