Attn: Vista Users! Tips for reducing lag.

This was such a miracle, I had to share it.

I run Windows Vista, on a fairly crappy machine. 1GB of RAM. Lag has become such an issue, it makes playing anything nearly unbearable. But a few days ago I decided to do something about it, and found a "Miracle Cure".

One of Vista's many Services is called "SuperFetch". What this does is tracks the programs you use and does some sort of preloading to make frequently used programs run faster. Believe me when I say this is total BS, and a massive hinderance to gaming. My hard drive audibly grinds constantly while I'm trying to run games, and it's absolutely painful to do anything. So after researching this, I decided the sucker had to die.

Since doing this, playing CoX has resulted in minimal lag, and what issues I did experience were the fault of the server, not my computer (IE, mass Mapserv'ing yesterday, due to the 2XP load).

Here's what to do:

Go to Start>Run, and type "services.msc". Give Admin authorization if necessary.

Scroll down the list of Services until you find "SuperFetch".

Set Startup Type to "Manual", click Stop, and then OK.

Done.

This has no adverse effects on you PC. Also note that if you have a huge amount of RAM, disabling this might not do much and the problem may lie elsewhere. But if you, like me, have about 1GB or lower RAM, disabling SuperFetch is much, much better.

Also, while we're in services.msc, you might want to look for "Desktop Window Manager" and disable that as well. DWM is a memory hog that does nothing but make your windows look shiney. I am not joking. Do you care if your windows are shiney? I don't. It's a waste of a lot of resources.

Be warned that not everything in services.msc is safe to disable! Don't go killing stuff if you don't know what you're doing! Search the net and get some information before you disable anything that you don't know about.

First off, if you have a nice amount of ram (say, 2GB) I highly recommend against disabling super fetch, as it does decrease load times for programs (although there's a temporary slowdown on a new system while it's still initializing and learning).

Secondly, if you have a decent video card, you're better off leaving the Desktop Window Manager enabled, because it'll improve the performance of most normal applications (they'll be rendered by the GPU instead of very slowly by the CPU), as well as prevent windows from having to repaint themselves if you move a window above them. DWM also automatically disables itself when it detects a full-screen application running, so it shouldn't actually cause a decrease in performance.

But, for systems that only meet the minimum requirements some things that might normally improve performance can often be counter productive, so it can't hurt to try and see.

We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.

As I said if you have higher RAM, leave SuperFetch alone. This is more aimed towards folks like me who only have about 1GB or lower.

As far as DWM disabling with a full screen program running, I'm inclined to call BS on that one. That thing was a thorn in my side for a long time, even while running full screen it was still running at full capacity on my process list. Unless of course it reactivated as soon as I tabbed out of CoX. Quite frankly, disabling it has had no ill effects, and therefore I deem it completely unnessecary to have.

These are tips for people running at the bare minimum. I am well aware that higher specs can handle the massive resource drain of Vista and run games with no problems, but not everyone has a machine that can deal with that. Obviously, if you do, then there's no need to be disabling things. If not...Well, this can help.