goemon@anime.net wrote:
Its actually not that hard on windows.
Don't make me laugh. Instructions that start "Enable TCP window scaling and time stamps by using the Registry Editor to browse to location [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters] and add the key Tcp1323Opts with value 3" are "hard". If you think otherwise, pick up the phone, pretend to work for an ISP Help Desk, and walk someone who doesn't work in IT through the changes. Microsoft scatter the tuning information for Windows Xp all across their website. Some of it is undocumented by Microsoft (and thus may change without notice). The only saving grace is DrTCP, a third party application which hides all of the registry detail (and potential for disaster) under a nice GUI. Then there's the deliberate nobbling of the TCP implementation, such as the restriction to ten of connections to Windows Xp SP3. Apparently you're meant to buy Windows Server if you are running P2P applications :-) Windows Vista is a vast improvement over Windows Xp (and I bet that isn't said of many components of Vista). It has a autotuning TCP with a 16MB buffer, which makes the defaults fine for ADSL and cable, but still requires machines at universities to be altered. Vista offers an alternative TCP congestion control algorithm -- Compound TCP. Not much is known of the performance attributes of this algorithm, mainly because I.P claims prevented its incorporation into Linux, the corral where most TCP algorithm shoot-outs take place. -- Glen Turner