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Main => Software Forum => Topic started by: SadGamerGeek on June 15, 2005, 06:41:48 pm

Title: How fast is your boot-up?
Post by: SadGamerGeek on June 15, 2005, 06:41:48 pm
I've just spent some time tinkering with Windows XP services & BIOS stuff to reduce my boot time. I've disabled all the services I don't need & turned off all ports & drives I don't use in BIOS. I'm now getting from power button depressed to MameWah screen up in 37 seconds (on a 1.8Ghz P4 with 256 MB RAM). I'm pretty pleased with that, but I'm wondering how it compares to everyone else.

Anyone else got any timings (or hints/tips on this) they'd like to share?

Cheers,

Richard
Title: Re: How fast is your boot-up?
Post by: Thenasty on June 15, 2005, 06:52:14 pm
from turning power on to MENU, 15 seconds.
Title: Re: How fast is your boot-up?
Post by: SadGamerGeek on June 15, 2005, 06:55:12 pm
from turning power on to MENU, 15 seconds.

Wow!

The benefits of DOS on a super fast PC!
Title: Re: How fast is your boot-up?
Post by: wpcmame on June 16, 2005, 01:23:17 am
Power button to advmenu (or whatever game I was in),  ~20 seconds.

Using hibernation in XP.
Title: Re: How fast is your boot-up?
Post by: Brad on June 16, 2005, 03:46:19 am
From cold to Mamewah.... 23 seconds.

Don't know what the deal is but thats pretty quick for an AMD 1.2gig Duron, 256meg ram and Windows XP.

Brad
Title: Re: How fast is your boot-up?
Post by: youki on June 16, 2005, 03:55:28 am
From cold to AtomicFE  on XP on a Athlon 2000+  with a standard speed hd   (7200t/m i think)  11  seconds!

The machine is dedicated to my cab , so i removed all i don't need , stop all services i don't need. No Internet , no .NET , no Printer , nothing...

On the same machine but under DOS from cold to ADVMENU  : 15seconds.


Title: Re: How fast is your boot-up?
Post by: jcrouse on June 16, 2005, 08:09:12 am
Athlon XP 2600 with a fresh install = cold on to MameWAH in 13 seconds. This is my Bartop system.

John
Title: Re: How fast is your boot-up?
Post by: Lilwolf on June 16, 2005, 09:00:47 am
Don't you find that you need a network?  (just to update / maintenance?) 

Anyone find any good ways to optimize 98 boot?   I only have one legal license to XP and a TON for 98 so thats whats on my cab.
Title: Re: How fast is your boot-up?
Post by: Chris on June 16, 2005, 09:49:59 am
From cold to AtomicFE
Title: Re: How fast is your boot-up?
Post by: youki on June 16, 2005, 10:12:02 am
Quote
Sounds like you forgot SmartDrive in DOS.


No, SmartDrive is here. 

Dos just consume time to :
- load smartDrive and  load soundDriver.  and in addition, i don't need to load Arcmon.sys because i have an arcadeVGA.

XP is really fast to boot and i think drivers for HD access are more compliant with modern HD than the poor old dos.

I'm almost sure by doing few more optimisation i could reach under the 9seconds to boot on the Front End under XP.


Title: Re: How fast is your boot-up?
Post by: Fat_Trucker on June 16, 2005, 11:39:25 am
Athlon XP2800, 512Mb Ram, 7,200rpm HDD. Windows XP. Everything stripped down purely for use in the cab.

Boots to my intro movie from cold in 25 - 30 seconds.
Title: Re: How fast is your boot-up?
Post by: markb on June 16, 2005, 12:51:58 pm
XP3200, 768mb ram, dual boot system.

XP takes 30 secs
Win98 15 secs

So much for progress.
Title: Re: How fast is your boot-up?
Post by: Chris on June 16, 2005, 12:55:37 pm
XP3200, 768mb ram, dual boot system.

XP takes 30 secs
Win98 15 secs

So much for progress.
XP's loading up a lot more stuff than 98.
Title: Re: How fast is your boot-up?
Post by: markb on June 16, 2005, 02:01:18 pm
XP3200, 768mb ram, dual boot system.

XP takes 30 secs
Win98 15 secs

So much for progress.
XP's loading up a lot more stuff than 98.

That may be but why does the install screen tell you that it boots quicker than previous versions?
Title: Re: How fast is your boot-up?
Post by: Chris on June 16, 2005, 02:02:56 pm
XP3200, 768mb ram, dual boot system.

XP takes 30 secs
Win98 15 secs

So much for progress.
XP's loading up a lot more stuff than 98.

That may be but why does the install screen tell you that it boots quicker than previous versions?
XP is not a version of 98; it's a version of NT or 2000.  I believe it does boot quicker than those.
Title: Re: How fast is your boot-up?
Post by: jcrouse on June 16, 2005, 02:03:56 pm
XP boots MUCH faster than a comparable install of NT or 2K.

John
Title: Re: How fast is your boot-up?
Post by: Tahnok on June 17, 2005, 02:00:43 am
XP boots MUCH faster than a comparable install of NT or 2K.

John

That would explain why I can never seem to get my boot time under 50 sec. I also use the computer for several other things so I have to keep .net, networking, printer and all that other stuff.
Title: Re: How fast is your boot-up?
Post by: youki on June 17, 2005, 03:24:08 am
XP is the fastest booting OS Microsoft did.   But just compare the same thing.

Under Dos load : a sound driver, a network driver, a video driver, a usb driver , etc..etc...

do the same thing under 98  then under XP.  And you will see that XP is terribly Fast!

As i said in a previous post, i boot from Cold to my Front End on XP in 11 seconds.   Under Dos, i boot in 15! on the same machine.

Just stop all service you don't need, remove driver you don't need etc..etc..

But for sure, is not really easy to find what you don't need!

Soon, i should do (just have to find time!  :-[ ) an utility integrated with AtomicFE to maximize XP loading speed in case of a dedicated usage in a cabinet.





Title: Re: How fast is your boot-up?
Post by: nipsmg on June 17, 2005, 08:14:20 am
It's no more than 11 seconds, could be  quicker on my Athlon XP 64bit 3200+ (1gb ram, serial ATA).

I never really timed it, but it's definitely that fast.  and I didn't remove anything.

I also count time to desktop.. because time to login screen doesn't really mean anyhting.  After you l og in, windows still has to load a whole bunch of crap.

However, I JUST installed XP on this thing.  as I start installing programs that are going to dump all their stupid crap in the system tray and have to load on boot, I'm sure loading times will increase exponentially  :-\

Title: Re: How fast is your boot-up?
Post by: Thenasty on June 17, 2005, 08:21:43 am
now that we got the BOOT TIME all down pack how about SHUTDOWN TIME ?  :D

It takes me less than a second to shutdown (machine completely off).   :o
Title: Re: How fast is your boot-up?
Post by: markb on June 17, 2005, 08:25:18 am
Yet again for me win98 wins handsdown on shutdown

Win98 - 5 secs
Win XP - 20 secs

BTW this is a dual boot system so uses identical hardware.
Title: Re: How fast is your boot-up?
Post by: JoyMonkey on June 17, 2005, 08:34:45 am
Shutdown takes about 2-3 seconds for me. Depends how fast I can get up and pull the plug out of the wall! I've never built a Windows based cab :D

My startup takes a little while right now; because I've got it set up to copy everything except roms onto a ramdrive and then run it from there (speeds up running time). Without the ramdrive, running directly from a CF card I think I had it at about 5 seconds, most of which is waiting for the stupid Dell bios screen to go away.
Title: Re: How fast is your boot-up?
Post by: youki on June 17, 2005, 08:39:41 am
Quote
I had it at about 5 seconds,

under to boot to the Front End?    ???   (you have no sound driver, no cd drive  , 4 games in the front end?) 

May be you are under Linux?


concerning Shutdown time, on my machine is about 3-4 seconds under XP.

Title: Re: How fast is your boot-up?
Post by: Chris on June 17, 2005, 08:44:15 am
concerning Shutdown time, on my machine is about 3-4 seconds under XP.
Mine's about the same, unless power management has shut down the hard drive; then it's closer to 10 seconds.
Title: Re: How fast is your boot-up?
Post by: JoyMonkey on June 17, 2005, 08:58:17 am
Quote
I had it at about 5 seconds,

under to boot to the Front End?    ???   (you have no sound driver, no cd drive  , 4 games in the front end?) 

May be you are under Linux?

Nope, it's DOS.
I'm using an old Dell with onboard ISA soundblaster sound- doesn't require a sound driver to be loaded.
I don't have a CD Drive (I use a CompactFlash card instead of a hard drive and just pull it out and put it in my main PC if I want to update roms).
I use GameLauncher which loads pretty much instantly, even if you've got 4000 games in one list (so long as you use a .rom file instead of having it read all your roms each time).
The low seek-time of CompactFlash also decreases loading time where small files are concerned.