A tip for those of you with memory impairments. A tip for those of you with memory impairments ;)

One of the major faults of pre-XP versions of Windows is that when you close down an application, the memory which was allocated to that application is not automatically freed up for re-use. This means that the more programs you use, the slower your PC gets - eventually it will crawl along at such a pathetic pace that it will require a reboot before you can get anything done. However, by installing a memory management program, whenever you close down an application, the RAM that is no longer required can be reclaimed and recycled.

My favourite tool for this job is the tiny, and best of all free, Max Mem, available from www.analogx.com. With this installed, whenever you run and subsequently close down a memory hogging application, Max Mem will swoop down from the skies in its lycra costume, cape and bright red underpants to save the day, thus preventing your PC from grinding to a halt (yes I know I've watched too many Superman films!).

Read More

Duff bins?

When I use Winrar, Winace or SFV Checker to test a home-brew disk image archive, no errors are reported, however, when I extract the bin file, Winrar/Winace reports CRC errors. If I choose to ignore these errors and burn the image anyway, will it work?

This is quite a common problem, yet shouldn't always be a cause for concern. Many bin files despite containing errors will run perfectly well. You may experience very minor glitches from time to time, for instance, video screens freezing or jumpy sound playback, but nothing so serious as to spoil your enjoyment of the game (assuming it is a game we're talking about and not an application). That said, before burning the bin file, it's good practice to attempt to repair it using CD Mage; you have nothing to lose and everything to gain from giving it a shot anyway.

Nevertheless, it could be that you are looking in the wrong department for the source of the error. Plenty of CRC errors result from using faulty RAM SIMMs so I would suggest running some tests on yours using SIMM Tester to eliminate this possibility.

If your RAM passes the health check, yet Winace or Winrar still report CRC errors, your hard drive could be to blame instead - if you are trying to extract the file to an area of the drive which contains damaged clusters, this will have the same outcome. To remove this factor from the equation check your drive using MS Scandisk or try extracting to a different drive if you have more than one.

Another possibility is that your copy of Winace or Winrar needs updating - it could be that your version is outdated and is therefore incompatible with the archive. Ideally you should use a version of Winace or Winrar which is the same as, or newer than the one used to create the archive - a useful thing to check if you're creating and extracting images on different computers.

Read More

Defragment that swap file. Go on, you know you want to. Ah go on. Go on, go on, go on, go on...

To improve the efficiency of Windows you can change the size and location of your swap file. Very often you will find yourself using several memory intensive programs at once and you will simply not have enough physical RAM to cope with the strain. It is at this point that Windows creates what is known as a swap file. This is a substitute for physical memory and will contract and expand contingent on how many memory demanding programs you use simultaneously.

This swap file can soon become fragmented to the detriment of your PC's performance. To prevent this from happening you can alter the way Windows manages your swap file by editing your virtual memory configuration (the relevant control panel applet can be located by browsing through your start menu items in the order: control panel... system properties... virtual memory). From this window you should modify the settings so that your swap file occupies a fixed proportion of hard drive space and resides on a separate partition or drive to your Windows installation.

Just to clarify - moving your swap file to a non-Windows drive or partition prevents disk defragmentation tools from having to restart each time data is written to your swap file, hence accelerating the process. In addition, because your non-Windows partition is written to far less frequently than your Windows partition, it will be less prone to fragmentation in the future.

Smug Mac-owner's fascinating fact no. 438: defragmentation tools are superfluous on systems running OS X because the Mac OS file system is designed in such a way as to prevent data from becoming fragmented in the first place!

Read More