I've just read this on a magazine:
verify XP is correctly using L2 cache;
the key SecondLevelDataCache in the pathHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlSession ManagerMemory Management of the registry, has to be set to values of 200 for 512KB L2 cache processors, 400 for 1MB.
It was set to 0 here.
CPU L2 cache
Search MSDN & find out what the call is to request L2 cache size. I used to use this tweak years ago (I actually had a dual p133 board with scsi onboard) and I recall with NT4 & My dual P2 xeons it was no longer necessary. I also recall that the only thing it seemed to affect was the OS, Softimage and Photoshop were able to query the cpu directly,. I would hazard a guess that many audio apps do the same, especially with MS's byzantine labyrinth of system calls in WinXP.
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: valis on 2005-09-26 18:12 ]</font>
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: valis on 2005-09-26 18:12 ]</font>