Tweaking Windows 98/SE

This guide is for a powerful modern win98se audio PC

Recommended Hardware
775 Intelchipset supporting Win98se
P4 661 3.6Ghz 4MB Cache
512MB of Ram
Dedicated 32mb Video Card
RME DIGI96/8 PAD Sound Card
Yamaha UX16 Usb 1.0 Midi cable
USB 1.0 ZIP Drive or Hard Drive or Flash Drive
Another Computer XP WIn7 Win8 with ASIO audio Interface and USB 2.0 midi cable
One midi female to female ;) midi coupler to connect male out usb 2 to male in usb 1
EWI USB, TEC Breath controller,QuNexus keyboard, Yamaha MO series and up keyboard
Old Style Keyboard and Mouse serial
Two monitors

Recommended Software
Rme DigiCheck
Reaper 4.77 for Win98se
XGworks 3.07
Miditrix (Important)
Yamaha S-YXG100 PVL 1.11.49
Yamaha XGPlayer S-YXG100PVL 4.0.1.52 Update
Yamaha S-YXG100 uninstaller

Check Bios version update if needed

Office-packs must not be installed on such a system! The most problematic (and well-known) disturbers
are indexing tools and quick-start bars, which - running as invisible background tasks - cause repeating
drop outs in audio.

On the other hand there is no problem to run a file manager like the Windows Commander. There is even
no need to exit this program, it runs perfectly in the background without any activity, waiting for the next
job.

Windows 98 SE Installation

Already when installing Windows it can be set up for highest performance. The following describes our
personal favorite for the 'User defined installation', as offered during the installation process.

Uncheck: Accessibility
Edit the Accessories. Uncheck everything except Wordpad.
Uncheck: Address book (and Outlook Express)
Edit the Communications. Uncheck: Phone Dialer, Netmeeting
Uncheck: Internet Tools (the Internet Explorer will be installed anyway)
Uncheck: Online services (will be copied to the hard disk in one folder and can be deleted later without
any problem)
Edit the System Tools. Uncheck: Drive compression. Check: System Monitor.

At a later moment Windows wants to configure the location, which means to configure the Channels. Set
to 'none'.

This is a good time to remove any un used hardware in the bios shutdown NIC, LAN, Modem, Serial
Ports, Parallel Ports, Onboard Sound. Make sure in your bios that speedstep is disabled and
hyperthreading is disabled. IRQ assignment for your sound card is tough just try to get it on its own by
moving to different pci slots.

At this point you can you install the win98 lite which streamlines the computer removing unnecessary
features. After the Win98 lite is complete install your hardware and drivers. After that is done use the
unoffical sp3 for win989se and install the hotfixes usb and directx 9.0c. Also do the Audio: QFE Update
[269601USA8.EXE from Microsoft

Type in msconfig in the RUN box and shutdown any processes and start-up item that do won't need.

A freshly installed Windows and the latest (super fast) processor - but it feels like a lame tractor. The
reason is the slow keyboard. Go to Control Panel/Keyboard and change the 'Repeat delay' to short (all to
the right) and the 'Repeat rate' to fast (fifth mark from the right.)

If you follow the above guidelines you will find the System Monitor under Accessories/System Tools. It
shows the CPU load by default. 'Use Add item, Memory Manager, Unused physical memory' to add this
information, and 'Disk cache size' for the current cache size (see VCACHE below.) A compact
visualization is achieved using the bar diagrams.

De-activate Screen Saver

Nice to view but ugly to hear. Right mouse click on the desktop, Properties, Screen Saver, 'None'.

Exploding Windows

Stop it - lay down the dynamite! We are talking about the function 'animated windows', maximizing and
minimizing, not supported from any graphics accelerator chip. Although nice looking this feature is based
on several CPU-calculations for different window sizes, causing high CPU-load and drop outs. On the
other hand: when starting a minimized program from the taskbar while audio is running drop outs are
expected by most users. To de-activate: Desktop, right mouse click, Properties, Effects, un-check
'Animate windows, menus and lists'. Note: under NT the drop outs caused by this animation are even
bigger.

Exit Task scheduler

The symbol in the Systray of the Taskbar is known by everyone, the program itself needed by nearly no
one, and for most people it's nearly impossible to get rid of it. Well, in this case the user did close but not
exit the program. Start the program with a double click, choose 'Exit Task scheduler' under Options, and
its gone.

De-activate scrolling Tooltips

When placing the cursor on the taskbar or the window symbols for maximize/minimize/close, a small
yellow label scrolls down. This graphics operation is totally calculated by the CPU, therefore causes a
lasting CPU-load and heavy drop outs. A good example of total mis-design, as Windows doesn't use the
highly efficient processors of modern graphics cards for this at all.

Best Color Depth

As opposed to some authors of well known internet tuning tips (see below) we have checked and found
out: The optimal color depth is 16 bit (High Color.) The reason is simple. At 256 colors the occupied
memory is low, the PCI bus load too. But modern graphics accelerator chips and their drivers don't
accelerate this (antique) color resolution at all, causing a high CPU load. At True Color (32 bit) the
acceleration is not higher as under 16 bit, but both occupied memory and PCI bus load are doubled.
Desktop, right mouse click, Properties, Settings, 'Colors' to 65k/16 bit/High Color.
Power:
*Select "never" in all 3 boxes. <better performance>

Sounds:
I recommend removing all windows sounds (which is often included with desktop themes) for smoother
windows performance.

System:
Tab: Device Manager: Double click "CD-ROM", and double click on your cd-rom drive.
>Settings: put a check mark inside the "DMA" box <better access time>
*If u have a CD-writer drive, I suggest that you leave the DMA box unchecked. But u can still try enabling
it, at ur own risk of having burning probs afterwards. Don't get me wrong though, it is possible to enable
DMA with CD-RW's and experience zero probs, but we juz want to be safe.

Double click "Disk Drives", and double click ur harddisk/s

>Settings: put a check mark inside the "DMA" box (be reminded that not all hard drives supports DMA, so
if ur harddisk acts weird after this tweak, remove the DMA check mark and reboot)

Double click "System Devices", double click "PCI bus"

>IRQ Steering Tab: Remove all other check marks except on "Use IRQ Steering" AND "Get IRQ Table
Using MS Specification Table" <this will enhance PCI performance and/or stability>
**Note: Some hardware/s require some of the settings above to function. And will automatically revert
back to the default setting after reboot. If however the OS wasn't able to revert back to the default setting,
some of ur hardware/s (eg. modem) may fail to work. Simply revert back to the default settings "manually"
in case a problem like that occurs. Tnx to Jan Erik Sigdell

Double click "Direct Memory Access Controller"

>Settings Tab: Put a check mark on the "Reserve DMA Buffer" box and put a value of "64" (w/o the
quotation marks) on the box.
***u should only perform this tweak if u have a device with the "DMA" option enabled.

Performance: >File system

Tab: Hard disk: Typical Role: Network Server (for comps w/o "Cacheman" program)
Read Ahead Optimization:
Only set to "Full" if you do not engage in heavy multitasking. I highly suggest to set this to zero (slider all
the way to the left) if you only have 64mb or lower RAM and multitask a lot. <smoother multitasking>
Floppy Disk: "uncheck the box" <faster boot-up>
CD-ROM: supplemental cache size:
For 32mb (or lower) RAM comps: small
64mb comps: center
128mb and above comps: large
*Note that you can always give the above setting a lower value to conserve RAM.
>Access pattern: quad speed or higher
Removable Disk: "put a check mark" <better disk drive performance>
Troubleshooting: "uncheck all boxes"

Tab: Startup
*remove the check marks to all those unnecessary programs that automatically load at startup. Ex: task
monitor, load power profile, fast find. I recommend leaving only "SystemTray" and "ScanRegistry"
enabled, other programs are optional with ur own preference. <for faster boot-up time and higher system
resources>

*under SYSTEM.INI:

**insert or edit the lines mentioned here (if it already exists) under the [386enh] section

-type in "ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1" (w/o the quotation marks of course)

(this will make windows lessen the use of virtual memory, games will surely benefit from this.)

***Be warned that systems with less than 128mb RAM (96mb and lower) should not apply this line with
their system! You need 'quite' a lot of RAM to support this line, if you have a small amount of RAM, you
will need VM's help for swapping ok? :)

-LocalLoadHigh: set this to 0

(unless u still run DOS programs/games <w/c i really doubt bdway> set this to "1")

-DMABufferSize: set this to 64

-type in "32BitDiskAccess=on" (w/o the quotation marks)

(better disk performance)

-Check for IRQ conflicts inside control panel>system>system devices. If there are any conflicts and/or
other problems there (those with an "exclamation point" icon besides them for example), remove, re-
install them or adjust the irq setting manually.

This is an example of the System ini file pay attention to [vcache] and [386enh]

[NonWindowsApp]
TTInitialSizes=4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 18 20 22

[power.drv]

[drivers]
wavemapper=*.drv
MSACM.imaadpcm=*.acm
MSACM.msadpcm=*.acm
midi1=sxgma.drv
wave1=sxgma.drv
mixer1=sxgma.drv
midi2=sfvmid.drv
wave=mmsystem.dll
midi=mmsystem.dll

[iccvid.drv]

[mciseq.drv]

[mci]
cdaudio=mcicda.drv
sequencer=mciseq.drv
waveaudio=mciwave.drv 4
avivideo=mciavi.drv
videodisc=mcipionr.drv
vcr=mcivisca.drv
MPEGVideo=mciqtz.drv

[vcache]
MinFileCache=16384
MaxFileCache=16384

[Password Lists]
A=C:\WINDOWS\A.PWL

[MSNP32]

EMMExclude=C000-CFFF

[drivers32]
msacm.lhacm=lhacm.acm
VIDC.VDOM=vdowave.drv
MSACM.imaadpcm=imaadp32.acm
MSACM.msadpcm=msadp32.acm
MSACM.msgsm610=msgsm32.acm
msacm.msg711=msg711.acm
MSACM.trspch=tssoft32.acm
vidc.CVID=iccvid.dll
VIDC.IV31=ir32_32.dll
VIDC.IV32=ir32_32.dll
vidc.MSVC=msvidc32.dll
VIDC.MRLE=msrle32.dll
VIDC.IV50=ir50_32.dll
msacm.iac2=C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\IAC25_32.AX
VIDC.YUY2=msyuv.dll
VIDC.UYVY=msyuv.dll
VIDC.YVYU=msyuv.dll
msacm.l3acm=l3codecp.acm

[386enh]
ebios=*ebios
woafont=dosapp.fon
mouse=*vmouse, msmouse.vxd
device=*vpd
device=*int13
device=*enable
display=*vdd,*vflatd
device=convmem.vxd
32BitDiskAccess=on
DMABufferSize=64
minsps=128
MaxBPs=65536
keyboard=*vkd
ConservativeSwapFileUsage=1
LocalLoadHigh=1
KeyBoostTime=0.1
KeyidleDelay=0
MinTimeSlice=80
WinTimeslice=9000,100
SyncTime=True
TrapTimerPorts=True
MinPagingFileSize=0
MaxPagingFileSize=0

[boot]
oemfonts.fon=vgaoem.fon
shell=Explorer.exe
system.drv=system.drv
drivers=mmsystem.dll power.drv
user.exe=user.exe
gdi.exe=gdi.exe
sound.drv=mmsound.drv
dibeng.drv=dibeng.dll
comm.drv=comm.drv
mouse.drv=mouse.drv
keyboard.drv=keyboard.drv
*DisplayFallback=0
fonts.fon=vgasys.fon
fixedfon.fon=vgafix.fon
386Grabber=vgafull.3gr
display.drv=pnpdrvr.drv

[keyboard]
keyboard.dll=
oemansi.bin=
subtype=
type=4

[boot.description]
system.drv=Standard PC
keyboard.typ=Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural Keyboard
mouse.drv=Standard mouse
aspect=100,96,96
display.drv=Radeon VE

[midlpbk.drv]
LB1=LB1
LB2=LB2
LB3=LB3
LB4=LB4
ActivePorts=1

[sfvmid.drv]
PortCount=2

[Display]

Once everything is installed and configured you can physically unplug your cd-rom and floppy drive and
keyboard to free up 3 IRQ's
Basically to run the S-YXG100 you run midi into Miditrix out to SYXG. In SYXG control panel set the slider
all the way right and see if you are stable by playing. Sometimes you have to re-apply the latency slider
value to clear up crackles just move it a little then back hit apply should clear up. Also note have nothing
on the desktop and the XGPlayer set to minimized but in the "foreground highlighted" . It is a must that it
is in the foreground because we are giving the foreground application more resources with the
aforementioned tweaks. Also minimize the MidiTrix to the taskbar.

At this point if you are playing crackle free then you can dive into the sxgma.ini file in the windows folder.
Close the XGplayer first open it with notepad there are min and max settings for latency slider as well as
a latency pagesize.

Here you can edit min and max times. The slider is only so long. Each tick on the slider is a pagefile
setting to 64 give you a little more room for adjustment. If you go to high with the latency be careful not to
go out of bounds of the slider. Setting the pagesize higher 256 will reduce resolution and fit on the slider
range. Also make sure that the pagefile size is a equal division
of the min and max. The max must also be divisible by the min. If an incorrect range is set the latency
slider defaults to max and doesn't move. Save, not save as then restart. You may get a hang on restart if
your default latency is to low. What I do is set it the 2688 default min when I turn computer on and off by
adjusting the latency slider. After it is running go down by divisions of 256 seems to work the best. 2432 is
the first step followed by 2176, 1920,1664 is where I hit the wall. I don't know if these latency sizes are
actually buffer sizes. For instance when I play at 2688 i feels like 1024 ASIO buffer at 44k. The latency at
the lowest I have been able to go with multile voices effect vl 1664 which feel like 5-10ms or in between
256 and 512 setting.

For some this may be unusable however for me only slightly annoying. I think the sound that it produces it
would be hard to match with modern comparable 8 part VST.

So what if you only use 1 or 2 or 4 monophonic voices well then you can go pretty low with one voice way
low 2 to 4 doesn't make much difference.

Aside from live playing you can record playback at a high buffer through SPDIF or ADAT which has great
fidelity. For making tracks it works like the hardware if not better because of automated latching faders.
No longer do you have to make your songs in XGworks reaper works great .

Good luck on a speedy setup and have fun. Just a side note after a year or so win98se can get corrupted
try to shutdown through the start menu if possible. Shouldn't be a problem however after trying all this
stuff and figuring out what works and what doesn't with your system it a good idea to write down what did.
Then do a fresh install with precision not creating more or less than needed.