A few WinXP questions...

[trancejeremy]

Since it was becoming obvious that Win 98 was no longer being supported and thus not quite compatible with my new computer, I ordered the trial version of WinXP 64 and installed it on my previously unused hard drive (which Win 98 wouldn't support).

I have to admit, WinXP is very very slick. But some questions:

1a)When I shut down my computer via WinXP, my mouse's laser still stays on. As this is in the same room as my bed, this is annoying. It didn't do this in Win98. Any way to fix this?

1b) I also noticed that typing seems much slower than in Win 98. I was writing a review of Dawning Star: Operation Quick Launch, and it was like I was typing too fast for the computer to handle. (I don't type all that fast, about 60 words per minute). Is there like a setting for the input rate from the keyboard or something?

2) Performance in games, at least the Sims 2, is terrible, much worse than in Win 98 (though not as glitchy - Nvidia hasn't made any stable drivers for my video card for Win 98) . I suspect I need more memory, but is there anyway to get WinXP to use less? I've turned off all the fancy doodads in the interface.

3) This is more computer related - As of now, there are no drivers for the 64 bit Win XP for my modem. So in order to go online (like now), I have to boot to Win 98 on a different hard drive. Which would be no problem, except that Win 98 crashes if I don't turn my my serial ATA hard drive in my bios settings. (And then I have to turn it back on to run WinXP).

Does anyone know if changing settings frequently in the bios will cause problems? Like 2-3 times a day? CompUSA (the brand of the modem I bought) doesn't know if they are going to ever release new drivers for the modem, and I'm not sure which modems actually have drivers for WinXP 64, so I dunno when I'll be able to use it for the internet.

4) I tried installing PCGen again, but it simply won't work. I click on the bat file for it, a dos box pops up for a second, then disappears. Nothing happens. I have Java installed. But is there anything special I need to do?

Thanks for any help. I'll probably ask in the MS newsgroups when I get a chance. But since I was here, I thought I'd ask...

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

It would help to know the hardware specifics of your machine.

1a. This is probably related to power management and the ability to have the computer wake up or power on based on mouse events. You can probably turn this off in the BIOS. Also, make sure the computer is really powering down, not just going into standby or whatever your PC calls its 'Suspend to RAM' feature. OTOH, I really like the Suspend to RAM -- I go weeks without rebooting, and I can go from essentially off to working in 10 seconds.

1b. Not that I'm aware of, at least with stock keyboards. You can set the repeat rate, but that is different. However, on a reasonably capable PC, there is no way you should be able to type faster than the computer can keep up unless there is something running in the background sucking up lots of CPU power. I can type around 100 words a minute at peak, and I can't outrace any computer (aside from the occasional hiccup when auto-save kicks in or something). Run the task manager and look at the processes and see if something is sucking up clock cycles.

2. Again, use the Task Manager and see how much physical memory you have, how big the page file is getting, and how much memory individual processes are taking up. I personally wouldn't run XP in less than 256MB and expect to get decent game performance, and really 512 is the minimum I recommend for anyone buying a new PC. If the PC is having to constantly swap out to virtual memory, it will absolutely kill performance (and could be related to 1b)

3. You could change the BIOS a thousand times a day and the computer wouldn't care. Well, actually not true --eventually you'd hit the write-limit on the flash ram, but that's usually in the 10s or 100s of thousands. If you are having to twitch with drive settings, I'd be more concerned with potential file corruption.

4. From the java control panel applet, you should be able to turn on logging and the console. Also, try running from the command line "java -jar pcgen.jar" from your PCGen directory and see if it returns any errors.

Honestly, unless you really know what you are doing, running XP64 on a PC not expressly designed for it can bite you in the ass. Because of the driver issues (which you are seeing with the modem), it is entirely possible that a misbehaving driver is causing system problems that are manifesting in slow-downs and other odd behavior.

 

[trancejeremy]

Thanks for the reply. My computer is designed for XP64, it being an Athlon 64 3400. Most every component is new. Even the modem is new, just not supported (according to the driver list on the cd, only 2 dial up modem brands are supported, and neither is very good, both win modems)

I have 512 megs of memory, and I set the page file to 768 megs. It doesn't seem to be using virtual memory unless I run a game, and honestly, the Sims 2 is a bit of a memory hog. So I guess I just need more memory.


My concern about the bios was because I've had flash memory cards (for video game consoles) go bad after a lot of use. They have a large but definitely finite number of writes. I guess computer bios use better quality memory.

I don't think I could corrupt the hard drive - I'm just switching on & off the Serial ATA controller.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Thanks for the reply. My computer is designed for XP64, it being an Athlon 64 3400. Most every component is new. Even the modem is new, just not supported (according to the driver list on the cd, only 2 dial up modem brands are supported, and neither is very good, both win modems)

Actually, so far, I only know of one PC *designed* for XP64. A fair range of stuff will support it, but Microsoft was pretty low-key about it, and a lot of vendors have been lukewarm in their support. Now that it's actually released, driver support should improve. Might be slim pickings on modems for a long time, though, since they are becoming an extinct species.

I have 512 megs of memory, and I set the page file to 768 megs. It doesn't seem to be using virtual memory unless I run a game, and honestly, the Sims 2 is a bit of a memory hog. So I guess I just need more memory.

Hmm. Assuming you have a decent video board (DirectX 9 compliant, 128MB of RAM), the Sims2 should *not* be slow on that machine. You're well beyond the recommended spec's. I've run it on my PC and it's only an Athlon XP 2200 / ATI 9800 (though with a gig of RAM). Might want to check the BIOS settings for your video - check the AGP aperture settings and make sure it's set to the right speed (1x, 2x, 4x, or 8x) for your video and motherboard combo.

My concern about the bios was because I've had flash memory cards (for video game consoles) go bad after a lot of use. They have a large but definitely finite number of writes. I guess computer bios use better quality memory.

Not better quality memory, it's just that the number of writes is way lower than you see with video games or cameras, etc. You should get several thousand at a minimum -- even changing it 5 times a day, it would be several years before I'd think you'd have to worry, and you'll upgrade well before then, or at least stop switching back and forth between 98 and XP.

I don't think I could corrupt the hard drive - I'm just switching on & off the Serial ATA controller.

Ah, misunderstood. Though you were changing settings so could share drives between 98 and XP.

 

[Allanon]

If I were you I'd drop XP64 in favor of the tried and tested XP-pro 32 . There is no performance gains to be seen by running in 64bit mode and with most software still being natively compiled for 32bits operating systems your only asking for trouble by going 64bits. 64bits is nice if you had the need for over 4gigs of ram but seeing as you still run with only 512mb of ram there is no need for 64bits computing. I'd wait it out for at least half a year before going 64bits, at the moment it's still in it's infancy for desktop computing and thus not recommended for everyday work.

 

[mps42]

I agree with Allanon, go with XPPro, much better supprt for modems and video cards and such.

 

[trancejeremy]

Hmm. Assuming you have a decent video board (DirectX 9 compliant, 128MB of RAM), the Sims2 should *not* be slow on that machine. You're well beyond the recommended spec's. I've run it on my PC and it's only an Athlon XP 2200 / ATI 9800 (though with a gig of RAM). Might want to check the BIOS settings for your video - check the AGP aperture settings and make sure it's set to the right speed (1x, 2x, 4x, or 8x) for your video and motherboard combo.

Well, the video isn't slow, it's the loading of the game that is slow. It apparently has to use virtual memory instead of actual memory. After a while everything seemingly gets loaded and it runs fine. But at first it's annoying.