Optimized config

I often wonder when guys complain about bad game performance, how much of it comes down to simply overlooked optimization.
As an example I installed a 2TB NVME as the new default STEAM drive.
On my B450 board, it requires disconnecting anything from the SATA5/6 ports, since both become unavailable with the new configuration.
It meant that anything normally connected to those ports had to go onto a drop-in SATA card.
Since that would be a slower option, you'd want the drives where read/write speeds are less important (in my case backup drives) on that card.
What crazy unoptimized configurations have you guys seen over the years?

Terry Rock said:

It meant that the two drives normally connected to those ports had to go onto a drop-in SATA card.
Naturally since that would be a slower option, you'd want the drives where read/write speeds are less important...in my case backup drives...on that card.

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Why would a drop-in SATA card be any slower than the mobo's own SATA ports?

Terry Rock said:

What crazy un-optimized configurations have you guys seen over the years?

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Apart from decades ago, seeing "Turbo" buttons not being used, one (slightly relevant) example that comes to mind is that in the last few weeks I came across a GamersNexus video in which they reviewed a stupidly expensive ($6600) Corsair PC which shipped to them with a shocking set of faults including misconfigurations which dropped the performance by around 20% from what it should have been.

Neilski said:

Why would a drop-in SATA card be any slower than the mobo's own SATA ports?

Apart from decades ago, seeing "Turbo" buttons not being used, one (slightly relevant) example that comes to mind is that in the last few weeks I came across a GamersNexus video in which they reviewed a stupidly expensive ($6600) Corsair PC which shipped to them with a shocking set of faults including misconfigurations which dropped the performance by around 20% from what it should have been.

Click to expand...

Wow!
That was a lot of issues to overlook for a $6K PC.

Has to be 286-486 days when people thought having as many programs as they could open in taskbar was a good thing. lol

I got the nickname PC Pete from building towers for people.
They all said I used best gear and made fastest towers.
That is a crock, it was all down to OS optimization.
Not sure what they are now but back then every drive letter was 4kb so if you disabled
unused ones you could reclaim base memory.
I used to turn everything off including the kitchen sink would make Dos and windows scream. lol


Best optimization I ever did was with NFS SE
NFS $90 + 8 x 1mb ram - $480. ( most PC those days had 1-4mb)
All ram in Sydney these days was $60 1mb no matter how many you brought

NFS SE $90. To run NFS in SE ( hi res mode LOL ) you needed 16mb ram ....what !
So with 8 slots in a 486 meant you have to sell the 8mb at a loss then buy new, 8 x 2mb or 4 x 4mb for $960 LOL $90 for the sim and a grand extra to run it.

Fact was SE would run in 8mb if you could reclaim some of the base 640k memory.
They never told you that of course. lol
QEMM ( Qemm memory Manager ) I think i paid $70 at a market for it.
This gave you enough base ram to run SE in 8mb ram.

So that saved me $890 less what I would have got selling the s/h 8 x 1mb.

I think it instilled good habits how to run any PC tower.

My current "gaming" optimization not just 0% but 0.0%

Never really came across badly optimized PCs, but a little fun story about USB harddrives:
A friend asked me if I could help her with poor performance from her SSD sitting in a USB 3.0 case, like she had read should be great.

I asked for a picture (sadly don't have it anymore) and she only used half of the USB port.
How? Yeah.. I had no idea either, but do you know this plug?


She used a standard micro-USB cable with only half the plug:


I didn't even know that this would be possible, but turns out it is! The only issue is that ALL USB 3 data-lanes are in the second half of the connection, lol.
So everything worked, but she only got 20-30 MB/s.

I sent her a link to the correct cable and a few days later she was happily pushing around data with 350 MB/s