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A Little Computer Pet Peeve [56k no]
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 Re: A Little Computer Pet Peeve [56k no]
Posted by Windows 98 on Tue Oct 11th at 9:59pm 2005

Ok, just decided to make a little post, see what you guys think or have to say about the issue.

Here is the deal, as we all know, we all are computer nerds (face it guys, we are geeks). Now, I'm sure we all know at least some bassics about computers and know about how they work and such. Like, that RAM is Random access Memory and what it does, and what a processor does. Ok, we all know that yada yada yada. So, I noticed that when I go to a friends house, they are running default programs, such as Windows Media Player or IE.
Now, when using their computers (usually a Dell, running on 256mb RAM, Pentium 4, and at 800x600 resolution ((i really hate 800x600, I always make it highest possible))) I notice how slow everything is. I know that partially it is due to the system being not to good. But, I was wondering what else could be slowing them down.


So I set out to see what is slowing them down and how programs like Firefox or WinAMP can be benifitial.

The Results:

Windows Media Player - Playing a song (Feuer Frei - Rammstein *5.21mb)

13,936K of RAM (roughly 14 mb)
image

That's a lot of RAM wasted due to just having a song playing.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

WinAMP - Playing same song (Feuer Frei - Rammstein *5.21mb)

6,028 of RAM (roughly 6mb)
image


Thats A difference of 8mb! Now that may not seem a lot to us, but to someone with 256mb of RAM and is usuing it going on the internet (IE most likely), AIM or MSN, maybe some folders open, a few programs running in the backround like Limewire (ew), That 8 couldn't do anything but help.


Now, my IE has a virus because it's IE. And I can't compare it to Firefox. But, I'm sure it has to use much less RAM.
Now aside from RAM, their are just the plain old options and things you can do with the program.

WinAMP and Windows Media Player are very similar. They play media files. Not much else to say. And, there is already a thread on browsers. So we can see the advantages.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now, the pet peave part of all this.

Just the fact that people aren't doing themselves a favor and using these programs. It's like, not optimizing a map!








http://img362.imageshack.us/img362/8521/windows981dk.jpg

Nickelplate is my dad



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 Re: A Little Computer Pet Peeve [56k no]
Posted by Forceflow on Tue Oct 11th at 10:18pm 2005

I did a similar experiment with MSN-chatclients. The most notable difference was between MSN 7.0 en Miranda. (I tweaked miranda to have the same options (notifications, buddy icons, ...), except for voice transfer, but that wasn't used in the test)

image

I've got some hints and tricks:

  • Use alternatives for some software: Browser (Firefox, Opera), Media Player (Foobar2000 - which is my favorite very customizable, take a look at this: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v320/Forceflow/foobar.jpg or Winamp), Bsplayer to play video files, Openoffice instead of Ms office, ...
  • Disable unnecessary services. The Blackviper site had an excellent description of all the Windows XP SP2 services and their functions and recommended settings, but that site seems to be down. Just google for "xp services black viper" and you will find a mirror for it. Saves me up to 30 megs of precious Ram.
  • Disable visual effects. Do you really need mouse shadow, smooth menu sliding or other stuff that doesn't matter ? Right-click on my computer, choose properties, and edit the settings.
  • Defragment, defragment and defragment. This sure is important, and it doesn't take too long either on NTFS systems. (on Fat32, a long-time-not-defragmented disk can take a while)
  • Disable unnecessary startup programs. You don't need all those "helper" things in your system tray. I hate it when I see some computers with their systray stacked with useless icons. Honestly, who ever used the winzip quickstart icon ? The adobe acrobat quickstart icon ? That's just a shallow way of those developers to pre-load the program in order to reduce start-up time of the program.
  • And all those helper things that startup too ... you don't need them at all, really. If you want to change a setting for a soundcard or anything like that, you can go to the configuration screen any time you want. Save that RAM, and disable the services.
  • Wipe temporary files. As in the name "temporary", you don't need them at all. And it's not just disk space you're gaining. Clearing IE's cache can fix some display problems that occur when it's full. There are dozens of programs out there to do this. My personal favorite: www.ccleaner.com
I love to have my system as clean as it can be.



:: Forceflow.be :: Nuclear Dawn developer



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 Re: A Little Computer Pet Peeve [56k no]
Posted by omegaslayer on Tue Oct 11th at 10:32pm 2005

? quote:
Here is the deal, as we all know, we all are computer nerds (face it guys, we are geeks).

The term nerd and geeks has been redefined over the past decade. Surprisingly I don't think we are geeks or nerds. When I think of geeks and nerds I think of the bad hygene and piply face - people who don't take care of themselves. Generaly geeks and nerds are not inteligent, and have no or little skill at anything (maybe they know about what alt-F4 does, but thats NOTHING). And generally have no social interaction outside of the internet world.

I think the definition of geeks and nerds has changed, now they are those who use the terms: "ey pwn n00bs" "eym teh l33t winzor & u r a n00b luzur". And have no techincal/gamming skill at all.

I'm sorry for pointing this out, but I don't believe that because we are computer savy, doesn't make us nerds or geeks, because I know alot of us do take care of ourselves, have a social life outside of the snarkpit/computer room, and we are actually good at video games. Now if you wanted to call us gamers/game developers, thats fine. We here make 3d enviroments, and show off our artistic tallent (something nerds and geeks don't have). So in my humble opinion, calling us nerds at the the snarkpit is an insult.

Anyways back to topic:
I wouldn't blame your friend for running these programs. Its not their fault that they aren't computer savy like you Mr. High and Mighty. =P

/my 2 cents





Posting And You



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 Re: A Little Computer Pet Peeve [56k no]
Posted by Windows 98 on Tue Oct 11th at 10:46pm 2005

lol, but they do know about these programs, I shove it down their throats 24/7 and they refuse to change it. Just because they thin their Dell is better then anything ever made :-P.


Your a nerd in denial Omega <img src=" SRC="images/smiles/icon_smile.gif"> (joking)



http://img362.imageshack.us/img362/8521/windows981dk.jpg

Nickelplate is my dad



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 Re: A Little Computer Pet Peeve [56k no]
Posted by Nickelplate on Tue Oct 11th at 11:03pm 2005

That's my freakin pet peeve right there!




I tried sniffing coke, but the ice cubes kept getting stuck in my nose.
http://www.dimebowl.com



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 Re: A Little Computer Pet Peeve [56k no]
Posted by OtZman on Tue Oct 11th at 11:26pm 2005

? quote:
I did a similar experiment with MSN-chatclients. The most notable difference was between MSN 7.0 en Miranda. (I tweaked miranda to have the same options (notifications, buddy icons, ...), except for voice transfer, but that wasn't used in the test)

image




Makes me wanna try Miranda.



What the Snarkpitters listen to!



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 Re: A Little Computer Pet Peeve [56k no]
Posted by Myrk- on Wed Oct 12th at 12:25am 2005

I use WMP not for its ram usage but its interface. Just never liked WinAmp.


-[Better to be Honest than Kind]-



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 Re: A Little Computer Pet Peeve [56k no]
Posted by KingNic on Wed Oct 12th at 12:40am 2005

What's slowing that computer down? I'd say the fact that it's using 600mb+ of RAM when it's got 256mb physical. If that screenshot was taken after startup then I would sincerely recommend reinstalling windows cause it would probably be less bother than to remove over 2000 items of spyware.



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 Re: A Little Computer Pet Peeve [56k no]
Posted by FatStrings on Wed Oct 12th at 1:05am 2005

i had miranda for about 3 months before it stopped logging me on
before then even i had to tell it to log me on like 5 times
of course this only happened when i used my 56k





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 Re: A Little Computer Pet Peeve [56k no]
Posted by wil5on on Wed Oct 12th at 5:23am 2005

I use Miranda, I prefer it over MSN because its not bloated. I also use Winamp for the same reason. WMP has a lot more crap than is neccessary to play a song.

It doesnt bother me that people dont use alternatives however, since I rarely use other peoples computers (apart from uni computers, but I dont do much on them).




&quot;If you talk at all during this lesson, you have detention. Do you understand?&quot;
- My yr11 Economics teacher



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 Re: A Little Computer Pet Peeve [56k no]
Posted by Addicted to Morphine on Wed Oct 12th at 5:25am 2005

Firefox uses 72 megs on my computer (why?!) and iTunes uses 40. I thought it would use more since its so damn sluggish on my computer.




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 Re: A Little Computer Pet Peeve [56k no]
Posted by Crono on Wed Oct 12th at 6:06am 2005

You do realize using memory isn't what "slows" anything down ... right?

Of course it may cause the page file to be accessed for something else (which Windows commonly does anyway for reasons that are not always sound)

In your example, WMP10 and such uses a lot of memory ... it's nothing but images! BMPs at that. Each one needs to be loaded into memory, same with the song. WinAmp has a smaller graphical interface, so it uses less memory. Pretty simple. (That's why if you want to use WMP you use classic)

Most of those processes running are ... questionable. In other words they look like adware.

Look them up online and see about removing them. This will relieve congestion on the system as well.

BUT, there's more. You can specify in Windows what you want to give precedence to. Background applications can split the processor usage equally (which is not the default). It's under system properties.

Also, another BIG clue that you have viruses and adware and all that garbage is if you have over ... 30 (maybe) processes running that you didn't personally start.

That person has 116 ... That's 116 programs loaded into memory ... and asking for processor precedence and you're wondering why it's bogged down?

The specs aren't a great indicator. For example, I can do things fairly quickly on my laptop, which I'm right now. Which is running XP ... it's only 233Mhz with 163MB ram.

Proof if there ever was any.


Blame it on Microsoft, God does.



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 Re: A Little Computer Pet Peeve [56k no]
Posted by Addicted to Morphine on Wed Oct 12th at 6:13am 2005

How many processes do you have running?




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 Re: A Little Computer Pet Peeve [56k no]
Posted by Crono on Wed Oct 12th at 6:18am 2005

27 processes. But I have a lot of things running. Look at Nickle, he's got 18.

It includes, AIM, Mozilla, AntiVirus, Acrobat, Wireless utilities. Open Office ... some other stuff for printers and crap. The most memory is being used by Mozilla and Acrobat Reader (I f**king hate this program so much)

My page file right now is 222MB and my processor usage is around 12%

Physical memory usage: 35MB free.

And again this is on my laptop: XP pro, 233Mhz P2, 163 MB something slow speed RAM. I only have 4GB HDD total too.

Anyway, as you can see, it's nothing blazing. It's a ten year old machine and it's running better than most people's computers ... unless you want to play a game. (Lags with HL1 in software mode lowest settings. Terrible video chipset)


Blame it on Microsoft, God does.



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 Re: A Little Computer Pet Peeve [56k no]
Posted by Addicted to Morphine on Wed Oct 12th at 6:20am 2005

I was at 43 processes and I got worried that I had spyware or something (even though I'm pretty smart about being careful). I took your advice and googled all the process names and I was relieved to find that there was nothing fishy running.




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 Re: A Little Computer Pet Peeve [56k no]
Posted by Crono on Wed Oct 12th at 6:30am 2005

Yeah. A lot of times you'll have stuff running in the background that's stuff you installed. Point is: you probably don't need them running. Like, mozilla for example, as great as the "quick load" feature is, you don't really need it. Use it enough and it'll load pretty fast.

But things like realsched, itunes, um .. you have to look out for acrobat a lot of times, since it NEVER closes unless you kill the process. I think it may if you open it specifically in reader, but if you're doing it through a browser it doesn't close ... at least it never does for me (on any system I use). It's very annoying.

There's just a lot of things you don't need running. Like your system at idle, non-use stage, shouldn't have 40 something processes running. What could you honestly need running all the time? Just kill it and it'll open when you need it. What's the use of using up memory, right?

But, it's really when you get above 50 or so that you gotta get a little suspicious. I said 30, because, I also said, "If you didn't run them" that includes from personally installing something (realplayer).


Blame it on Microsoft, God does.



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 Re: A Little Computer Pet Peeve [56k no]
Posted by Addicted to Morphine on Wed Oct 12th at 6:42am 2005

Any idea why I have six svchost.exe's running? What does that mean? Is it normal?




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 Re: A Little Computer Pet Peeve [56k no]
Posted by Crono on Wed Oct 12th at 6:44am 2005

I don't know. I have about four running at all times or more. I know it gets exploited sometimes though.

Actually, there are viruses with the same name as all the standard windows applications floating around out there. They're dummies or fakes.


Blame it on Microsoft, God does.



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 Re: A Little Computer Pet Peeve [56k no]
Posted by Madedog on Wed Oct 12th at 7:01am 2005

I have 1 gig of memory so I have no slowdowns whatsoever on normal work. Sometimes me Win just likes to crash <img src=" SRC="images/smiles/icon_lol.gif">
But nothing fatal.
And if you look at the amount of processes in there... I so wonder how the hell he can live with such thing! I bet he has viruses, infections, torjans, spyware and adware. VISTA for short.



HL2 tutorials 'n' stuff: http://madedog.pri.ee
217.159.236.34:27050 - CSS Server - Clean | koffer.ee



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 Re: A Little Computer Pet Peeve [56k no]
Posted by Loco on Wed Oct 12th at 7:08am 2005

73 processes for me, of which I'm pretty sure none are spyware. I think I'd better spend a while optimising...



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