Talk:Tweaking

• Looks too much a dictionary-entry to me. Fbergo 05:34, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

These 'tweaks' are largely psychological, but their primary purpose is to engender a "warm and fuzzy" feeling of achieved perfection that will please the user despite the absolutely average result they really achieved. (This is quite common among audiophiles.)

Are we really here to psychoanalyse audiophiles?

the idea that tweaking by audio enthusiasts only provides a psychological "warm fuzzy" i find dubious at best. Aragorn55 (talk) 19:31, 17 August 2008 (UTC)aragorn55

Article needs to be clarified and expanded, bias removed

Firstly, the Software section seems to be filled with pro-open source bias. For example:

Linux and other open source products are designed to facilitate the tweaking process as much as possible, as opposed to Microsoft Windows which limits tweaking but allows it with provision, and Mac OS which largely prohibits or strongly discourages tweaking.

It seems like it's been placed in this article deliberately to promote open source software over Microsoft or Apple products. In any case it is not accurate. Take the open source browser Firefox for example - you can tweak Firefox but only if you know how to access the About:Config screen, and even then it warns you before proceeding. This is no different to the way you can tweak Windows or other proprietary software - you have to know the correct screen or command or file before accessing advanced tweaking options. I don't see therefore how open source software is inherently more tweakable than proprietary software. In fact my experience shows that it is not necessarily the case at all. I recommend that the statement be removed due to implicit bias, along with other statements in that section which head off on the path of open-source vs. closed source which is largely irrelevant to actual tweaking, and more relevant to programming.

In terms of the concept of tweaking and whether it is a placebo, as suggested in the note further above, this is incorrect. I suggest the following paragraph (or something similar) be added to the article to better define Software tweaking (and prevent claims that tweaking is a placebo effect):

Tweaking can be considered a form of advanced customization. While usually mistaken as simply being a way of increasing performance, in actuality tweaking is not just about optimization, it's about customization; that is letting users configure options which might otherwise be unavailable to them by default. Some of these tweaks may increase performance, some may alter image quality, some may disable or remove annoying aspects of a particular piece of software, some may enable hidden or disabled functionality. For example, in the game Crysis, the ability to access the Very High graphics setting is disabled by default when running under Windows XP. The only reason for this appears to be to promote the DirectX 10 capabilities of Windows Vista, as there is no other technical reason for this restriction. Indeed, by editing the relevant .ini (initialization) files found in the game's program directories, a user can force Very High mode in Crysis under Windows XP, giving a very real and noticeable boost in image quality.

I'm hesitant to launch into a major re-write of the Software section of this article, because as I say I would scrap a large portion of the open-source vs. closed-source nonsense which has crept in to bias the article, and which confuses tweaking with altering source code - the two are not the same. Also, I am the owner of the site TweakGuides.com and hence I would prefer an independent editor to make the changes given I have a vested interest in this article. 59.167.36.94 (talk) 02:57, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Vote for Deletion

This article survived a Vote for Deletion. The discussion can be found here. -Splash 17:01, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

TweakXP link

Now article has survived: the TotalIdea site now seems more geared toward TweakVI (i.e. the Vista version). Have changed link _> MonstaPro:Talk:Contrib. 13:43, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

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