Putting my desktop in game mode?

[spaceviking]

Typically when I start a computer game I end all non-necessarily process and I was hoping you guys might know a good application that would do that automatically. I did a Google search, but I am unsure which of these programs would be good and which would be a malware shit fest.

[atg]

Does this actually make a difference? Is your system that old that doing this actually helps? Or are you trying to get an extra 1fps for that extra ePeen...

[AMT]

Does this actually make a difference? Is your system that old that doing this actually helps? Or are you trying to get an extra 1fps for that extra ePeen...

Does either thing actually matter regarding his question?

[Stark]

It matters in that someone could give him a application that does nothing and he'd probably get the same placebo effect he gets from ending all processes.

I'd love to hear if any of the common cruft has any performance impact. I certainly never see any and my hardware sucks and I frequently use windowed games, constant alt-tabbing, desktop overlays, etc.

Its telling that some of the apps he's talking about are from the mid 2000s or earlier, when this sort of thing might have been important. Maybe his computer is really old? He should have a look at Process Explorer to understand just how irrelevant his sound driver system tray icon and steam listen service processes are.

[atg]

Does this actually make a difference? Is your system that old that doing this actually helps? Or are you trying to get an extra 1fps for that extra ePeen...

Does either thing actually matter regarding his question?

Yeah it does - if he's trying to get the extra 1fps for ePeen then a simple script can do what he wants. If his system is really that old/underpowered that doing so helps, then he would get much better performance benefit by just chucking in an extra stick of RAM or something similar (budget allowing).