Need help freeing System Resources

[shermank 166]

Rick, I'll buy my friend a beer tonight and tell him it was from you...:-)I love this hobby!sherm

[Guest]

Thanks Sherm! I owe you two. One for checking on the applicability of the idea in the first place, and the other for taking care of the source of the info.Cheers!, Rick

[Guest]

Following the excellent link that Ed provided I downloaded and attempted to install the Tweak.UI to remove the icons from desktop. During installation, done by right clicking on the INF file and selecting Install, I received an error message stating that a device on my system was not functioning properly, and the install aborted.Next I tried the following.1. Run Regedit2. Access: HKEY_CURRENT_USERSOFTWAREMICROSOFTWINDOWSCURRENT VERSIONPOLICIESEXPLORER3. Next double click the "NoDesktop" value. If no such line entry exists, create it.4. Enter a value of 1, then click OK. Refresh the desktop with F5 and the icons will be gone.After completing the items listed above and restarting the computer, the desktop icons were removed, but my system resources available remained at the 88% value I started with. The desktop icons are now restored. The computer is set to be a Desktop PC, the only programs launched at start up are: Explorer; Systray; the mouse driver; and Scan Reg. I am still wondering if there is a way to get to a higher percentage of system resources available on my PIII 450.Thanks again for any previous and future assistance.Rick

[Ed 0]

Rick,Too bad you couldn't get tweakui working. You should have more then 88% free even running the mouse driver. Is there anyway you can run a generic windows mouse driver? Also here is a link to a site which could help you with your bios. This could also free up some memory.http://www.lostcircuits.com/advice/bios2/1.shtmlEdhttp://hifi.avsim.net/activesky/images/wxrebeta.jpg

[Guest Smiley]

The only program you need at startup is explorer. I have eliminated systray and did not notice any difference so I put it back in. Your mouse driver and scanreg must be using 8% resources. On my Win98 system I boot to between 94% and 97% with the same configsys settings of just explorer and systray in task manager.As asked above, try unchecking your mouse driver and see if you still have mouse control. That driver is probably just an icon that allows quick changes of mouse settings and not the driver itself. Scanreg is not needed at all if you want to remove it. You can boot every once in a while with scanreg checked if you want it to function.Also worth noting here for some that do not do this. Before you fly MSFS2002 or any gaming software reboot your system to free up resources. Windows 98SE (and maybe others, I don't know) will continually soak up resources each time you open up another program. For instance, Outlook Express if opened leaves me with 92% resources free. Then if I open up IE5 or NS4.7 I lose another 4% resources. If I open up more windows programs and close them I have seen as low as 69% with NOTHING currently running in task manager except explorer and systray. So reboot to free up resources before gaming or even on a regular basis to free up resources for your other applications.If anyone is computer literate and can update this thread on WinME Win2000 and WinXP please do so for the rest of us to learn.Thx,

[Guest]

Ed and Smiley:Ed: I will check through the site you gave me. The Bios on my HP allows for very limited changes to be made. Hopefully your link will provide a pearl of wisdom.Smiley: Thanks for the follow-up. I disabled the 3D mouse in msconfig start-up. It enables the scrolling feature only, and the rest of the mouse functions as before. That got me to 92%. Disabling Scan Reg made no difference in terms of resources, and it remains enabled.One other entry in start-up, that I believe is important is:MMHID Rundll mmhid.dll,StartMmHidIt is still enabled. I'm going to do a search to see what it does specifically, but recall that it assists other applications in running if I remember correctly.I'm getting closer with your help, and the results are showing in improved performance.Back to the hunt. Rick

[Guest]

Just make sure you NEVER use Windows ME! This OS eats up all the system resources in a flash, and those Free-up-RAM software are no good at all. (Once I have freed up 32mb of RAM and the system resources remained near 0%.)

[Guest]

Decided to uncheck MMHID Rundll32 mmhid.dll,StartMmHid in start-up as it is used to call and or create batch files. For my efforts I gained 2 more percent and the system is now at 94% system resources available. Explorer, Scan Reg, and Systray are the only items left running as we speak.With this I now have all settings maxed except: Terrain Mesh 60, Autogen normal, scenery very dense, cloud density 50, AI traffic 40. Screen resolution is 1024x768x16. Frames are locked at 11. DirectX 8.2 loaded. A Leadtek GF3 Ti500 with 22.80 drivers. Justin Tymes landclass a very nice touch. Symflyers Orlando knocks the sim to its knees at 4.5 frames on the ground, 6-6.5 on approach. On a positive note I can shoot all of the approaches to minimums I want and maintain 11 FPS into the flare. But it kills the thrill of the landclass and all that Autogen. Compromises.A number of people have contributed to getting me here, and I thank you. Ultralight, my experience matches yours where the software to free RAM is concerned, as they have created problems for me in the past. It is time to seriously consider a new and much faster set-up. Goodnight all. Rick

[Guest]

What I'm about to suggest is drastic, but well... I noticed that wiping off the HD (Fdisk, partition etc...) and doing a clean install seemed to improve processing speed. Only a total wipe out can get rid of the zillions of bits and pieces of stuff here and there...