Pandas Registry fixes and Hacks!

[Panda Man]

Here is where I'll post my registry fixes and hacks and explanation as to what they are. Will be updated soon, this is just somewhere to start.

http://pandaman.9999mb.com/files/memmanage.zip

These will enable/disable different memory management options located in:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management

Here is an explanation of them all.
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ClearPageFileAtShutdown - Clears the pagefile at shutdown! This is really up to you. Its disabled by default, enabling it will clear the pagefile (write 0's all over it!) at shutdown and prevent it from being read from other processes. I also believe this optimizes the pagefile somewhat.

DisablePagingExecutive - Forces the kernel and drives to stay in physical memory rather than going to

LargeSystemCache - Associated with servers. Recommended you leave at 0

NonPagedPoolQuota - Don't touch this. Its dynamic.

NonPagedPoolSize - Same. Just don't touch it.

PagedPoolQuota - Same.

PagedPoolSize - Same.

PagingFiles - The actual Pagefile for your system. Edit as you feel neccessary, though it is recommended that you do this through the performance tab under the system menu the in CP

PhysicalAddressExtension - 0 is disabled, 1 is enabled as usual. This shouldn't be edited unless you have more then 4GB of RAM. This will, as the name implies, extend the addressing to support more than 4GB of memory.

SecondLevelDataCache - Recommended that you set this manually. I have files already setup for however much you L2 Cache is. Use cpu-z to determine the size of your L2 cache if you don't know.

SessionViewSize - This has something to do with the size of the desktop heapsize (memory that has been put preallocated for a certain task). I haven't noticed any performance gains from adjusting this

SessionPoolSize - Something do to with the size of the session paged pool. Yea, confusing to me as well. I doubled the default number and got no performance gain.

IoPageLockLimit - IO = Input/output. This is set in Kb to my understanding. Now, as to whether this is in bytes or Kilobytes has actually been debated at many sites and forums. Microsoft.com said KIlobytes. End of story ^_^

WriteWatch - I'm not sure what this is really, but it appears to be needed when clearing the page file.

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http://pandaman.9999mb.com/files/IE7Crash.zip

This is a fix for IE7 and steam. Custom content and Steam hate each other, and this usually results in a crash in the game you are playing. This is the fix!

~Credit to Steam for the fix btw, I just made the reg file itself.

[gvblake22]

One of my favorite registry tweaks is MenuShowDelay. Basically it reduces (or eliminates) the delay between when you move your mouse over a menu with a sub menu and when the sub menu actually pops up. Like holding your mouse over "All Programs" in the start menu.

1. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop
2. Select MenuShowDelay from the list on the right.
3. Right on it and select Modify.
4. Change the value to something lower (note: a setting of zero (0) is virtually instantaneous, experiment with other settings (200 or 300 or 400 perhaps) to see what you are most comfortable with. My personal favorite is 50.
5. Reboot your computer.

[Sovereign]

What about dual core L2s? Should I just use the file that matches the size of the cache per core?

[gvblake22]

HERE is a great little guide on the AMD support forums on how to get everything working correctly with your Athlon64 X2 and the hotfixes. THIS is also a pretty similar guide but presented in a little different way.

[Sovereign]

Thanks, but my dual core processor works fine with the Hotfix and Dual Core Driver and Optimizer. I installed those already. My question is, what L2 cache size should I use from the registry tweaks? 1MB or 2MB? I have 2MB onboard but only 1MB per core.

[gvblake22]

Originally Posted by Sovereign

Thanks, but my dual core processor works fine with the Hotfix and Dual Core Driver and Optimizer. I installed those already. My question is, what L2 cache size should I use from the registry tweaks? 1MB or 2MB? I have 2MB onboard but only 1MB per core.

OOOHHHH, ok, I see. :doh:
Good question though, I cannot really say for sure. But if I had to guess, I would say go with 2MB because Windows can use both cores at the same time, which would mean it has access to 2MB of L2 cache.

[Panda Man]

Originally Posted by gvblake22

OOOHHHH, ok, I see. :doh:
Good question though, I cannot really say for sure. But if I had to guess, I would say go with 2MB because Windows can use both cores at the same time, which would mean it has access to 2MB of L2 cache.

That was an interesting question. Did a little research and blake was right, You would use the total L2 cache for the cores, in your case 2MB

Glad to see someone is using these, will update tonight!

[Sovereign]

Ooops! Then I shafted myself out of half my cache! *goes off to fix* Does this actually impact performance? Is there any way to see that it is working (other than checking in the registry) i.e. does Windows move "faster" or do games get higher FPS?

[Lead Head]

I already had the L2 cache one in place, i tried the disable paging to disk from physical memory, just used alot of RAM up and still paged to the disk

[polobunny]

Originally Posted by Panda Man

SecondLevelDataCache - Recommended that you set this manually. I have files already setup for however much you L2 Cache is. Use cpu-z to determine the size of your L2 cache if you don't know.

This has been proved to be useless. I don't remember where I read about it, but it was a good website (Something like ARStechnica).
This fix only applied to older processors which L2 cache couldn't be detected by the HAL properly.

I have a huge load of registry fixes I made for myself, stuff like putting new options in the start menu and whatnot. Would you be interested to put them here Panda?

Edit: I tried the link Blake gave, at first I couldn't find the hotfix in french but after a while I found it. I'm not sure whether or not it's a placebo effect, but my computer seems "quicker" to answer. Not really quicker to compute, but really to answer, just like lag in a game or something. *shrugs*