Improve windows Vista network performance, while playing Multimedia programs, by throttling NetworkThrottlingIndex.

Windows Vista network performance can be improved.To improve Windows Vista network performance, configure NetworkThrottlingIndex registry to control the throttling rate.This will apply only when you play multimedia programs.

Multimedia programs and windows vista throttling mechanism:

Multimedia programs consumes more system resources.Moreover multimedia programs require prioritized access to CPU resources as they are time sensitive.In Windows vista, the networking stack implements a throttling mechanism, that will come into effect when you are running time sensitive multimedia programs, to restrict the processing of non-multimedia network traffic to 10 packets per millisecond. This throttling mechanism was designed in windows vista to ensure that the CPU has enough free cycles to play the media without skipping.

However the performance decrease in non-multimedia network traffic will occur only on high speed networks that are saturated to maximum capacity and also only during the active multimedia playback period.

Control the windows vista throttling rate by changing NetworkThrottlingIndexValue:

You can control the throttling rate to improve Windows Vista network performance.  But do it careful and with caution as it may affect the multimedia playback quality.

In windows vista registry, change the value of the NetworkThrottlingIndex key entry under the following registry subkey:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Multimedia\SystemProfile\
Name : NetworkThrottlingIndex
Value type : DWORD
Value data : From integer 1 through integer 70 (Decimal) (Decimal)

You can set NetworkThrottlingIndexValue between 1 and 70. If you want to disable set the hexadecimal value to FFFFFFFF. By default, the value for the NetworkThrottlingIndex registry entry is set to 10.Note that when the NetworkThrottlingIndex registry entry does not exist, the behavior resembles the default behavior.

The default value of 10 for NetworkThrottlingIndex registry entry is unlikely to cause degradation in network performance in most common Internet usage scenarios that use broadband connections. You can edit the registry to control the throttling mechanism but do understand that there will be a tradeoff between the quality of multimedia playback and network performance.

Warning: Make sure that you backup the registry and also ensure that you do not modify the registry incorrectly, other than as specified.