Performance Tweaks
Disclaimer: you perform these tweaks at your own risk. If you are not comfortable making changes to your system or the Windows system registry, then please do not do so. No assistance or support will be offered for you to adjust these settings; please only use this list as a reference.
Contents
Windows
For Client Workstation
This is the computer that Media Center Master and/or your favorite home theater software is installed to.
Increase File System Memory Cache
Windows has a default size to its lists and memory thresholds for buffers that the kernel and device drivers create as caches for file system operations. Use this setting to substantially increase the amount of memory reserved for file system caching.
Command | FSUTIL BEHAVIOR SET MEMORYUSAGE 2 |
Applies To | Windows Server 2000, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, Windows Home Server, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 |
Details | http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc785435(WS.10).aspx |
Disable Non-Media Network Throttling
This tweak will disable the throttling mechanism in Windows that controls multimedia traffic. From microsoft.com: "Because multimedia programs require more resources, the Windows networking stack implements a throttling mechanism to restrict the processing of non-multimedia network traffic to 10 packets per millisecond." This includes all non-multimedia traffic such as reading directory structures, checking for changes in XML files, etc. which can dramatically slow down Media Center Master.
You can disable the throttle entirely by setting the following Windows registry key:
Key | HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\MultiMedia\SystemProfile |
Name | NetworkThrottlingIndex |
Value | 0xFFFFFFFF (hex) |
Applies To | Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, Windows Home Server, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 |
Details | http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948066 |