The Desk Top Video Handbook On Line ver 11.5
Win 98 Speed Tweaks

The following is a collection of "speed tweaks" which I have compiled from various sources over the years. First of all, let me clarify that the "speed tweaks" that follow are mostly to increase the efficiency of smoothly moving large amounts of data to and from the hard drives. In fact, these "tweaks" can sometimes negatively impact the speed of other programs. That said, I use all of them to maximize Windows 98 performance when working with large audio and video files. The Windows 95/98 operating system has difficulty with real-time video and audio applications for as number of reasons, but the dynamic disk caching and the multitasking time slicing are two of the biggest reasons. I started using these settings years ago when I moved from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95 because I found that it was the only way I could get large media files to play smoothly on the underpowered machines of the time. It is probably even more important now for video work where you have to stream huge amounts of data on or off the drives for long periods at a time with absolutely no glitches.

As always, "your mileage may vary..." and I can't be held responsible if one of these tweaks blows up your system! If anybody has any information contradicting the effectiveness of any of these tweaks, I'd appreciate hearing about it.

1. In the "system.ini" file in the Windows folder, there is a section called "[vcache]" this is where you can set the size of the disk cache. In your particular system.ini, it is possible that the [vcache] section doesn't exist and you will have to add it, or the section is there with no settings, or it may be there with some values already set.

   You can set a minimum cache size by adding a line directly under [vcache] that say, "MinFileCache=xxxx" (without the quotes) and set the maximum cache size using "MaxFileCache=xxxx" Of course, put some numbers in place of the X's! Set them to the same size so that Windows isn't wasting precious CPU cycles by constantly adjusting the size of the disk cache. Some people recommend setting it to 25% of your total RAM, but I think this is perhaps excessive and feel that the RAM could be better used by my applications instead. You can experiment with different sizes, but the size specified should be in increments of 1024 and it is recommended that the size not be made less than 2048. You can edit the "system.ini" file using Notepad. I have mine set as follows:

   [vcache]
   MinFileCache=8192
   MaxFileCache=8192

   (Note: the settings are in kilobytes, 8192k = 8 megabytes. The "square brackets" around "vcache" are required.)

2. The virtual memory swap file seems to be one of the most troublesome areas of the Windows 98 platform for real-time applications like video editing. By default, Windows 98 allows this swap file to be resized dynamically as the operating system runs. This resizing leads to system delays which may cause glitching to happen during recording or playback. Therefore, it is best to set your "swap" file to a fixed size using the same values for minimum and maximum. Here are the steps for doing that:
   
   1. Click "Start" on the Windows 98 Taskbar. Click "Settings" and choose "Control Panel."
   2. Double-click the "System" icon.
   3. Click the "Performance" tab.
   4. Click the "Virtual Memory" button.
   5. Click the option "Let me specify my own virtual memory settings."
   6. Set both the Minimum and Maximum values the same to prevent repeated resizing of the swap file.
   (I have mine set to 128 meg, which is the same size as the amount of RAM I have in the machine. This is probably excessive, but hey, disk space is cheap!)

3. Yet another useful tweak is in the same place under "Advanced Settings", "File System." Set the "Read Ahead Optimization" to "None." Changing the "Read-Ahead Optimization" setting to "None" prevents block-size chunks of data, in the range of 1-2K, from being be cached. Retrieving and reading this cached information interferes with high data rate playback.
   

4. And while you're in that section, set the "Typical Role" to Network Server, this configuration assumes that the computer has frequent disk activity, so the system is optimized for a high amount of disk access. Each "Typical Role" setting has a different disk performance profile which adjusts the values of the following file-system settings in the Registry:

   >>> PathCache, which specifies the size of the cache that VFAT can use to save the locations of the most recently accessed directory paths. This cache improves performance by reducing the number of times the file system must seek paths by searching the file allocation table. The number of paths is 32 for the Desktop computer profile, 16 for Mobile Or Docking System, and 64 for Network Server.

   >>> NameCache, which stores the locations of the most recently accessed filenames. The combined use of PathCache and NameCache means that VFAT never searches the disk for the location of cached filenames. Both PathCache and NameCache use memory out of the general system heap. The number of filenames is about 677 names (8 KB) for the Desktop computer profile, 337 names (4 KB) for Mobile Or Docking System, and 2729 names (16 KB) for Network Server.

   >>> BufferIdleTimeout, BufferAgeTimeout, and VolumeIdleTimeout, which control the time between when changes are placed in the buffer to when they are written to the hard disk.

   (Note: If you are running Windows 95, _don't_ set your machine to "Network Server," there is a bug that incorrectly mixes up the values of the "NameCache" and "PathCache" settings. This was cured in Win95 OSR2.)

5. By default, Windows 98 is set to enable disk write file caching. This function allows Windows 98 to write disk files in the background at some later time, rather than at the moment you initiate a disk write procedure. When recording video and audio files, the data is presented to the disk in one continual streaming operation, leaving no time for background writing operations. When write file caching is active, Windows tries to put the data in RAM first, waiting for an opportune time to write it to disk in the background. This opportune time never comes, and Windows runs out of RAM space, interrupts the recording trying to quickly empty its cache to disk, and potentially loses incoming data, causing glitches in the recording. To Turn Off File Write-Caching:
   
   1. Click "Start" on the Windows Taskbar. Click "Settings" and choose "Control Panel."
   2. Double-click the "System" icon.
   3. Click the "Performance" tab.
   4. Click the "File System" button.
   5. Click the "Troubleshooting" tab.
   6. Check the "Disable Write-Behind Caching For All Drives" checkbox.
   7. Click OK to save your changes.

6. Ensure that all power management functions are disabled on the computer.
   
   1. Click "Start" on the Windows Taskbar. Click "Settings" and choose "Control Panel."
   2. Double-click the "Power Management" icon.
   3. Make sure "System Standby", "Turn Off Monitor" and "Turn off Hard Disks" are all set to "Never."
   4. Click OK to save your changes.

7. Ensure that no memory resident virus software is installed. Software of this type intercepts all disk access and can cause glitches due to these delays.
   

8. By default, Windows 98 is set to continuously check the CD-ROM for the insertion of a CD so that it may automatically run the CD setup program. This can result in audio glitches during playback and recordings because it forces Windows 95/98 to continually time-slice all other running applications. To Disable CD Auto Insert Notification:
   
   1. Click "Start" on the Windows Taskbar. Click "Settings" and choose "Control Panel."
   2. Double-click the "System" icon.
   3. Click the "Device Manager" tab.
   4. Click the plus sign next to the CD-ROM listing to expand the list of CD-ROM devices.
   5. Select your CD-ROM and click the "Properties" button.
   6. Click the "Settings" tab.
   7. Uncheck the "Auto Insert Notification" checkbox.
   8. Click OK to save your changes.
   9. Follow this procedure for each CD-ROM installed on your system.

9. Shut off all screen savers.
   
   1. Right click anywhere on a blank portion of the Desktop.
   2. Select "Properties"
   3. Click on the "Screen Saver" tab, select "none"
   4. Click OK

10. Remove any "Wallpaper" you happen to be using. If you are running a 1024x768 desktop, that image is using up to 2,359,296 bytes of your precious system RAM! You're probably tired of looking at that picture anyway.
    
    1. Right click anywhere on a blank portion of the Desktop.
    2. Select "Properties"
    3. Click on the "Background" tab, select "none"
    4. Click OK

11. Set your number of screen colors to "High Color (16 bit)." This will reduce by a third how much data has to be moved across the PCI or AGP bus to the graphics card compared to using the 24 bit setting. Of course, you might want to remember to set it back to 24 bits when you are working in a graphics program and need the added color depth. Then again, if your graphics work isn't ultra-critical, you might not even notice the difference between 16 bit color and 24 bit color. Nevertheless, screen redraws using 16 bit color are faster than 24 bit color. The system only has to process two bytes of data per pixel instead of three.
    
    1. Right click anywhere on a blank part of the Desktop.
    2. Select "Properties"
    3. Click on the "Settings" tab, under colors, select "High Color (16 bit)"
    4. Click OK
    5. At this point, you might be asked if you want to reboot or apply the change without rebooting, applying the change without rebooting is usually safe.

12. Believe it or not, the clock display on the taskbar chews up quite a few CPU cycles, shut it off. (Besides, unless you've set it recently, it's probably wrong anyway!)
    
    1. Right click on a blank part of the Taskbar.
    2. Select "properties"
    3. Uncheck "Show Clock"
    4. Click OK

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