tests.md

Testing & Benchmarks

Winrift includes a built-in performance benchmark that measures real system metrics before and after applying tweaks.

Quick Start

Step 1. Run the benchmark before applying any tweaks:

. .\modules\system\Benchmark.ps1
Invoke-Benchmark -Phase Before

Step 2. Apply your tweaks through the Winrift menu.

Step 3. Run the benchmark after tweaks (reboot recommended first):

. .\modules\system\Benchmark.ps1
Invoke-Benchmark -Phase After

The comparison report is displayed automatically and saved to %LOCALAPPDATA%\Winrift\benchmarks\.

To re-view the last report without collecting new data:

Invoke-Benchmark -Phase Compare

Benchmark Menu

From the main menu, select Benchmark to access:

Option	Action
1	Run Benchmark (Before tweaks)
2	Run Benchmark (After tweaks)
3	View Last Report
4	Back

Recommended workflow: Before → Apply tweaks → Reboot → After → Compare.

Metrics

Metric	Source	What It Shows
CPU idle load	\Processor(_Total)\% Processor Time	Background CPU usage at rest — fewer services = lower idle load
RAM usage	Win32_OperatingSystem	Physical memory consumed — disabled services free RAM
Committed memory	\Memory\Committed Bytes	Virtual memory pressure including page file
Running processes	Get-Process	Total process count — direct measure of background bloat
Running services	Get-Service	Active Windows services — tweaks disable unnecessary ones
Startup apps	Win32_StartupCommand	Programs that auto-launch on boot
Scheduled tasks	Get-ScheduledTask	Active tasks (Ready state) — maintenance tweaks reduce these
Disk read latency	\PhysicalDisk(_Total)\Avg. Disk sec/Read	Storage response time — SSD/NVMe tweaks improve this
Disk write latency	\PhysicalDisk(_Total)\Avg. Disk sec/Write	Storage write response time
DPC rate	\Processor(_Total)\DPC Rate	Deferred Procedure Calls — system latency indicator
Context switches/sec	\System\Context Switches/sec	CPU scheduling overhead — lower is better
Interrupts/sec	\Processor(_Total)\Interrupts/sec	Hardware interrupt rate — affected by interrupt steering tweak
Page faults/sec	\Memory\Page Faults/sec	Memory paging activity — memory optimization impact

All sampled metrics are averaged over 10 readings at 3-second intervals (~30 seconds total).

Interpreting Results

The report shows a before/after comparison table for all metrics with percentage change.

• ▼ indicates a decrease (typically better for all metrics)
• ▲ indicates an increase (typically worse for resource metrics)

Expected Ranges

These are typical improvements on a clean Windows 11 24H2 install:

Metric	Typical Improvement
CPU idle load	30–70% reduction
RAM usage	15–30% reduction
Running processes	20–40% reduction
Running services	10–25% reduction
DPC rate	20–40% reduction
Context switches	15–30% reduction

Actual results depend on hardware, installed software, and which tweak categories were applied.

Output Files

All benchmark data is stored in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Winrift\benchmarks\:

File	Description
before_{timestamp}.json	Raw metrics snapshot before tweaks
after_{timestamp}.json	Raw metrics snapshot after tweaks
report_{timestamp}.md	Markdown comparison report

Limitations

• Reboot recommended between before/after snapshots — some tweaks require a restart to take effect
• Close background apps before measuring — browsers, editors, and other apps affect metrics
• Hardware-dependent — results vary significantly between systems
• GPU tweaks are not measured — GPU performance requires specialized tools (FrameView, CapFrameX)
• Network tweaks — throughput/latency changes require external test servers to measure accurately
• Single-point measurement — for statistically significant results, run multiple before/after cycles

Pester Tests

Unit tests for the benchmark module are at tests/Benchmark.Tests.ps1. Run them with:

Invoke-Pester ./tests/Benchmark.Tests.ps1