SysMain (formerly Superfetch) is a Windows service that monitors which applications you launch frequently and preloads them into RAM ahead of time. The idea is that when you open an app, it's already in memory and loads faster.
On HDDs, this made a real difference. On SSDs, the calculus changes.
What SysMain actually does on an SSD
Your SSD can read a game's assets in milliseconds anyway. The preloading that SysMain does provides no meaningful benefit over just letting the SSD do its job on demand.
What SysMain does add:
- Background disk I/O during gameplay when it decides to update its prefetch data
- RAM pressure from holding preloaded data that may never be used this session
- CPU usage from the analysis and prefetch writing processes
During a gaming session, you don't want SysMain competing for disk I/O while a game is streaming textures or loading a new area.
The right call
HDD system: keep SysMain enabled. The preloading benefit is real.
SSD system (gaming): disable it. The I/O contention and RAM overhead outweigh any benefit.
sc config SysMain start= disabled
net stop SysMain
Search Indexing
Same logic applies to Windows Search (WSearch). The indexer runs background scans and writes to a database on disk. On an SSD the search results come back fast enough without an index being constantly updated in the background.
sc config WSearch start= disabled
net stop WSearch
Both are disabled by IzanagiOP's Aggressive Optimizations pack. You can re-enable them from Services if you need Windows Search for file finding. Discord: https://terweb.lt/
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