Windows 7 'Gamer Edition'

pbrain

pbrain

pbrain

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I'd like to have a PC dedicated to gaming, with no other nonsense installed. So, is it possible to take an installation ISO, remove unwanted elements and add only essential updates.

Any ideas what can be removed/added from Win7 64bit to make it as efficient as possible? :)
 
Removing components causes more problems than it solves IMO. There really isn't much "nonsense" in there. Just leave it a alone and turn off the unneeded services like Windows Defender.
 
MagicBoy said:
Removing components causes more problems than it solves IMO. There really isn't much "nonsense" in there. Just leave it a alone and turn off the unneeded services like Windows Defender.
Click to expand...

I reckon there's plenty of processes/threads that can be removed and not needed for gaming.
Also, remove (in my case) foreign language files.
Also stuff like accessability software, email, windows games etc could go.
 
Reckon what you like, I know the subject. About the best you'll get is to reclaim a few megabytes of disk space for an large amount to time invested. There's no included email client for a start, and components like windows games are just inactive applications.

You'd get a better return tweaking your overclock, but if it makes you feel better then knock yourself out... ;)
 
pbrain said:
I reckon there's plenty of processes/threads that can be removed and not needed for gaming.
Also, remove (in my case) foreign language files.
Also stuff like accessability software, email, windows games etc could go.
Click to expand...

But the pertinent question is: What does removing all of that stuff achieve? We're at a time where the average gaming PC has a quad-core CPU, 8GB+ of RAM, an SSD; trimming some background processes or removing a few hundred MB of superfluous files/features will make no noticeable difference to performance.

Bit like those tweak apps you get. My parents have TuneUp Utilities installed on their PCs as my step-dad is convinced it tweaks the system, removes background processes/services and keeps them running smoothly, yet all three machines it's installed on are slow and unreliable. His main Dell XPS One 27 is an i7 with 16GB of RAM and an SSD cache yet it takes minutes to boot up and slows to a crawl at times.
 
pbrain said:
I reckon there's plenty of processes/threads that can be removed and not needed for gaming.
Also, remove (in my case) foreign language files.
Also stuff like accessability software, email, windows games etc could go.
Click to expand...

What is gained by removing it?

Services generally run because they are needed, having 500Kb used on a hard disk is not going to slow a computer down, likewise stripping components out of Windows will not gain you extra FPS. Installing all sorts of gaming overlays probably will.

Priorities for gamers should be a stable system, organised logically (for modding) with access to the latest drivers and DirectX. Not stripping out components that are disabled or effectively managed by the system.

I'm sorry but tools like nlite (which this has probably been made with) is there for squeezing stuff onto smaller drives, i.e. pen drives, ensuring an install has some updates etc installed on it but it's not a gamers tool. You can spend hours mucking about with this and kid yourself you've made an optimised PC, even though you've actually done sod all productive.

We're not in good old DOS days where optimising memory was required to get games to run.
 
As above, the default background services on Windows 7 is so light, you'll gain no benefit from stripping it down. Just leave it as it is.

You can turn off some uneeded Windows features if you really want though. Turning off Windows gadgets seems to have sped up boot time for me.
 
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This might have been worth doing years back when the vast majority of computers had limited resources. Nowdays with the huge amount of memory, disk space, cpu cycles available im not sure it would make a huge difference to performance.
 
Code: 
DEVICE=C:\Windows\HIMEM.SYS
DOS=HIGH,UMB
DEVICE=C:\Windows\EMM386.EXE NOEMS

and

Code: 
@echo off
SET SOUND=C:\PROGRA~1\CREATIVE\CTSND
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 E620 T6
SET PATH=C:\Windows;C:\
LH C:\Windows\COMMAND\MSCDEX.EXE /D:123

get 5000fps innit.
 
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