Acouple Win98FE Questions

[Kubie]

In Display settings, what does "Animate Windows and Lists do?

And View Desktop as Webpage.

Are alot of resources used for these?

Carl

[GaryRouth]

Hi Kubie

"Animate Windows and Lists"
Some of the windows have fancy effects (usually in the borders and frames) - the most common is the sort-of "waterfall" of colors effect in the Windows98 startup screen. Doesn't take up a lot of resources, but on really ancient machines I usually disable it, since they need all the help they can get. Anything from a P-II class and up shouldn't notice much.

"View Desktop as Webpage"
This one enables Active Desktop, which I've never liked, whether or not it wastes resources (though I suspect it wastes more than a fancy frame in a window). It was originally designed back when "push" programming from the Internet was supposed to be the Next Big Thing. We were all expected to have webpages for desktops, constantly updating themselves. Never happened. Using the jpgs for wallpaper requires this to be enabled, but it consumes resources. You can always simply change the wallpaper to a different format, and then it can be used without invoking the Active Desktop.

On a Pentium III, it really doesn't matter either way, though, because from that generation and up, there's more than enough power to go around.

You should see the resources that XP uses with all the eye-candy turned on - but it doesn't have any trouble with them, since it's a different ballgame. Besides, we have to give the P4s something to do with all those clock cycles whirring by . . .

. . . Gary

[Kubie]

Hi Gary,
Thank you for that explanation. This is a slower machine that I'm trying to get all the resources I can so that the person can play games.
Of course, he has a screensaver, Animate Windows, Active Desktop, wallpaper, and other things to slow him down.
Your help is appreciated.
Carl

[GaryRouth]

Hi Kubie

Depending on how ancient it is, a little extra memory and perhaps something like an ATi Radeon 7500 64mb DDR - which now goes for under $70 - might be enough for 3D.

. . . Gary

[Kubie]

Gary,

Its not so much ancient as it is "proprietary".

Emachines 333cs that I just upgraded from Cyrix 300 to a AMD K6-2 500mhz. There is no AGP slot, 2 pci slots (one with a NIC) and 2 ISA slots.
The video is built in and is ATI Rage ll.

Carl

[GaryRouth]

Hmm . . . if he sticks with older versions of games, and especially to OpenGl types of games and not the DirectX, he might be able to play a few. If the Rage II has 8mb of memory, he's Ok - if he's got the RageIIc onboard with only 2mb, he's not going to want to game much: that machine wasn't made for it. He can try the games he likes, though, just to see: he'll have to keep the settings as low as possible - fewest colors, fewest sound effects (or no sound at all!), smallest screen size (prob. 640x480). On an eMachines box, the sound probably steals cycles from the cpu, so he might have to do without sound.

His business programs ought to like that K6-2 500, especially if the memory is up around 128mb-256mb. That stuff is dirt cheap right now (PC100 & PC133).

That generation of machine is what I see a lot of when I'm fixing them for neighbors and the local preschools.

. . . Gary

[Kubie]

Gary,
Forgot about the ram upgrade. It has 128mb Crucial.
He's not looking for perfection, but the jerkiness was pretty bad before I started.
He also installed Corel on the D: with the games and never defragged. Between the Sims and Corel, the HDD had stuff all over the 8.2 gig. Just defragging it made a huge difference.
Right now, I have 94% resources free. Thats an improvement over the 85% I started with.
BTW, the ATI Rage ll with 3-D now has 4mb
Carl