New Sticky needed

[nagant]

Players need detailed and simple instructions on how to and what to disable in the task manager as far as background processes to make X3TC run smoother. Most of us open the task manager and do not know what to do or are afraid of closing the wrong process. It would be nice to know exactly what is OK to close and what is not OK to close. Thanks!
P.S. X3TC is a riot!

[Cycrow]

u could be millions of different types of processes running, it would be impossible to list them all.

also there are lots of processes that could be needed, like some drivers and such, and again would be impossible to list them all

[EventHorizon]

You are contradicting yourself here, detailed and simple instructions eh?

I would highly recommend against doing this for the following reasons:

• -Different computers have different applications installed.
  -Different operating systems load different processes, the difference between XP and Vista is significant - the difference between x86 and x64 is less so but there are some.
  -Different drivers load different processes.
  -Forcing a process to terminate should always be a last resort, if it is causing problems stop it from loading in the first place.
  -This is the X3: Terran Conflict support forum, not a general Windows support forum.

Rather than trying to list processes that people feel should not be running it would be better to consult seperate websites that are dedicated to such things. One that I used to frequent was Black Vipers service list, which shows what Windows services can be dissabled and what the effect will be. As for other programs, just how many do you think there are? As an example, Nero (I have Nero 8.1) has multiple installation options and these alter what processes are loaded. But that has been the case since Nero 6, do you have any idea how long the list would be just for the Nero suite alone?

Bottom line, if you don't know what the process is then don't touch it - or at the very least Google it.

[Spamas]

Such a universal answer is unfortunatley not as easy to come by as you might hope. There is a decent article to be found here using a utility called ProcessLibrary which allows you to look up information on running processses. The reason why such an answer is difficult to give is because PC hardware and drivers can differer greatly in names depending on brands used for the PC. As an example, the two primary brands for graphics cards are Nvidia and ATi each of which run differently named processes as their driver utilities. So a comprehensive list of what you can close is impossible.

But from the other side you can look at it as a set of processes you shouldn't close: Those run by the "System" username, Svchost.exe which runs windows services and probably explorer.exe. Any critical process which you shutdown will give you a warning, automatically restart itself or will force your pc to shutdown. As far as I know, bar some time wasted on a restart you can't damage your PC by closing processes so some trial and error on this front should be fine. Just make sure you save any work before closing things randomly .

Hope this helps.

[edit] hehe, two posts in the time It took me to write this. But one more thing to add: if you're running a dual core machine the performance gain through added processing power will be negligable. And ram usage is probably similar. You won't gain a great deal out of shutting these things down anyway.

[exogenesis]

For absolute minimal background tasks the best way
I've found is to use msconfig, at least in XP
(Start->Run->type msconfig & return)

Turn off everything by ticking the radio-button option:
'Diagnostic Startup - load basic devices and services only'.
[ external image ]


Then go to the Services tab, sort by name by clicking on the 'Service' field header.
These three following essential services are ticked (in XP) & cannot be disabled:
'DCOM Server Proces Launcher'
'Remote Procedure Call (RPC)'
'Remote Procedure Call (RPC) Locator''

Then scroll down & tick (enable) only these three:
'Plug and Play'
'Universal Plug and Play Device Host'
'Windows Audio'
[ external image ]
[ external image ]

In the 'Startup' tab, nothing is ticked,
so no anti-virus, anti-spyware etc,
and all the non-essential system-bloaters are not loaded when you re-boot.

Click OK, & reboot when prompted,
dismiss the msconfig dialog reminder that comes up
& you should have gained a lot of memory (500 MByte in my case in XP),
and you dont get scan schedules suddenly giving X3 stutters.


Warning : Don't log-on to the internet in this condition,
since you won't be protected against virus & spyware etc.


To return to normal, run msconfig again (as at the top), select the option
'Normal Startup - load all device drivers and services',
click OK, then reboot when prompted.

Maybe someone can verify this is OK for Vista ?