AlacrtityPC

[rooby007 0]

Hello,

 

I've been working through the newly posted tuning guide including the DX10 tips and tweaks with promising results. Thanks to those involved!

 

However, I tried AlacrityPC with less success - I can only seem to find version 1 and it only has Vista and XP profiles (none for Win7) so not sure if there's a later version I should be using?

Perhaps stupidly, I actually went and hit 'START' on the vista profile, expecting to get some configuration options but was a little alarmed to see it launch into shutting down processes. 

 

My concern now is that I don't know what it shut down and whether or not I need to start them back up again!?!? Are defaults restored once I re-start the PC or are these processes now shut down permanently?

 

Any advice gratefully received!

 

Thanks,

 

Andy

 

 

[Paul J 349]

Hi Andy; Don't be afraid of Alacrity, Andy. None of its default settings will shut anything down. Here's a set of one-by-one steps to setting up Alacrity, and so first take a look at what the default pic (Capture_1.jpg) shows: check the "bolded" print at the top of the list. Right, "Action = Nothing". OK?

 

First off,  Alacrity does three things - 1). it shuts down services and programs based upon a list of your choices. 2). Once they're shut down - it will start - and then monitor - a program of your choice. 3). When Alacrity sees that program stopped (by you) - it will re-start all of those stopped services and programs.

 

So - you need to decide what program you want Alacrity to start - then you can either make a new profile, or simply take one of those existing profiles - doesn't really matter which one, rename the icon and you're half-way there. You then look at each of those services, and then right-click on each service, and choose or evaluate what action you want to apply to that service. You might want to do "Nothing", and so this is the Action you will set it to. It might already be "disabled" or "manual" - so there's not much point in stopping or stop-starting it if it's already in that state - right? !! LOL

 

However - let's assume it is the "Homegroup Provider" or the "Google Updater" service... yup - we want this one stopped, OK? and then restarted again, after we've done with FSX, and it's been shut down. To do this - just right-click on the service - it will become blue-highlighted, and select "Stop and then Restart". This will move the service into the upper part of the list, under the heading that you chose - like "Stop and then Restart", or "Stop", "Start", or simply "Nothing".

Nothing happens until you take one of those profiles, then make your changes, and then save and run it.

 

Regarding the startup - the version you have will be the latest, Andy, as there has been no further development done to it for a number of years. It works fine on all OS's since XP. (but I have not personally tried it on W8). The only pain is its "automatic update" process. 

 

I have to tell you - there's no set list of "stoppable" services and programs - everyone's pc is going to be somewhat different, and so the best you can do is to browse the internet for suggestions as to what can be stopped, and then choose each as you see fit.

For example - PMDG uses "FLEXnet" to secure its products, so you would not want to stop this, right! You don't want to stop the firewall for security reasons - unless you stop the network services - but what if you need the network for ActiveSky or REX downloads?

 

Read, and attempt to understand what each service name is attempting to convey, and if it's too vague - (which it is, most of the time) Google it - find out if you should, can, or shouldn't add it into the "Stop and then Restart" list.

You can certainly start with the shortish list ("Stop and then Restart") from Capture_2 of my machine. You can also see in the lower part of the pic "Action = Nothing", meaning "don't stop it, don't start it, just leave it alone". ActiveX Installer is Manual start - so I just leave it where it is: Adaptive Brightness" is already Disabled - so again - I leave it alone - no action is necessary.

 

The 4th pic "Programs" is a listing of running programs which you may want to stop and restart once FSX is finished. Windows addons will often put programs in the Systray, or keep them running in the background, so the same applies - do you need that little app? or not? 

 

Capture_7 shows the setup of the path to the program you want to Alacrity to start. This could be FSX: it could be REX, it could be TrackIR5 - like mine shows, so the first line for TrackIR5 would be C:\Program Files\Natural Point. This is the path to the program, with the second limne being the program to start, and that Alacrity will monitor while it's running, so that when you close FSX, then shut down TrackIR5 - Alacrity will see this, and will automatically re-start all those services and programs that it initially shut down.

 

That's it in a nutshell. (and apologies if I rambled on a bit....)

 

If you need some hands-on, Andy - or anyone - if it will make you more comfortable - we can do a Teamspeak3 and TeamViewer8 session. Just pm me, and we'll take it from there.

 

All the Best.

[rooby007 0]

Hey Paul,

 

Thanks for the speedy and comprehensive reply (by the way, I wouldn't call it rambling, I'd call it detail - and detail is good!)

 

I'll take some time to work through that and set it up properly. Will get right back if I need any more help.

 

I may also be in touch regarding some overclocking advice in due course if that's ok? I see we have a near identical set-up, except you're running at 5GHz and I'm still stock (although it seems to run happily at 3.8GHz straight out of the box). 

 

Thanks again,

Andy