All Activity

I've made some benchmarks comparing TSC vs. HPET timers impact for CPU's gaming performance and spoiler: it matters quite a bit. First a little bit of history/background: PM Timer (ACPI Power Management timer) is a high-latency timer used in Windows 2000 days, it clocks at 3.579545 Mhz TSC is a low-latency timer on the CPU, originally, it clocked at the same freq as the CPU, it is used by Windows XP by default So when CPUs started downclocking to save power TSC would also downclock, that's why with Vista Microsoft opted for: HPET is a high-latency timer on the motherboard, used by Windows Vista, it clocks at for example 14.31818 MHz on Ivy-Bridge and 19.200000 Mhz on Alder Lake, it is unstable on newer Intel platforms. Vista fallbacks to PM timer when HPET is not available Invariant TSC is a TSC (low-latency) that always clocks at the CPU's base freq regardless of whether it pawer-saves or turboes, it is used by Windows 7+, but Windows XP can use it too as it would an old-school TSC. On older platforms where TSC is not invariant Windows 7 uses HPET just like Vista Windows 7 still uses HPET to sync TSC from time to time, but XP can still work stable on newer system without it so Vista should also be able to if forced to use TSC. Benchmarks were performed on 12th gen Alder Lake i5-12600, DDR5-4800MT/s, NVIDIA 3090 Windows 10 has all of it's new security mitigations that impact performance disabled, all systems are debloated, all systems have Meltdown/Spectre patches disabled/ not applited, BIOS patch that allows Vista and 7 to properly use turbo on Alder Lake is applied The benchmark was Cinebench R15 OpenGL, with a 3090 this benchmark is almost exclusively CPU-bottlenecked Here are the results (a median run out of 3 for each config), lowest to highest 215.15 FPS - Windows 10 HPET 221.91 FPS - Windows 8.0 HPET 234.92 FPS - Windows Vista HPET 242.84 FPS - Windows 10 TSC 257.58 FPS - Windows 8.0 TSC Vista TSC is dnf cause I don't know of any way to force it to use it, the code could still be there left from XP times. Vista HPET on ivy-bridge usually scores higher than 10 TSC, but lower than Windows 7 TSC, Windows 8.0 TSC also wins there being marginally better than 7, but I don't have all of those system installed on ivy-bridge to provide a benchmark right now, and these are results I remember from back when I did This make's sense since when I run falco PhenomII Tweaker's Timer Check (Tweaker is only for AMD PhenomII, but timer check is universal), it runs a benchmark of running 1 Million QueryPerformanceCounter calls. On Alder Lake it takes 2243ms, whiles on Ivy-bridge around 400ms, So Intel's new HPET is around 5 times slower than the old one Now, after @win32 created his new patch for Haswell+ Vista instability Vista is now very much usable on 12th gen Intel - there is absolutely 0 serious crashes but the stability is not yet perfect - 3 services and startup programs still sometimes fail to start. So the question is obviously how to force TSC on Vista for improved stability and performance?

Thanks, but the idea of it being a cable issue is hard to reconcile with it being fixed by a reboot. Conceivably, the router has put the wired connection to sleep and doesn't wake it up correctly when XP pings it? But have never had such a problem before, with other routers and this PC over the years (it's about 11 years old). Most of the house: laptops, phones, lights, cat feeder,.... uses wifi, so need that to be on. Pretty sure no neighbours are connecting. I check the router's webpage fairly often, especially while playing around with this problem, and see the list of connected devices. And today booted first to Linux: full speed. Later rebooted to XP, and still full speed. Will do a cold boot to XP next time and see what happens. So, still not seeing a pattern. .

to me to that sounds very weird, but when fixing a pc problem i often had someone putting it that way this would be a case for a "being on the place" for a better meaning the idea to use a cable is not a bad idea, but if that connection problems persists in that case it´s likely to be that device i would disable wlan in that router, just in case someone of your neighbors somehow can connect to your router

What about differance between pentium4 and cor2duo or differance between xp and vista. You please tell what is the point? Okey the one certain differance is multi and singleprocess, then I suppose 60% of the code is a differance.

Installed what? If I were to guess, StartAll/IsBack related, but if you can confirm we can move this thread to that section or for a different one if this is the wrong place.

hi I've installed the program, on the bottom bar, right switch, before you could create a quick lunch menù, now no more, can you help me?

Well, today first boot had no connection. System was 99% idle. Rebooted and have normal speed. Maybe it is somehow hardware after all, Tomorrow might try to boot up Linux first and see how that goes.

What is the differance between MyPal and Palemoon 28's most recent version???

I've noticed a weird problem on one of my computers: if Explorer is restarted for any reason (eg. due to StartAllBack upgrade), Alt+Tab dialog stops working afterwards until I log out and log back in (meaning Alt+Tab behaves as Alt+Esc, since 24H2 removed the better, classic Alt+Tab dialog).

I made stupidity today (forgot the golden rule - if everything works, do not touch anything) - updated to version 3.9.15 (stood version 3.9.13), and that’s all, SAB stopped working (it was installed, but no buttons and ticks change anything, the Task panel remains standard, the Start remains standard, transparency does not change, that is, nothing works at all, the presence of SAB = 0). Win 27842 system (Canary). I wanted to download and put again on 3.9.13, but I did not find a link in the topic, but on the official website only version 3.9.15. I found in one of the comments a link to the test version of SAB, downloaded, turned out to be 3.9.14. Installed it - everything works fine.

The browser I was using was Roytam1 Newmoon28-sse browser it is recent build 2025-08-08 I will update it and a;so try with other browsers. I see a file that is maybe it's a base64 orientated which cold have all the pictures. Now understand for your thinking all the pictures should be there and showing. As the web page did download completely. After updating and trying with other browsers if I am still getting the same results I will let Roytam1 know in his thread my-browser-builds-part-5 Thanks for the info Tripredacus

Thanks for the 3.9.15 update, I can confirm the address-bar issue is fixed for me too!

In Task Manager, are there any processes running over 80% or so during your slow connectivity?

Thanks, will try it. Log problem apparently was the "reload" icon, when you open the log window, all blank, but clicking on "reload" it populate with results (sorry, it was my mistake here, i thought that it open already with results in view, only after some tests i discovered this) EDIT: enabling in advanced user works, thanks.

Info: On GitHub, the names and download links of yt-dlp for Windows XP have changed: yt-dlp_x86_Windows-XP.zip > yt-dlp_x86_winXP.exe (starting after the next release, it should be able to update with `yt-dlp -U` ) yt-dlp_x86_Windows-XP_onedir.zip > yt-dlp_x86_winXP.zip Direct links: https://github.com/nicolaasjan/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp_x86_winXP.exe https://github.com/nicolaasjan/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp_x86_winXP.zip For Windows Vista, new update here.

WinXP SP3 For several years I used a router with DD-WRT to connect to our home Wi-Fi, my PC connected to the router by ethernet. And that was pretty stable. But the router died and I didn't have a usable one to hand to replace it with so I installed a TP-Link USB Wi-Fi dongle, That worked mostly OK, but sometimes just lost connection for no obvious reason, while the signal was strong with mobile devices. Maybe inactivity time out somewhere? So I laid some cable and went to a direct ethernet connection to our main router which is connected to a fibre modem. This should have been faster and more reliable, but has some issues. Sometimes loading a web page was extremely, extremely slow, though not dead. But then I could do an Oookla Speedtest and get 50 MBps. And checking email (using Eudora via POP) would keep timing out. i.e., not just a browser issue. And if I rebooted into Mint,, speed was normal. Back in XP, I found that if I just rebooted, usually speed and connectivity was normal the next time. I suspected a loose connection, crawled around and reseated the plugs. No obvious changes, So, not a hardware or cabling problem I am pretty sure. When I had a bad connection, I noticed that the LAN icon on the toolbar had taken several seconds to appear after booting. Any idea how to fix this, short of reboot and pray? Could there be some TP-Link code screwing up the ethernet driver? Though I have had the drivers for that installed for years as well, but reinstalled recently. I just uninstalled it, though it's useful to have at hand in case home ethernet goes offline and I use my phone as a hotspot.

v3.9.14 This version's taskbar transparency is excellent, with smooth animations and effects. However, there's one issue: the right-hand app tray is too small, and I can't resize the icons or revert to the default Windows 11 appearance. Also, is this taskbar transparency based on the enhanced taskbar? Can the transparent taskbar be used as a separate feature? I only need dynamic taskbar transparency (i.e., full-screen restore, not full-screen transparency), and no other cosmetic modifications are required. How should I set this up?

For the very long time "(the one with all the "plus" and "minus" signs)" disabled by default, you are to enable "advanced user" and even then for unblocking (to show green) press ctrl two times. Log works fine too, you there missed to select what to log, so assume the ublock you used before very very old. So much changed - you better learn it as a completely new.

Sorry for disturb you again, but i've just discovered something strange about my ublock, and cause there are peoples here that seem knowing it well, just wanted to ask. First thing, on the official ublock page, ublockorigin.com , it say me that the last version is 1.58.0 ... but i installed it from addons.mozilla.org, and this page say it's version 1.65.0 (and this is the version i have now installed) second, they say the central bar of the popup (the one with all the "plus" and "minus" signs) are for add and subtract sites or elements on the fy, that imply that they are clickable (and on the various images in internet, it also have colored parts), but on my version, all these signs are all in grey and not clickable (they do basically nothing, not working at all) ... this happens on firefox, but NOT on r3dfox, where instead they works. Also, when i open the "log" page (mine is in Italian and appear as "lista richieste", same icon), no matter what site i open it for, is always completely empty ? ... this happens both on fiefox and on r3dfox, no matter if i select current site, or any. Do you know what one is the correct version to use ? ... why ublock origin official site say that the last version is older than the one mozilla addons page is installing ?

The one missing thing has been determined, I try to add it next version.

Hello all. Windows 11 (latest update) Micro Computer I've always had my task bar on the left hand side of the screen. So, I was excited to find SAB. For the most part is it doing exactly what I wanted. Several issues though. Maybe one of the issues is caused by another App. The main issue is when I open new or different tasks Firefox, the group of tabs or tasks start dropping down. Like one space at a time. Drops one space, and it might be 5 minutes or more, it drops another space. Until they totally disappear from the task bar. What I have to do to get them back is go to properties of SAB, and click the segment box (on or off). Any thoughts on why and how to fix? Any Questions, please ask me. I have tried to make contact with SAB, but nobody is talking to me. Maybe there is nobody! If anyone knows of a contact or link for help, please let me know. Their Web page is limited. Another thing, I do not know how to do a screen print of the task bar. Suggestions? Thanks for listening, Bob

It's good with 3.9.15 Thanks so much

I don't think that option is available. It doesn't appear for me and I see more options that a regular user. You can still save a page as webpage complete in browsers, which will save the pictures.

If using Diskpart, you just make the FAT32 efi partition on a GPT disk. You don't set anything, so I'm guessing Windows (or bcdboot) just works with it as is. I think Diskpart will actually show an error message if you try to make a partition active on a GPT disk