[XPERIA X1 General] Mark A Cilenti:
Player Slayer

Sometimes on this thread I may go off on a tangent into uncharted waters. I did it a few times on Turbo Speed X1 and got some good results, just by experimenting and playing around. Some Discoveries on ROM1 were :

Cluster Size increasing SD speed ( Cluster Buster ).

Ticking [Show All files] in File Explorer slowing performance down.

Having [autobacklight on] increasing performance.

Im not going to go over old ground, but I have gone off on a tangent this morning and discovered a new tweak and performance increase, which I will call ' Player Slayer '

I am going to set some simple ground rules for my contributions. First of all 90 % of the time, subjective tweaks and improvements are how my discoveries are made, how my phone feels, or by 'using the force'. This is all very well and good on a personal level but difficult to communicate on a thread like this, so I set a simple principle for my posts.

" If we cant measure it...we cant treasure it "

Also on Benchmarks I set the following guidelines to assess differences in results, before and after a tweak.

Less than 3% - Natural Variation - Insignificant.

Between 3 and 5 % - May prove interesting.

Between 5 and 10% - Definetely worth investigating.

Above 10 % - Probably a bonifide tweak or effect.

Above 15 % - Definetely a tweak.

Above 50 % - Break out the champagne.

Tweak 2 - ' Player Slayer '

On to this mornings foray into the unknown...the WM Twilight zone, inspired by the effect of [ Show all Files] in File explorer, I began to think about Media Player. Like File Explorer it is Microsoft and its functions are heavily embeded in the operating system.

On the Media Library screen, under menu, there is an option called ' Update Library ', see screen shots below. If you run this, Media Player performs an inventory of all the files on your X1 and your memory card and adds any media files to the Library.

View attachment 175822

If it finds files on your memory card it adds some system folders and files to your memory card, see below. Visible only if you Click [Show All Files] in file explorer.

View attachment 175821

The WMDRM folder is most interesting, no one knows what it is, and the file inside it is called ' 438F6A10A8D......'

To test the effect of the performing the inventory and the addition of the system files to memory card I did an experiment.

Procedure

1) I took the stock 4GB SanDisk memory card and formated it, using Storage Tools, so it was completely blank and wiped clean, I then ran the Spb Bench and the SkTools bench to get some defualt results.

2) I then went to Media Player and performed the 'Update Libarary' inventory.

3) I then ran the benchmarks again

Results from Spb

View attachment 175830

Green indicates faster, red indicates slower. On Spb bench the lower the value the faster the result, and only results that differ more than 5% have been highlighted.

Observations

Test 4 showed an 18% increase in speed, which by my own rule of thumb I consider to be very significant.

Results from SKTools

View attachment 175829

Observations

Again Green faster, red slower. On SKTools, the higher the values the faster the performance.

Main Storage Write Speed 8% faster.

Main Sorage Read Speed 11 % faster.

Conclusions

We have new tweak on our hands, ' Player Slayer '. If you dont use Media Player to play your Music and Video files you may never have done the Update Library Inventory, its not automatic, so its worth doing.

Explanations

I would theorise that performing a system wide file inventory allows the operating system to operate more efficiently, in laymans terms, once it knows whats there it can use it faster.

If members have a more scientific explanation for this effect please post them, I class this as classic case of WM eccentricity and part of what makes it such a fascinating operating system, like the wrinkles that add character to the face.

PS - Oh yeh and if you discover a new tweak, above 10%, you have have to give it a catchy ryhming name :p, and remember...

" A glass of Champaign a day...keeps the iphone at bay. "