Welcome to my tweaking guide. This is basically just for modem, system and cd rom drive tweaking. Nothing that has to do with Unix or Win NT/95. This is for Windows 98 first edition. First, let us start with the modem, an essential piece of hardware for using the Internet and online gaming.
The first thing to do is download the latest drivers for your modem. Usually that is the best way to reduce lag. I personally went from 999 ping to 245 ping by getting the best drivers from the manufacturer. There are also some other things to do. First, open up sysedit from the Start>Run... command. Then, find the system.ini window. Look for the [386enh] tag. Then, underneath all of the lines there, type in one of these lines depending on which com port your modem is in:
com1irq4buffer=1024
com2irq3buffer=1024
com3irq4buffer=1024
com4irq3buffer=1024
The beginnings of com, irq, and buffer are also capitalized. For example, if my modem was on com port 4, I would type in at the bottom of all the code in the [386enh] Com4Irq3Buffer=1024. This makes your modem go at a minimum speed of 1024, which basically juices your modem up to almost full capacity. I went from 33600 to 48000 by doing this and getting the newest drivers. Also, you can try some modem specific tweaks, but there are waaaaayy to many for me to list. Go to your manufacturer's site and see if they have modem specific command lines. After you have done tweaking the modem, on to the hard drive.
Tweaking your Hard Drive
First, defrag and scandisk. This will give a 20% upgrade in application speed. Then head to the the system panel (Start > Settings > Control Panel > System) and click the Preformance tab. Then click Virtual Memory and choose "Let me specify my own Virtual Memory settings". Click on a hard drive (you have to do this for every one) and enter a setting for each one that are 1. The same value and 2. Between 128 and 256. By keeping the values the same, windows doesn't change the settings and waste precious resources. Also, run sysedit again (Start, Run, sysedit) and go to the system.ini window. Find the [VCache] heading and go to the bottom of it. Insert these three lines:
Chunksize=512
MinFileCache=8192
MaxFileCache=8192
These also help stop windows from using more resources than it needs.
Tweaking Startup Files
Ok, here's a toughie. First, go into the root directory of your main hard drive (usually C:). Create a new Text document called msdos.bat. Leave it open and then open up your autoexec.bat file with Notepad (be sure to uncheck the box "Always use this to open this type of file"). Cut (Control-C) EVERYTHING from the autoexec file and paste it all into the msdos.bat file. Do the same thing to the config.sys, but leave a space between the two different cut'n'paste's. Then, open up the autoexec.bat file again and add these lines:
@DelTree /Y C:\WINDOWS\Temp
@MD C:\WINDOWS\Temp
Those two lines delete the Temp file on startup and create a new Temp file during startup. If you use the Temp folder a lot, you can skip this part. Then, open up the config.sys file and put in this line:
Stacks=0,0
This makes windows bypass some things to boot up faster, don't worry though. The files it bypasses are really unneccessary. That's all for the System, now to the OS.
Tweaking OS
This is a pretty easy one, all you have to do is download I.E. 5.0. "What?" You say, "what does a web browser help with speeding up my system?". Well, I.E. incorporates Windows into the internet. This means that IE is tied in with Windows and directly affects it. IE 5 patches windows basically. Also, make sure Active Desktop is DISABLED. It really sucks, and it doesn't do anything but crash your system. Oh, sure, it sounds cool to have weather updates on the desktop, but Windows doesn't manage this well and causes the Blue Screen Of Death to show up. Try it, you'll see. Then run Windows Update from the start menu. That should patch some bugs, and make windows not crash for another month. To the CD-ROM section!
CD-ROM Tweaking
Even though more and more people are switching to DVD and CD burners, regular CD Drives can be tweaked. First, go to the System applet (Start > Settings > Control Panel > System) and go to the Device Manager. Go to the CD ROM and enable the following features:
Disconnect
Sync Data Transfer
Auto-Insert Notification
DMA
Then, click on the Performance tab and go to the File System tab. Then click the CD-ROM tab. Set the cache size to full and optimize for Quad-Speed or higher.
THE END
Well, thanks for joining me for this adventure in tweaking. Hopefully your system will be rockin and you will be fraggin some guys on the Net! Good Luck!