Not to be modified w/o approval of D. M. LaBorde April 2001 tweakwinve (twkwve)

Preface

Each Tweak was tested to determine the impact with regards to video editing not other types of PC usage (gaming, etc.). All test were done using the Matrox RT-2000 editing system with Premiere 6.0. This system can produce high processing loads on the operating system and it makes an excellent selection to troubleshoot (replicate high-end use). The computer system used for testing could be considered medium to high-end for 2 Qtr 2001. It utilizes a PIII – 800 Processor and has 512 megs of SDRAM 133. System drive was purposely set on IDE ATA-33 (UMDA mode) – slower swapfile (pagefile) response, etc.. The Audio HD was a separate UMDA-66. Video drives were on an ATA-66 RAID device. The OS hard drives were utilized in a portable caddy so that each could be swapped and the same video scenes tested – edited, etc.

The Internet is riddled with information of “tweaks” and or fixes. Many of these are unproven, dangerous and/or not applicable to editing processing power. I have gleaned through many of these and include those worthy. This document would become too large and impractical to list all failures or “snake-oil settings or “tweak utilities”.

“Tweaking” steps are why some systems seem to run forever, are rock solid, and suffer none or trivial resource leaks; while others are memory sieves that have to be rebooted on a regular and routine basis. You can take time to read this and make the adjustments or later make time to troubleshoot system freezes, crashes and loose critical editing time.

W
Not to be modified w/o approval of D. M. LaBorde
indows ME TWEAKS

Version 1.0

I have read and/or heard analysis by many videographers claiming Windows Me was problematic and slower than Win 98SE. Typically, vague results or just blanket remarks were made with no hard conclusive evidence given. I have analyzed and tweaked a ME system for video editing. From my test; I find that it can be as or more responsive and stable than my experience with Win 98 / SE. This is especially true with regards to multi-media type programs. I do believe some of the negative information given was due to problematic setups and/or drivers in the early months after introduction. I did, however, find that more tweaking was needed to gain the desired response for VE. Video Editing manufactures (such as Matrox) are moving support to Win ME. Hence my tweaks and analysis are with ME. Most of these are transferable to Win98 systems but not guaranteed to be as effective. Many of the tweaks given are similar to those used in Win 98 editing days, however, some values (formula) settings have changed so experienced readers are encouraged to read all areas even those they are familiar with.

Many of the “tweaks” given will initiate a message that a shutdown is required for the change to take place. It is suggested that the viewer not cancel shutdown for more than 2 or 3 changes before initiating a reboot. All the tweaks have been tested but any given condition (registry settings and equipment drivers) can vary enough (on an individual’s machine) that a conflict is possible though not likely. Should one occur, a small number of changes; can make troubleshooting much easier. If equipment / registry conflicts occur; a reboot into safe mode should allow one to return to previous conditions, etc.

1. 
   Do a disk scan and repair to clear up bad sectors.
   
2. 
   Do a disk defrag to compact and un-fragment data.
   
3. 
   Scan registry for fragments and compact (compress). To do this safely and effectively programs such as SystemSuite or Easy Cleaner or Norton Utilities. They are much better than tools in Windows. Compressing removes any unused space, making the registry file smaller & faster.
   

1. 
   Virtual memory – Windows uses a dynamic virtual memory manager to handle Swapfile duties. It provides more memory to applications than is physically present in the computer RAM (It uses hard disk space to simulate RAM). The amount of RAM in the computer plus the size of the “Swapfile” equals the total virtual memory size. Windows uses a dynamic Swapfile that remains at a size of 0K until it is needed. The Swapfile can grow to use all the available space on the hard disk if it is necessary. This is the default setting for the “swapfile”. With Video Editing it is more efficient to set this yourself rather than let Windows dynamically manage it. When Win manages the file it can increase or shrink and eventually gets distributed (fragmented) over the disk taking more time to access.
   

1.       Right click on My computer & select Properties. Select the Performance tab.

1. 
   Set it as shown below (substituting in your own values of course). The values shown below are for a system with 512 MB of physical RAM.
   

Once you have set your Virtual memory size you can further optimize it. The Swapfile is best placed on the outer edge of the hard disk it is located on. Windows 9x\Me Disk Defragmenter will not do this. You’ll need a disk defragmenter like Norton Speed Disk or McAfee Nut’s & Bolts to do so.

I do not recommended that you put your Swapfile onto a separate partition of your system drive as this will increase the time to access it & increases hard drive head movement as well. Instead, it is recommended that it be placed on the most used partition of the least used drive. This will mean the C:\ drive where Windows is installed for users with a single hard drive. If you have another hard drive installed you should use that instead. To change where the Swapfile is located, change the Hard disk location when setting Virtual memory (see display above). Do not place the swap file on your video disk as high editing and capture activity can cause conflicts / delays. Ideally you would want to place your Swapfile onto a separate hard drive, on a separate IDE channel (if possible do not put 2 high activity hard drives on the same IDE channel). I currently have mine on the system drive. Again, the swapfile should go onto the outer edge of that hard drive using a Utility Program like Norton or Nut’s & Bolts, etc

Virtual Memory (continued)

Save the changes you have made & reboot for these settings to take effect. When you change to select your own settings versus letting Win do it you will get an alarm just acknowledge and proceed.

One added note - during certain encoding processes i.e. encoding to mpeg-1 or 2 with software programs like Tmpgenc / Panasonic you may receive an out of memory error while doing a long segment coding. Set your MAX virtual memory setting to Drive size (MB’s) and than reset to normal after the encoding process.

2.) Hard Drive Service - The Swapfile exists on your hard drive and this is much slower than using RAM. So speeding up your hard drive can improve Swapfile performance a lot. Although more RAM is highly recommended, having a faster hard drive will aide. Make sure you regularly run Scandisk to fix any errors/ sectors on the hard drive

System Properties contains important settings which are used to improve hard drive performance and for troubleshooting purposes – hence it is in the troubleshooting tab.

Right click on My Computer, select Properties. Select the Performance tab. Now hit the File system button. Go to the Troubleshooting tab.

By default Windows will determine these settings based on RAM installed (the Min/MaxFileCache). With Video Editing is better to set Vcache settings yourself. Vcache is limited to a maximum cache size of 800 MB – this really shouldn’t matter to anyone but those with excessive amounts of RAM (Greater than 512MB). On such high RAM systems not limiting the Vcache has been known to cause problems).