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[ Go to April 1997 Table of Contents ]
WinLab Reviews
-- by James E. Powell
Twiddling your thumbs while an application loads? SuperFassst from Acceleration Software Corp. takes a three-pronged approach to speeding things up. Its Application Launch Accelerator cuts application load time; Multitasking Acceleration enhances Windows' preemptive multitasking; and File System Acceleration speeds up common system operations (reads, but not writes or virtual memory changes) Performance is mixed. On installation, SuperFassst launches ScanDisk and Disk Defragmenter to ensure your hard drive's integrity and places a large globe icon on your Desktop. The first time you launch an application or drag its icon to the globe, Application Launcher examines the application's resource needs. When you exit your application, it adds or replaces (your choice) the Desktop icon on the Start menu option. On subsequent launches, you'll notice the difference. For me, launching Netscape dropped from 13 seconds to 6, and the 9-second load for Starfish's Internet Sidekick was halved. Though such time savings may not seem like much, your system will feel faster. Application Launcher is SuperFassst's best feature. Multitasking Accelerator, which works transparently in the background, performs best when reading data for 16-bit applications. File System Acceleration showed minimal improvement (about 3 percent) in Wintune, though writes were sometimes up to 10 percent slower. SuperFassst's benefits, of course, depend on your system, your applications and how you use Windows 95. If shaving seconds off your application's launch is important, SuperFassst does the trick.
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