speeding up vista with Core

[Tony]

For a while now I have been testing with vista64 and core drives. I have managed to tweak Vista to run quite a bit faster than normal (for me anyway) and i wanted to start a discussion to see what input you guys will have and to share my findings.
The tweaks I have applied suit 4GB of ram or more, if you run 32bit 4GB is going to be all you can use, for 64bit I really do suggest 8Gb of ram as it really helps vista even if you run standard HDD's.

To start I had a look at Vlite. All I did was add ICH10 IDE and raid drivers to the Vista 64 image so that the OS would use them during install. I did this as a few people mentioned this really helped with stuttering issues. It can be a pain using Vlite as you have to install other apps to get it going but i would say its well worth the effort. Also i will look at removing some of the fat out of vista64 and disable many of the services which I will never need. I know Nlite has many fans and trust me Vlite is just as good

EDIT 1 Chipset drivers

You need the INF drivers for your chipset, for most intel boards you need to go here to grab them, this is the 9.0.0.1008
Then if Vlite is not your thing place these drivers on a USB thumb drive or a rewritable CD and and wait for the format page on vista install, here you choose load driver and point Vista at the driver on the USB drive or CD (you have to swap CD's back and forth from what I remember) This will allow Vista to use the most upto date driver for the chipset...this is most important. For other chipsets just try to grab the INF files for them and copy the same instructions.


For my testing I am using the Biostar IP45 board. 8GB 1066 Reaper (running 1000 as its dead easy to setup) CPU is E8500 at stock clocks.

Once in Vista I started attacking the items I knew would make the drive stutter.

Make sure you are logged in as the administrator to do all these changes

Hibernation....disabled http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/1...windows-vista/

write cache...enabled right click on the SSD properties in device manager, go to policies and make sure both the cache options are checked.

This is an alteration to what I was first advising. The reason being ATTO benchmarks actually went down quite a bit for the large file writes during my testing 2 drives in raid 0 with a 16k stripe..BUT real world testing and benchmarking with PCMark vantage showed huge improvements using the inbuilt performance tweaks in Vista.

Defrag..........disabled my computer, right click on the Core drive, properties, tools, defragment...un check schedule defragment this drive

system restore....disabled Right click my computer...properties...advanced system settings...system protection tab...un check C drive and follow on screen instructions


search indexing....disabled Start...control panel...classic view...administrative tools...services...scroll down to windows search and right click...properties...change startup type to disabled

Drive indexing...disabled (both SSD and Ram drive) my computer, right click on the Core SSD drive, properties, un check Drive indexing...follower the small wizard guide and wait for it to finish.

superfetch.....disabled start...add search entry regedit then hit regedit.exe. Goto...Hkey_local_machine\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet \Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters...rightclick EnableSuperfetch...hit modify and change 3 to 0 and hit OK

prefetch......disabled Start add search entry regedit then hit regedit.exe. Goto...Hkey_local_machine\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet \Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters...right click Enableprefetcher...hit modify and change 3 to 0 and hit OK

Now.... Start...control panel...classic view...administrative tools...services...scroll down to superfetch and make sure its "disabled" on startup


pagefile....disabled Right click my computer...properties...advanced system settings..advanced tab...performance..settings...advanced tab...Virtual memory...hit change...un check "Automatically manage paging file for all drives" and then check "no paging file" and hit set

8.3 file name support...disabled (http://www.technipages.com/vista-dis...e-support.html)

vista set to performance mode Right click my computer...properties...advanced system settings..advanced...Performance...hit the settings box and check Adjust for best performance

Readyboost drive is installed (rally2 2GB)

Hey I found another place that Windows uses Defrag lately. It's when booting. Please let others know this tweak.

http://tips.maxabout.com/tid0005003/...efragment.aspx

To disable:
Set HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Dfrg\BootOpt imizeFunction\Enable
from 'Y' to 'N'.

next up I installed RamdiskVE or the free beta that also works with Vista located here set the app to use 2GB for a ram disk unformatted. Set to create a temp folder and load and save to an image at boot and power off. I then placed the IE cache onto this ramdisk setting max space to 250MB within IE properties.

For IE go to Internet options...on the General tab look for "Temporary Internet files" and hit settings. Set the box size to 50MB or 250 etc then hit Move folder and pint IE to the Cache folder you made on the ramdrive.

For Firefox3:

1. Open a new tab and type "about:config" in the address bar and hit Enter.
2. Right click anywhere on page and from context menu select "New" and "String".
3. For string name, type in "browser.cache.disk.parent_directory" (without the quotes).
4. For string value, type in the path to where you want to move your cache directory. IE D:\browser_cache if D is the ram drive and you created a folder caleed browser_cache.
5. Restart Firefox.


Control Panel/System .. Environmental Settings
There are USER and SYSTEM setting for TEMP/TMP directory.
Change them in directory outside of the SSD. (did not try to test on the RAMDRIVE... i think its risky... but if you feel like experimenting ).


If you use outlook you could also place the PST file on this ram drive. each time you power on the ramdisk image would be loaded and so you would see the PST and the emails etc within, as you log off the image would be updated and the PST file saved.

If you use 8GB and have a large PST file you could always have a 4GB ram drive, the downside though is the image has to be mounted onto the ramdrive at boot and updated at power off, this does take a few mins(power off) and delays power on slightly. The bonus of using the ram drive for browser cache and PST is that these files are constantly updated, the data base grows as you use the PC with the browser cache over writing its self constantly. We all know by now that the core SSD has to erase bits before it can write bits so if you leave the cache on the drive its constantly writing and erasing, so using up precious I/O's randomly.
With the ram drive you write the cache on a super fast I/O friendly drive and then back it up with linear writes as you power down...(just what the SSD needs )

I have probably forgotten some of the tweaks so i will add to this post, please post your thought and if you decide to try this your findings. My browsing for near 2.5hrs was super fast...the fastest i have seen using IE and certainly faster than FF on my regular workstation. I even video'd myself with a Philips webcam 30FPS 800x600 for 20 mins while browsing, looking for stuttering in IE (which it did not) then I loaded WME9 64 edition and converted the mpg file to wmv while browsing again to see if the drive would stutter and show me issues in IE...it was fine here also. The capture dropped no frames either so browsing and video capture was fast and smooth.
This is about as regular as i can get to what people do with their systems and I saw no issues but i would like others to test and comment also.

Please do not turn this thread into a moanfest, I will watch and moderate the thread to keep it on topic..add some input and test, you may just find we find a work around for some of the issues.

Edit 17th Nov 08:

Been running a 32 Bit Install of Vista for 3 weeks now on an OCZ 15" Laptop DIY. Thought I would list my exact setup for you as this has proved fast and trouble free.
There are some changes to what is listed above and i will explain how these were done.

hardware: OCZ DIY Laptop, 4GB OCZ 667 sodimms.OCZ Core V1 SSD 60GB (V2 would be even better this was just a spare drive)

I did initially Vlite trim Vista 32Bit, but then i found *Tiny vista* on the WWW. Now OCZ are not encouraging you to download illegal software here..i did install my own CD key into the Tiny Vista image to make this copy legal. You could of course just apply the same hacks to a standard vista image if you choose. Tiny Vista is hacked down to fit on a standard CD...its a lot smaller than a standard vista install and IMO is what vista should have been like from the onset.
Also make sure Vista has SP1 slipstreamed

The tweaks will work with standard Vista also so don't think you have to trim Vista as you don't...but I am sure it helps

Most important...USB key or CD with the newest driver for the chipset and SATA controller on your system...this needs to go onto Vista during the F6 install just before you set partitions and format the drives.

1 Load vista once on the desktop check the chipset drivers and SATA drivers are the newest ones you loaded during the install, if they are not install the new drivers now and reboot.

2 Here is where you apply all the tweaks...ONLY once all drivers are loaded.

3 tweaks from the list above I have done:

Disable Hibernation
Write cache
Defrag disabled
system restore disabled
search indexing disabled
drive indexing disabled both SSD and ramdrive.
superfetch and prefetch disabled
pagefile disabled
8.3 file name support...disabled
vista set to performance mode

Readyboost drive is installed Now this is one of my new slick tricks so i need to explain...read down for the ramdisk section.

Bootup defrag disbaled


RamdiskVE or the free beta

With only 4GB ram in this laptop this proved to be the best compromise for speed i found.

ramdisk size 750MB

2 folders for Internet browser cache, FF_cache and IE_cache. IE cache folder size set to 75MB.

This leaves 675MB to play with, now I have to leave some space for the FF cache so here is what you do next.

Right click on the ram drive, go to properties then readyboost. Set the slider to reserve 600MB for system speed, this will leave 75MB for FF cache

Now you have to remember to set the ramdisk driver to save and load an image at shutdown/boot, as long as you do this the drive will auto format and mount the image on every boot. I tested formatting fat32 vs NTFS to see if fat32 was faster...I could see and feel no difference so the choice is yours.

Now this is my laptop setup, desktop setup is different due to 8GB ram available and vista64bit use. I will update with a nice easy setup for this also later.

[teebo]

Can you include instructions for all the steps Tony? Aside from vlite as that may be quite long, but for the Vista tweaks.

[Marshall]

Right. And these work for ALL HARD DISK in general and not specific to SSD.

[Tony]

It speeds up Vista for sure, so any HDD will see speed gains here. One that I am looking at is defrag, even SSD looks to need defragging to run at optimum speed but we need something that seriously defags the drive then you can schedule it once a week and it should take no time...im thinking O&O maybe here.

teebo

I will try and get a guide together and post it for you.

[teebo]

awesome, ty

[Tony]

Take a fresh read.. i explained how to do most things now

[Tony]

Having a rethink on the disk caching options in Vista, in raid 0 with a 16K stripe im getting good results with the options enabled...more soon

[Naser]

Tony aka Big Toe !!??

Okay ive been using raid-0 since forever, with scsi,sata ide etc, and in my opinion i think 16k strip size will give the worst performance, it might excel in benchmarks but in reality its a diffrent ball game.

For example with my Atto scsi card & 2 x 15k drives, i found that 256 was the fastest, the problem is with intel sata u can max it @ 128.

I do have 2 SSD in raid-0 (Memoright GT series) i havent tried 16k on SSD, it might be diffrent but on hard drives the higher the better until u reach 512.

So the question is did u try 128,64 before going for 16k ??? is it benchmarks or real life use that made u decide on 16K ???

Thank you

[jeff_rys]

i am with you here Naser, 256 kb stripe is probably the best, myself am on 512 kb right now, nog gains over 256 kb, but i hate to reinstall everything again.

Am happy with it right now.

Jeff

[Tony]

Im testing 16k 32k 64k all the expense of large files writes...as low stripe size speeds up small file writes.

So if you are tuning for ultimate speed you are not tuning as i am here, im tuning for small file write speed.

When running ATTO i am ONLY bothered about the 0.5 to 32k scores.

[jeff_rys]

Well, i posted some 4-6 weeks ago that i could not get rid of the indexing......but nobody answered.

Some say go to services and "unddo" the indexing. I did that BUT indexing keeps going on.....Now i "unddo" indexing per partition which keeps a while, but all is done, B U T indexing (less ram used) is still alive and kicking....

Am i the only one not being able to be certain that when you hit task manager, indexing is G O N E.....

So about it guys, how do i disable indexing, without appearing in the task manager ANYMORE.

Thanks


Jeff

PS

disregard my question, finally indexing has stopped.....

[Naser]

So if you are tuning for ultimate speed you are not tuning as i am here, im tuning for small file write speed.

Tony bro, I agree with u but i think its a preferance thing, and ultimate speed in your case might be small file size but in my case & i assume in most case its large to meduim files.

The important thing is i feel my pc as a whole feels much faster with 256k that in itself if you think about it is small already for common & most files etc...
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jeff_rys

I dont promise this will work but try it anyway.

goto control panel---System and Maintenance----change how windows searches.

then
click on every folder there & hit ---> Modify and untick until that list is empty.

You also must disable the indexting services etc.

[Tony]

Data bases seem to be written with tiny files, streams of tiny files that are coming from multiple places all at the same time. Hence why im trying small stripe sizes to start.

CoreV2 array is now a slave so i can bench different stripes and see what looks like it may be ok, one thing I have noticed is ATTO after a few days starts to misread the write speeds. Reads look OK but writes are way down...you bench with Everest etc and everything looks fine.

Weird

[jeff_rys]

Data bases seem to be written with tiny files, streams of tiny files that are coming from multiple places all at the same time. Hence why im trying small stripe sizes to start.

CoreV2 array is now a slave so i can bench different stripes and see what looks like it may be ok, one thing I have noticed is ATTO after a few days starts to misread the write speeds. Reads look OK but writes are way down...you bench with Everest etc and everything looks fine.

Weird

Well i had the same problems Tony with ATTO.

Jeff

thanks Naser, finally got it....

[kensiko]

Hey I found another place that Windows uses Defrag lately. It's when booting. Please let others know this tweak.

http://tips.maxabout.com/tid0005003/...efragment.aspx

To disable:
Set HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Dfrg\BootOpt imizeFunction\Enable
from 'Y' to 'N'.

Also, did you tell the others to disable "block transfer" in BIOS settings for the SSD? I heard this helped a lot, but I did not try yet. It's supposed to be set at Auto and some says that when the BIOS detects the SSD it sets it at Disable, but it is sometimes let at Enabled.