Yup, exactly what the title is. THis is only for those of you are gamers. *Duh
Pretty good instructions, Ive seen some pretty good improvement on my system. The creation of a user profile just for gaming, is a pretty good idea. Check it out, here

and for the records, here it is. copied word for word. 😛
thanks “gamr_thaz2_poor”

ok, here’s how you make a gaming profile…now…it can be somewhat hard but don’t be intimidated…

go to control pannel user accounts…now create one called gaming…CONGRATES!!! you’ve made a “gaming” profile…

now
that your in that profile, take out the background and put a boring
solid blue one that they have in there…right click on my computer,
choose advanced>visual effects and then click on adjust for best
performance.

take away all of the apps taht shouldn’t be running…
and here’s some other slightly more advanced tips..

To increase system performance

Right click my computer. Click properties.
Click advanced.
Click settings (under performance).
Click Adjust for best performance.
Scroll to the bottom and check the last one “use visual styles on windows and buttons”.

How to disable XP’s -crud- built in CD Burner

Click the start button.
Select Run.
Type services.msc and click ok.
Go to IMAPI CD-Burning Com Services open it and click on start up type, change to “Disabled”.

These Settings will fine tune your systems memory

You need at least 256MB of ram to do this:

Go to start\run\regedit -and then to the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management

1.DisablePagingExecutive
-double click it and in the decimal put a 1 – this allows XP to keep
data in memory now instead of paging sections of ram to harddrive
yeilds faster performance.

2.LargeSystemCache- double click it
and change the decimal to 1 -this allows XP Kernal to Run in memory and
improves system performance a lot.

3.Create a new dword and name
it IOPageLockLimit – double click it and set the value in hex – 4000 if
you have 128MB of ram or set it to 10000 if you have 256MB set it to
40000 if you have more than 512MB of ram -this tweak will speed up your
disckcache.

Reboot

Unable to delete from Avi files from HD

XP
holds files in it’s memory even after you have closed the application
using them making it impossible to delete them from your harddrive. To
fix this:

Start -> Run -> Regedit
Find the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SystemFileAssociations\.avi\shellex\PropertyHandler\ directory and delete the “DEFAULT” key.

Tweak The Swap File

For Users with 256 MB RAM or more this tweak will boost their Windows- and Game-Performance.
What it does: It tells Windows not to use any Swap File until there is really no more free RAM left.

Open
the System Configuration Utility by typing msconfig.exe in the RUN
command. There in your System.ini you have to add
“ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1” under the 386enh section.

Restart your Windows and enjoy better Game performance

Disable Services

XP
Pro runs a lot of services by default that are pointless if your not on
a corporate network, the following services are ones that I safely
disable thereby freeing up memory but check what each one does first to
make sure your not using it for something:

Go to Run and type services.msc, right click on each service, properties and choose disable.

Alerter
Application Layer Gateway Service,
Application Management
Automatic Updates
Background Intelligent Transfer
Clipbook
Distributed Link Tracking Client
Distributed Transaction Coordinater
Error Reporting Service
Fast User Switching Compatibility
IMAPI CD-Burning
Indexing Service
IPSEC Services
Messenger
Net Logon
Net Meeting
Remote Desktop Sharing
Network DDE
Network DDE DSDM
Portable Media Serial Number
Remote Desktop Help Session Manager
Remote Registry
Secondary Logon
Smartcard
SSDP Discovery Service
Telnet Themes
Uninterruptible Power Supply
Universal Plug and Play Device Host
Upload Manager
Webclient
Wireless Zero Configuration
WMI Performance Adaptor

Speed Up The File System

NTFS
is a great file system, but its feature-set comes at a slight cost in
performance. You can negate this a little with the following tips:

*
By default NTFS will automatically update timestamps whenever a
directory is traversed. This isn’t a necessary feature, and it slows
down large volumes. Disable it by going to Run and type regedit:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem and set ‘DisableNTFSLastAccessUpdate’ to 1.

*
NTFS uses disparate master file control tables to store filesystem
information about your drives. Over time these core MFT files grow and
become fragmented, slowing down all accesses to the drive. By setting
aside a little space, MFT’s can grow without becoming fragmented.

In
the same key where you disabled the last access feature creat a new
DWORD value called ‘NtfsMftZoneReservation’ and set it to 2.

Disable DLL Caching

Windows
Explorer caches DLLs (Dynamic-Link Libraries) in memory for a period of
time after the application using them has been closed. This can be an
inefficient use of memory.

1. Find the key [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer].

2.
Create a new DWORD sub-key named ‘AlwaysUnloadDLL’ and set the default
value to equal ‘1’ to disable Windows caching the DLL in memory.

3. Restart Windows for the change to take effect.

Tweak The Prefetch

1. Run “Regedit”
2.
Goto [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session
Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters\EnablePrefetcher]

3. Set the value to either 0-Disable, 1-App launch prefetch, 2-Boot Prefetch, 3-Both (“3” is recommended).

4. Reboot.

It will decrease the boot time but double and increase the performance of your XP.

SpeedUp Your Connection By 20% (Cable Users Only)

1.Log on as “Administrator”.
2. Run – gpedit.msc
3. Expand the “Local Computer Policy” branch.
4. Then expand the “Administrative Templates” branch.
5. Expand the “Network” branch.
6. Highlight the “QoS Packet Scheduler” in left pane.
7. In the right window pane double-click the “Limit Reservable Bandwidth” setting.
8. On the settings tab check the “Enabled” item.
9. Change “Bandwidth limit %” to read 0.
10.
Then go to your Network connections Start=>Control Panel>Network
& Internet connections>Network Connections and right-click on
your connection. Then under the General or the Networking tab, (where
it lists your protocols) make sure QoS packet scheduler is enabled.

It may take effect immediately on some systems. To be sure, just re-boot.