Closing down background processes

[stinger2k2]

Hi,
I have a new PC that is struggling to run FSX. I downloaded a program called "Autoruns" to highlight background processes and
found that there was a lot of them hogging my E6600 resources.
How do I know which are safe to close down either permanantely or temporarily?

Intel E6600 core duo
Geforce 8800GTX 768md
2 gig ram
2 x 160Gb HDD with FSX sitting on its own on one of them.

6FPS at on the runway at Seattle with clear skies and low autogen.No addons.

any help greatly appreciated as apart from the low FPS I think
FSX looks fantastic and is a lot more immersive than FS9.

cheers
Stinger

[Qballbandit]

Not to knock autoruns, as I have actually downloaded it to check it out, but that is one of the features I love most about fsautostart. The author provides accurate info (in the app itself when you are configuring) about which services are safe to shutdown, and which should remain active. I have checked his advice against numerous MS topics on the same, compiled by "gurus".
Have you tried fsautotart before?

Neil :7

AMD Athlon-64 X2 4200+
Asus A8N5X nforce4 mobo
ATI Radeon X800gt 256mb
1gig Corsair XMS ddr400 PC3200
NZXT 500watt power supply
WINXP Pro SP2, dx9c

[cianpars]

Alternatively have a look at the eldergeek site or black vipers site if it is still running where you can get almost any info you need to know about whch processes do what and which you may be able to live without.

I am down to about 14 processes if I shut down my 4 antivirus processes that are running.

IAN

[stinger2k2]

Thanks Guys,

Neil, No I haven't tried FSAutostart. I'll give it a go.Thanks.

[Chummy]

Have you tried "EndItAll", a utility from PC Magazine?

[stinger2k2]

Thanks for the reply Chummy, Yes I have used end-it-all in the past for FS9 but haven't yet loaded it for FSX. I think i'll give FSstart a try first as that seems to be tailored for flightsim specifically.

[kc10]

Shutting down services and background apps is a vital part of performance tweaking, and at the same time it is widely overrated. Obviously you should not sim or game with other progs running, but when it comes to stopping services all you are doing in many cases is saving a few kb of ram per service, and absolutely zero cpu usage.

Don't get me wrong, this is something every gamer/simmer should do without question, but only in conjunction with the dozens of other performance tweaks. Shutting down these unnecessary processes alone will most likely not add a singe frame per sec, or increase texture loading speed, but it may help with stutters.

The reasons for killing services are mainly 1)it's just plain logical to shut down all that junk you don't use in the first place (in other words, it's done on principle, lol) 2) to suppress things like program updates, virus scans, etc while you game, and 3)ALL tweaks and optimizations, although not major performance boosts in themselves, work together for a possible 5-10% gain.

What I'm about to say next, you probably won't read elsewhere. As PCs become more powerful, disabling services and background apps becomes less and less crucial; it's just a matter of doing the math. Since Windows XP came out, we've been shutting down the same old background stuff, yet look at todays PC compared to that little machine we were all using back when we first installed XP.

Now if you're using Windows Vice, then there's some new trash to disable, but with that e6600, GF8800 machine, don't look for any more frames per sec by disabling services.

Now, having said all that bull (I just make it up as I go along), you should consider that closing major progs will of course give you a noticable performance gain. But I assume we're talking about all the usual suspect services and background Windows apps. Also, you may very well see an extra framerate or two depending on just how much stuff you have running that can be disabled. Personally, I run a fairly stripped down OS. I've tried those utilities mentioned above, and they found nothing that needed to be shut down. So those of you who actually use those utilities to close apps obviously have a bit more going on than I do on my pc.

One last thing, tweaking for performance, or optimizing, goes much deeper than most people realize. Here's a good source, aimed at the gamer, which covers a lot:http://www.tweakguides.com/System.html

[stinger2k2]

Thanks for the advice KC. Maybe i'll try getting the in game setting right first!