Monday, December 3, 2001		Article

High colour 16-bit option is better
Vipul Verma

THE rapid changes in the world of technology and introduction of more user-friendly programs and operating systems has made a PC very powerful. However, like the fast changing technology the ageing of computer, both in terms of technology as well as performance, is a big concern for the computer users. Ageing of computers due to deteriorating performance can very well be checked and taken care of.

A normal complaint of the PC users is that the performance of their PC has gone slow over a period of time. The slow performance of the PC, which though is sometimes psychological yet in most of the cases real, often prompts them to go for either a new PC or up gradation of the present PC to the newer technologies. However, in most of the cases, the solution to the problem of slowing down of the PC does not lie in up gradation or buying a new PC as the real solution lies in proper maintenance and tuning of the PC, thereby restoring the optimal performance. However, there is no benchmark or specific setting for the optimal performance as it keeps changing with the free resources available with the computer. But there are certain basic rules that set your PC to the optimal setting in the given situation.

First of all, Scandisk is the most basic yet most powerful tool for setting the PC optimally. Regular running of scandisk in the standard mode and periodically running in the through mode would serve the purpose. However, you must also follow it by Disk defrag. Normally, since defrag takes a lot of time, so it is always better to do it at that time when the PC would not be in use as working simultaneously while running defrag would hamper the performance. But that's not all as up till now you have only arranged your files optimally. However, for the best performance you should also keep the hard disk clean of all junk like *.tmp file, Internet temporary files, deleted files in recycle bin, picture files like GIF, JPEG etc. This will fine tune your system and will reduce the clutter on it. But what about other unnecessary programs and entries like the cookies and cache, which your PC gathers while you surf the Internet. For the best performance of the PC, you must also remove them regularly. Well! These settings will make your PC free of junk stuff, which you would not need otherwise. Even now the concern of the stability of PC is not yet addressed.

The stability of the PC is basically a factor depending on so many variables. However, speaking in common terms, the stability of the factor could be achieved by error free operating system. If you are getting Iexplorer error, fatal exception error, page fault error, general protection error, memory error etc. then this means that there is some problem in the system and the computer is not stable. These errors signify and also state the error in the particular memory and data address, which causes the problem and makes your system unstable. These problems are represented by messages like Fatal exception errors, illegal operation error, general protection fault and page fault error. Normally when a program like Microsoft office, Internet explorer or any other application develops snag then the operating system recognises that there is a serious problem and suspends the application causing the problem by defining the error. This error is reflected in the coded form in a typical error message format. These errors actually protect against the system crash as by suspending the offending application, Windows in real terms saves the PC from a bigger problem of system crashing.

Now if you look into all these errors closely, you will find that most of them have one common problem of memory in some way or the other, though there could be several other factors responsible for it. Handling the memory of the PC could save you from several such problems. So, essentially after the proper management of the hard disk, it is equally essential to manage the memory of the computer, which is equally precious. For proper management of the memory of your system, you must get rid off all unnecessary memory resident programs, games, fonts and drivers, which consume a lot of memory. Moreover, now since 128 MB RAM has become bare essential so you must upgrade your RAM to 128 MB if you still have 64 MB RAM in your system. However, higher RAM would still be desirable. You should also increase the paging file size of your system that should at least be 2.5 times your RAM. But if you have a larger hard disk space available, then higher page file size would be better. Remember, large paging file size is always better for the better performance of the PC. This is a misconception in the minds of majority of computer users that use the default paging file size in the optimal setting. It used to be the optimal setting when the hard disk and memory sizes were small. However, now with huge hard disk sizes and big memories, self-management and allocating higher memory for paging file size is most desirable.

Now, after management of the memory, other things that are critical for the performance of the PC are often neglected and rather taken for granted. First such factor is the use of high colours in the display properties. Normally, PC-users choose 24-bit true colour as the choice for colour settings in display properties. However, for most of the applications 16-bit (high colour) option is more than sufficient and for all practical purposes, you cannot make out the difference between the two. However, the performance of PC is better in high colour 16- bit option, so it makes sense to use this option only. Secondly, do not use higher refresh rate for your display adapter in display properties> settings>Advanced. You can either choose the optimal refresh rate or the adapter default refresh rate. Otherwise refresh rate of 56 or 60 works well with most of the PCs and monitors. With higher refresh rates, you may not get the higher performance from the PC. Also in the effects tab of the display properties, you should not use options like "show icons using all possible colours", "animate Windows, menus and lists", "smooth edges of screen fonts", "show windows contents while dragging" etc. Using all these setting slows down your PC though the range and impact may vary. Also for the better performance of the PC, try avoiding the use of screen-savers and wallpapers involving heavy graphics. The screen-saver consumes a lot of memory. Thus as far as possible you should avoid them, if you have to use them, then the default windows screensavers are still better. These are some of the factors critical for the better performance of the PC and if they are taken care of then your PC may not grow old performancewise.

MICROSOFT Corp hopes to sell 1.5 million of its new Xbox video game consoles in the first three months after its planned March 14, 2002, European launch, a senior company official said last week.

Microsoft is a newcomer to the global games market, with its Xbox taking on Nintendo and Sony's Playstation 2.

"We are capable of building 1.5 million units for the launch and we would be very, very happy to sell all of those," said Sandy Duncan, Microsoft's Vice-President for Xbox in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. "The indications from the USA (Xbox) launch are that that may not be a widely optimistic estimate," he told reporters at the opening of one of the new product's main manufacturing plants in western Hungary. Duncan said the launch price for the Xbox in Europe would be around 479 euros ($426.2), in line with the price of Sony's Playstation 2 at its launch 18 months ago.

Singapore-based electronics manufacturer Flextronics International Ltd is building the Xbox at Sarvar, near Hungary's border with Austria, and at a plant in Mexico.

The Sarvar plant is scheduled to provide around 43 percent of worldwide Xbox output. — Reuters

AMD launches processor

AMD announced a new desktop processor for the mainstream PC market, the 1.2GHz AMD Duron (TM) processor, offering best-in-class performance on digital photo, audio and Internet applications.

"With the new 1.2GHz AMD Duron processor, customers can configure an AMD Duron processor-based system with low-cost DDR memory at or below the cost of competitive SDRAM systems," Ed Ellett, vice-president of marketing for AMD’s Computation Products Group said. "This will enable increased application performance and provide even more momentum to the AMD Duron processor’s global success."

The Microsoft® Windows® XP operating system was designed and optimised for x86 processors like the AMD Duron processor. A 1.2GHz AMD Duron processor-based system with DDR memory substantially outperforms a 1.2GHz Intel Celeron processor-based system with SDRAM on 3D gaming benchmarks and also provides up to a 13 per cent performance advantage versus a 1.4GHz Pentium® 4 processor-based system with SDRAM on office productivity and digital media applications.

Like all AMD processors, the new 1.2GHz AMD Duron processor supports AMD’s Socket A platform. For commercial customers, AMD’s Socket A infrastructure offers unmatched platform stability. The 1.2GHz AMD Duron processor is priced at $ 103 in 1,000-unit quantities.