performance

[J. Baker]

My current pc (out-dated) has a Pentium lll 850mhz, 512MB SDram and WIN XP (Home). The thing is, every time I edit something and save it, the playback is slow and stuttery. Any tips on optimizing my pc until I get a new one? Thanks

[ViRaL1]

Kill any unnecessary processes in Task Manager. Turn off antivirus software. Set XP to use no paging file, defrag after the reboot then recreate the paging file using System Managed Size.

[J. Baker]

Thanks for the tips but I already do most of those, except for paging. Also, I have just formatted my pc, so there's nothing on it except for a few video tools. I did this in hopes it would solve the issue.

[ViRaL1]

I'd also recommend more memory, if that's an option.

[J. Baker]

After listening to my pc when it's totally quite, I noticed my hard drive doesn't sound so good. Looks like I'll be making a purchase soon. Got to back some stuff up now, just in case. Thanks for your help though.

[ViRaL1]

Newegg has 74GB raptors for $152 if you've got SATA. They should be great for encoding.

[J. Baker]

Funny you say that, I'm looking on NewEgg now, thanks for the heads up. I have to buy a new controller as well, the one on my mobo is limited to 5400rpm. Do you know if the HD's that have an 8MB buffer are that much greater then the ones with 2MB? Thanks

[ViRaL1]

I'd personally opt for 8MB, they're usually not that much more and there's a decent speed increase.

[J. Baker]

Cool, thanks, I was hoping there would be a noticable increase.

[JSB]

Try running HD Tune . (FREEWARE!)
It should be able to tell you which HD is heading for the crapper.

JSB

[J. Baker]

Well, here are my results in the link below. Looks like everything is ok but the transfer rate could be faster. Didn't make any noise through out the test either. I'll probably buy a better HD anyway.

http://www.flashpulse.com/hdtest/hd.html

[J. Baker]

Sorry, just noticed the bad html. Had the images pointing to locations on my pc and not on my server. Also, made a mistake with the speed of my ata above, I meant it's a ata33 and not the speed of the disk which is 5400. Where was my mind that day, lol.

[Soopafresh]

Use a lightweight Media Player, like MPC.

Turn off all unnecessary Windows services, ala http://www.blackviper.com/

Also, look at http://kpush.tripod.com/tweaking/index.html