Be very very careful with performance tweaks

[Markus5]

I wasn't happy with the hiccups that my Civ4 videos had, so I started updating and tweaking. New video drivers. Video tweaks like guru32 and nvhardpage and coolbits. BIOS settings: AGP aperature, etc. Other stuff. Nothing helped with the hiccups. Pretty soon I was seeing odd problems just sitting at the desktop. I shutdown and restored BIOS settings, since that was the last thing I tweaked. Now I can't boot too far into Windows at all. It just hangs after the safe mode drivers are loaded.

Fortunately, I write Windows drivers for a living, and can hook up a debugger to resolve this problem. That will be my weekend project. But, you might not be so lucky.

Before you start tweaking, make sure you turn on system restore points. Maybe backup your hardware profile. And, if things are working pretty good, be satisfied. A wild tweak-a-thon like I did isn't a good idea.

Let's be careful out there.

 

[aquavit]

Good advice.

 

[Sorceresss]

You have to be an Indiana Jones or a Lara Croft to dare tinker with the BIOS just to make a game perform !

 

[Subtestube]

You have to be an Indiana Jones or a Lara Croft to dare tinker with the BIOS just to make a game perform !

I disagree with that. I mean, sure, if you start messing with stuff like PCI clocks and AGP voltage, you're probably very very ill advised. Considering they make next to no performance difference, and operate parts outside of spec, I think you'd just be asking for trouble. However, messing with things like AGP aperture should be relatively safe.

That said, I completely agree with Markus - make sure that everything is properly backed up before you go messing with your PC, and don't do anything if things are actually fine. The benefits are rarely worth the risk.