Topic by Jake Johnson

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  • Jake Johnson
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  • Registered: 04-05-2007
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Topic: Great free program for improving Windows music software performance

Just ran across this, and it works well with PianoTeq: The new version of Advanced System Care for Windows has a Gaming arrangement that basically just shuts down all of the services that aren't needed, including some that you might ordinarily not think to shut off. Much faster than shutting them off manually and maybe faster than setting up a separate profile and switching to it. It also optimizes the RAM.

In any case, on my system, it reduces the load PianoTeq places on the CPU by over half, even though I had several services already turned off.

Note that this is a new addition to Advanced System Care. I can't really suggest that you trust it absolutely, to the point of using it with a sequencer and several sample sets, but it seems to work fine for me so far.

Reply by Jake Johnson

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  • Jake Johnson
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Re: Great free program for improving Windows music software performance

Oops, no link. And I need to make two potential problem clear. Here's the link, although it's fairly well-known:

http://www.iobit.com/advancedwindowscareper.html

Once it's installed, you can ignore the rest of the program and just use the Gaming option, before opening PianoTeq, from the round Utilities button at the bottom of the main interface.

Two small warnings, one of them self-evident, I think: You'll want to close other programs before you run it, including internet browsers, and turn off your modem\wireless card, since the program shuts off services that they need.

The other warning has to do with another part of the program: if you run the main program and accept all of the default settings for "System Optimization," (the first item on the Diagnose System page)  Advanced System Care will change some of the settings that you may have made for audio. Specifically, if you have set your system to devote more resources to background services than to programs (Control Panel\System\Advanced), leaving "System Optimization checked will shift the resources back to programs.

So it's best to uncheck this option. The other fine-tuning options seem to work well without disrupting any user-revisions to the system.

Regardless, I'd like to learn if other people are getting similarly good results from this program. I'm still surprised that it frees up so much cpu.