Windows 7 - "GAMING MODE"

M

Michael

Hey guys...

When I play games like Crysis Warhead I want every single percentage
of CPU and Memory my system has to be available. With that in mind I
always kill Aero and Gadgets and anything else that's obviously not
required before I launch a game. I got sick of doing this over and
over so I made two batchfiles to do it for me, saved them in c:
\windows, and pinned them to the top of my Start menu.


Gaming Mode On.bat
sc stop uxsms
taskkill /im:sidebar.exe /f


Gaming Mode Off.bat
sc start uxsms
start sidebar


(uxsms is the "desktop window manager" service)

THE QUESTION: Anyone know how I can disable Windows background
(actually remove the background, but mostly stop the slideshow) from
command prompt?

ALSO: Have any other ideas of stuff I can add to the batch file to
temporarily kill services & processes and improve this?
 
B

Benjamin Gawert

* Michael:
Hey guys...

When I play games like Crysis Warhead I want every single percentage
of CPU and Memory my system has to be available. With that in mind I
always kill Aero and Gadgets and anything else that's obviously not
required before I launch a game.

Is your PC such an old crate that you really need to kill all this stuff
just to be able to play some games? Maybe your PC is better served with
Windows95 and it's time to upgrade to something that is less than 5
years old.

Benjamin
 
B

Benjamin Gawert

* Michael:
Hey guys...

When I play games like Crysis Warhead I want every single percentage
of CPU and Memory my system has to be available. With that in mind I
always kill Aero and Gadgets and anything else that's obviously not
required before I launch a game.

What for? Do you have such a slow PC that you really need to kill all
this stuff just to be able to play some games? What a waste of time.

Killing Aero doesn't make a difference even on the 5 year old system I
have sitting here, and even less on a more current computer. Which is
obvious if you understand how Windows works as it already puts processes
to sleep it doesn't need (like Aero in a full screen 3D application like
a game).

Let me guess: you also disable SuperFetch because you want as much free
RAM as possible?

Benjamin
 
M

Michael

If you were really hard core you'd have a dedicated gaming rig.  :)

;)

In order words, Benjamin and Toolpackinmama know nothing of this
subject and have nothing useful to contribute.... lol

You're too stupid to be on the internet if you don't understand why
someone would shut off Aero and Sidebar when playing Crysis Warhammer.
Try it at 1920x1080 with 16AA and "Enthusiast" Graphic settings, it
will put things into perspective for you.

With that said... any useful suggestions are welcomed :)
 
B

Benjamin Gawert

* Toolpackinmama:
If you were really hard core you'd have a dedicated gaming rig. :)

Maybe he would be better with a console ;-)

No, seriously, how crap does a computer have to be to make it necessary
to disable Aero and background tasks just to play Crysis Warhammer? If
the frame rates are crap with all this stuff enabled they won't be much
better without it.

Benjamin
 
J

John Doe

Benjamin Gawert said:
* Michael:

What for? Do you have such a slow PC that you really need to
kill all this stuff just to be able to play some games? What a
waste of time.

Do you have such an old brain that you forgot the troll reply you
just posted before this?
--
 
J

John Doe

Benjamin Gawert said:
Maybe he would be better with a console ;-)

No, seriously, how crap does a computer have to be to make it
necessary to disable Aero and background tasks just to play
Crysis Warhammer? If the frame rates are crap with all this
stuff enabled they won't be much better without it.

Says a troll who knows what about the subject?

Are you even a gamer, Benji?
--
 
T

Toolpackinmama

Benjamin said:
* Toolpackinmama:

Maybe he would be better with a console ;-)

No, seriously, how crap does a computer have to be to make it necessary
to disable Aero and background tasks just to play Crysis Warhammer? If
the frame rates are crap with all this stuff enabled they won't be much
better without it.

Well, yeah. Maybe his internet connection is something to look at.

Win7 doesn't have as much going on to slow a computer as Vista did.
It's vastly leaner and more efficient for gamers.

It might be useful to change the antivirus program he is running.
 
B

Benjamin Gawert

* John Doe:
Says a troll who knows what about the subject?

Well, I for example know that disabling all the crap brings nothing. If
a system is too slow for Crysis Warhead then it won't be faster if you
disable Aearo and stuff, and for a game capable to run that game
disabling all this makes even less sense. Doing so only shows a clear
lack of understanding how Windows actually works. Spraying holy water
over your PC would probably have more effect.

If you want to call me a troll just because I brought up the facts then
fine, go ahead.
Are you even a gamer, Benji?

Find out for yourself. You are capable of using Google, aren't you?

Benjamin
 
B

Benjamin Gawert

* John Doe:
Says a troll who knows what about the subject?

Well, I for example know that disabling all the crap brings nothing. If
a system is already too slow for Crysis Warhead then it won't be much
faster just because you disabled Aero and other background tasks, and
for a PC that is capable to run that game at a somewhat decent frame
rates disabling all this stuff makes even less sense. Doing so only
shows a clear lack of understanding how Windows works and what it really
does. Spraying holy water over your PC would probably have more effect
on your Crysis Warhead performance.

If you want to call me a troll just because I brought up the facts then
fine, go ahead.
Are you even a gamer, Benji?

Find out for yourself. If you are as smart as you seem to think to be
then this shouldn't be a problem for you.

Benjamin
 
D

DevilsPGD

In message
<62469680-7aa2-4a66-a2c3-47e238e18474@c34g2000yqn.googlegroups.com>
Michael said:
In order words, Benjamin and Toolpackinmama know nothing of this
subject and have nothing useful to contribute.... lol

You're too stupid to be on the internet if you don't understand why
someone would shut off Aero and Sidebar when playing Crysis Warhammer.
Try it at 1920x1080 with 16AA and "Enthusiast" Graphic settings, it
will put things into perspective for you.

With that said... any useful suggestions are welcomed :)

Research first, speak second.

Aero automatically disables and releases all video memory and processor
resources when a fullscreen game is running.

In Windows 7, the 2D graphics engine doesn't shut down quite as much as
Aero can, so you're actually potentially consuming more resources by
disabling Aero although the difference is probably not measurable. There
was a post discussing this on the Windows Performance blog some moons
ago.

Killing the Sidebar/Widget system probably isn't a bad idea, in Vista
it's a massive pig (depending on what you're doing with it, of course),
W7 seems better although I haven't experimented to see whether the
widget engine shuts down or otherwise restricts resources available to
widgets.
 
T

Toolpackinmama

Michael said:
THE QUESTION: Anyone know how I can disable Windows background
(actually remove the background, but mostly stop the slideshow) from
command prompt?

No, I don't know how to do that. Why ever have it enabled? Why not
just keep it disabled? You can have a static background. Pick one you
like and stick with it.

You are like those movie villains who have some wildly elaborate scheme
for killing the hero. Why not just use a knife? And if he asks you to
first explain your plan for world domination, just say no.
 
T

Toolpackinmama

DevilsPGD said:
Killing the Sidebar/Widget system probably isn't a bad idea, in Vista
it's a massive pig (depending on what you're doing with it, of course),
W7 seems better although I haven't experimented to see whether the
widget engine shuts down or otherwise restricts resources available to
widgets.

Here's another thing I don't understand: why have widgets? I have Win7
and could have widgets if I wanted them, but I can find no motivation
to want them.
 
D

DevilsPGD

In message <[email protected]> Toolpackinmama
Here's another thing I don't understand: why have widgets? I have Win7
and could have widgets if I wanted them, but I can find no motivation
to want them.

Yeah, I'm not particularly wow'd by any of the options myself...
 
D

DevilsPGD

In message <[email protected]> Toolpackinmama
No, I don't know how to do that. Why ever have it enabled? Why not
just keep it disabled? You can have a static background. Pick one you
like and stick with it.

It's worth noting that the slideshow also stops when a full screen app
is running, so it's another non-issue for gaming performance.
 
A

Andy

Michael said:
Hey guys...

When I play games like Crysis Warhead I want every single percentage
of CPU and Memory my system has to be available. With that in mind I
always kill Aero and Gadgets and anything else that's obviously not
required before I launch a game. I got sick of doing this over and
over so I made two batchfiles to do it for me, saved them in c:
\windows, and pinned them to the top of my Start menu.


Gaming Mode On.bat
sc stop uxsms
taskkill /im:sidebar.exe /f


Gaming Mode Off.bat
sc start uxsms
start sidebar


(uxsms is the "desktop window manager" service)

THE QUESTION: Anyone know how I can disable Windows background
(actually remove the background, but mostly stop the slideshow) from
command prompt?

ALSO: Have any other ideas of stuff I can add to the batch file to
temporarily kill services & processes and improve this?


Hi Michael,

You might want to check out this program...


http://majorgeeks.com/Game_Booster_d6148.html


Hope this helps


Andy
 
M

Michael Cecil

In message <[email protected]> Toolpackinmama


Yeah, I'm not particularly wow'd by any of the options myself...

Well, I'm not running any on my main desktop machine, but I use an old
version of Konfabulator on my server so I can view the weather and the
local radar at a glance. Also use Rainlendar on that machine for the nice
desktop calendar.
 

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