There are many ways for us to improve our computer performance when we're using memory intensive programs like 3ds max, adobe photoshop(when dealing with large poster-size pictures) etc. Below are some suggested steps to improve your computer's performance.

1)Reduce the number of processes running during startup.
This can be achieved by using the MSCONFIG provided by windows. To access this hidden program, go to start > run and type "MSCONFIG". This will brings you to the MSCONFIG program. For novice users, go directly to the startup tag and you can choose to disable "useless" programs by unchecking them. After you have configured the neccessary stuffs, click on the "apply" button to apply the changes made.

2)Reducing visual effects.
You can achieve an immediate boost in speed by changing another setting in System Properties. Select the Advanced tab, click Settings under Performance then choose the Visual Effects tab. The display and interface in Windows XP will use up its fair share of memory and CPU resources. By checking the option "Adjust for best performance", the appearance of your system will revert to a more basic interface. This will "visually" improves you system performance. Try it yourself to spot the changes!!

3)Cleaning up traces of unwanted/ ophan registry left by uninstalled programs.
You can achieve that by running RegEdit in Windows. Go to start> run and type "RegEdit" to run the program. Remember to back up a copy of it before attempting to remove unwanted program registries. Deleting the wrong registry could cause serious damage to your operating system, hence delete them on your own risk!! Not recommended for novice users.

For novice users, I do recommend registry mechanic, a shareware program which will automatically scan through your computers' registries and helped you to remove them.

the list goes on....

Good tips ffx2net. One more tool that you can use to reduce system drag is Sissoft Sandra Pro - It's aSystem Analyzer tool that will perform some rigorous benchmarking of all your system devices and then come up with a combined report of what all you should do to cut down on excessive resource utilization. This includes unnecessary background processes, startup files, those visual effects you mentioned and loads more... I've been using it for sometime - and I must say its an excellent tool with an extensive report generator.

Hey thanks for the tips, both of you... I'll definitely be trying them all out because I've recently noticed that my PC has been running considerably slower than usual. Hopefully by following some of these tips I can get my machine running fast again. microscopic^earthling, any tips on where I could get that program? And if/when I try it out and am having problems, any chance you could give me some further tips on what to do? I generally don't like to disable or delete stuff when I don't know exactly what it's function is and what effect it is going to have.

How about increasing the windows page file?

I personally think its better that you manipulate these settings manually rather than using a software to do it because installing a software means running 1 more process in your computer. Furthermore what if you forget to revert back all the default settings when you uninstall the program?

Also you should check out http://www.blackviper.com/index.html It's good and very detailed.

thnx for that link

it really rockz

I've noticed that letting Windows manage your pagefile can slow things down because it's always trying to figure out how big the pagefile should be. I think the recommended size is around 1.5x the amount of RAM you have. So if you have 512MB of RAM you'd use 768MB pagefile but that could be wrong. Whatever windows sets it at should work fine too, just set it yourself to a constant rate so that Windows doesn't waste time figuring out what the size of the pagefile should be.

Another way to increase perfomance ist to create a ramdisk. A ramdisk is a virtual volume which lives completely in the RAM, so all data stored in it will be gone after shutdown.

Get yourself a little ramdisk-application for example this one here:
http://www.ramdisk.tk/

Then change the directory of your Temporary Internet Files and put it into the ramdisk. (In Internet Explorer: Extras-Options-TempFiles-Settings-Move Folder). From now on when accessing the temporary files no harddisk action is necessary, so surfing the web turns faster!

GreetingZ

What is real interesting though some people are fascinated by the amount little icon that show up in their task bar. I met a guy who had about fifteen icons listed and boasted that he had more but after he had removed a few programs they diapered.

I have to be always telling my co-workers if applications do not need to be loaded at startup remove their icons from the startup folder or disable auto launch at startup to save memory. But I think that some of them are fascinated by the little pictures too.