End It All

[David Mills 4,730]

Many years ago there used to be a computer program called "End It All," whose purpose was to shutdown background CPU activity and memory usage, so that your flight simulator could dominate and run more efficiently and smoothly. It worked beautifully and made a real difference in flight sim performance. Back then, the stray background apps were called TSRs: Terminate and Stay Resident (in memory). My question: Is there any modern day equivalent of "End It All" -- that clears your computer's CPU and memory of all but essential activity before booting up your flight simulator?

David Mills

Huntington, WV

[HiFlyer 9,343]

Doesn't windows 10 now having a gaming mode that does something similar?

[lownslo 592]

Years ago an Avsim member named Ken Salter developed a program he called FSAutoSart to do much the same thing for FS.  Today the follow-on to that program is called AlacrityPC: https://sourceforge.net/projects/alacritypc/?source=directory

Works great, is pretty easy to configure, and light on system resources.

HTH,

Greg

[beechcaptain 105]

There is Alacrity PC, which I use with P3Dv4.3 every time I fly my va flights. 

Here is a link to a thread here on the forums:  

 

[tjrush 54]

Alacrity was last updated in 2016.  I would be very concerned about running it on a current Windows 10 PC.

[GSalden 4,655]

In the past IOBIT Game Booster was the best.

Now it has been improved :

https://www.razer.com/cortex/boost

I did not try it yet ...

[lownslo 592]

11 hours ago, tjrush said:

Alacrity was last updated in 2016.  I would be very concerned about running it on a current Windows 10 PC.

I just installed it on  a Win10 Home 64 system and it seems to work fine.  Bit of work getting it installed on any system (although the instructions from the Sourceforge download work), and then the "Check for Updates" needs to be disabled from the main menu options.  It's still quite a good and useful app.

Cheers,

Greg

[FalconAF 213]

You really, really, really don't need one anymore (assuming you aren't still running your flight sim using Vista as your OS).

Seriously.  Open Task Manager in Windows and see how many "Background Processes" you have running.  If it is over about 50, you can use the default Windows Startup utility to stop a bunch of stuff from automatically starting every time you boot your computer.  Things like 3rd party programs that have NOTHING to do with your flight sim...or any other normal day-to-day activities you do on your computer.  You don't need a dozen different programs running automatic update checks all day long. You don't need MOST of the third party software "stuff" that get's installed as "automatic startup" on your computer.  Start those things only when you NEED to use them.  Windows today will handle it's OWN processes very well nowadays so they won't interfere with your flight sim session.  You don't need to be enabling/disabling Windows processes anymore to have a good flight simming experience.

If you insist on using a 3rd party utility, download CCleaner (free version is all you need).  It has a section that will display the Startup List of your computer.  Just use CCleaner to "disable" all the stuff you shouldn't be starting to begin with.  Plus you can use CCleaner for all the other tasks it provides to keep your computer running "clean".  If you haven't been doing routine computer maintenance in the past, don't be surprised when after running the CCleaner Analysis of your computer the first time, you discover you have over 50 Gigabytes of "junk" sitting on your main OS SSD drive.  😂

Edited October 14, 2018 by FalconAF

[mtrainer 136]

Agreed with poster above 100% even PMDG has recommended NOT turning off services you're not familiar with since today's simulation and associated add-ons make use of many of windows services- and if you've disabled one that is actually needed you're wasting your time and their time troubleshooting an issue that you essentially caused in the first place.  

Also, today's multicore CPUs don't sweat to much with background apps taking a few cycles here and there.  The idea you need to shut off every single unused service is old school thinking (yes there was a day way back when where it may have added value) but if you want a good flight simulator experience, try to eliminate as much "junk" FS applications as you can, it's just not worth the trouble and the ever niggling question in the back of your head every time you CTD.  About a year and half ago I vowed to keep the sim as simple as possible, and even then its quite a bit - Prepar3D / PMDG / ORBX / ActiveSky / ChasePlane.   I've purchased a lot more than this but decided not to reinstall them on the last build and don't miss them at all.

Lastly, if you're convinced that your PC is so weak that you need this application, I suggest you simply go upgrade your PC.

Mark

 

Edited October 14, 2018 by mtrainer

[Bobsk8 12,535]

Been using this for almost 3 years. Works great. http://www.bluesprig.com/jetboost.html

[John_Cillis 2,406]

1 hour ago, FalconAF said:

You really, really, really don't need one anymore (assuming you aren't still running your flight sim using Vista as your OS).

Seriously.  Open Task Manager in Windows and see how many "Background Processes" you have running.  If it is over about 50, you can use the default Windows Startup utility to stop a bunch of stuff from automatically starting every time you boot your computer.  Things like 3rd party programs that have NOTHING to do with your flight sim...or any other normal day-to-day activities you do on your computer.  You don't need a dozen different programs running automatic update checks all day long. You don't need MOST of the third party software "stuff" that get's installed as "automatic startup" on your computer.  Start those things only when you NEED to use them.  Windows today will handle it's OWN processes very well nowadays so they won't interfere with your flight sim session.  You don't need to be enabling/disabling Windows processes anymore to have a good flight simming experience.

If you insist on using a 3rd party utility, download CCleaner (free version is all you need).  It has a section that will display the Startup List of your computer.  Just use CCleaner to "disable" all the stuff you shouldn't be starting to begin with.  Plus you can use CCleaner for all the other tasks it provides to keep your computer running "clean".  If you haven't been doing routine computer maintenance in the past, don't be surprised when after running the CCleaner Analysis of your computer the first time, you discover you have over 50 Gigabytes of "junk" sitting on your main OS SSD drive.  😂

I agree, I do not worry about cleaning my system, with the processes I have running I have cpu to spare for simming, and will sometimes even multitask into the web to post a screenshot or two.  Windows 10 has never been a problem for me, I haven't had one incident with it, one lockup, and the sims I run (one is a Roller Coaster sim, the other is Orbiter), they run very well.  Once or twice I even accidentally had Xplane11 and P3DV4 running at the same time, though performance then was not so good, lol...  My bad....

Hijackthis is a good program to scan what is starting on your system if you suspect it is being slowed. But be careful using it, there are needed processes that are posted as "malware" or "viruses" by instigators, just so they can watch you wreck your system or at least hobble it.  What I use it for is to scan for changes that I do not expect, then I deal with them if needed.

John

[beechcaptain 105]

23 hours ago, tjrush said:

Alacrity was last updated in 2016.  I would be very concerned about running it on a current Windows 10 PC.

It works just fine on my Windows 10 desktop pc.  

However, if you are unsure, don't use it. The choice is yours.

[shermank 166]

On 10/13/2018 at 12:09 AM, tjrush said:

Alacrity was last updated in 2016.  I would be very concerned about running it on a current Windows 10 PC.

Tom, it works fine in W10, at least on my rig. The trick with any installation, of course, is to know which services and programs to stop and which to leave untouched. my rule of thumb is that if it is a MS function, I leave  it alone.

 

Sherm

[Bob Scott 7,715]

A lot has changed since the days of either EndItAll or Alacrity PC.  I think Randazzo recently wrote a missive on the subject in the PMDG forums.  Bottom line is that you can easily do more harm than good by indiscriminately disabling services when running P3D.  In the days of single and dual-core processors, this sort of optimization made some sense...today with 4/6/8+ core CPUs and a lot of spare processor headroom spread across the cores, I don't find it worth the risk as the CPU cycles stolen by the occasional service are typically running on a processor that's not that busy anyway.

Regards