2 - Options: User Interface
This first group allows you to customize the main interface of CD-DVD Speed specifically regarding colors and language.
Language
CD-DVD Speed was translated in various languages. To change the language, it's sufficient to select the preferred one from the combo-box.
Disc info (DVD)
These options rerfers exclusively to DVD media: when a CD media is loaded in the drive, these settings will be ignored. From these settings is possible to select what CD-DVD Speed will show in the "
Benchmark" tab of the main window when a DVD media is loaded in the drive. There are two possibilities:
- Disc Type
- Book Type
Selecting "
Disc Type", CD-DVD Speed will show the type of the disc loaded in the drive. Selecting "
Book type", CD-DVD Speed will show the book type of the disc loaded in the drive.
DVD media are available in different standard formats: +R/RW ("
Plus" media), -R/RW ("
Minus" media), RAM (a rewritable media different from the previous formats), and ROM (know also as "
Pressed" discs). Recently introduced were also other disc standards, know as Blu-ray and
HD-DVD. These media are still under development, and will not be included in this guide. Here is sufficient to know that according to the option selected, in the main window of the "
Benchmark" tab will be shown a different information.
The "
Book Type" is an information localized in discs that is read by optical drives anytime a disc is loaded. This information is necessary to the drive to know how that media must be used. More details are in the section "Menu --> Extra --> Bitsetting" of this guide. More details can be found also in
Wikipedia.
Right now is sufficient to say that when a +R/RW media (the only media in which booktype can be modified) is loaded in the drive, the disc will be showed as what it is actually (when the option "
Disc Type" is selected) or as the drive "sees" that media (i.e. as ROM if the option "
Book Type" is selected and if the booktype was changed during the burn of that media).
Priority 
This option allows to change the priority of CD-DVD Speed. Each process running in Windows is executed with a different priority regarding the access to computer resources (CPU usage, memory access, etc). According to the option selected, CD-DVD Speed will be executed with a different priority.
This option was added starting from version 4.50, so in previous versions changing priority can be done only manually, using Windows Task Manager. Set priority to the value "
High" it is possible to avoid interferences during test execution by other processes running in the same time on the computer. For example, surfing on the web when a test is running could cause some false results, but by setting priority as high these interferences can be reduced almost completely.
Obviously, is anyway it is preferable to avoid using other programs when a test is running, particularly tests that heavily access the HDD (like an antivirus scan) or that extensively use CPU (like a video encoding).
Colors
These settings allow to change colors of main window.
Theme: CD-DVD Speed contain four themes, i.e. four predefined combinations of colors of the main window. The user can select a theme or can manually select colors according what he/she likes.
Important: If the user wants to manually select colors, first of all it is necessary to select the "
Custom" item from the combo box list, or any color selected will be ignored.
To change colors it is sufficient to left click on the little square with the color to modify. The colors that can be modified are:
Background 1: the background color of the window in which graph will be plotted.
Background 2: the background color can be uniform or can be shaded. Selecting this option, background color will be shaded between two colors, the one selected in the "
Background 1" item, and the one selected here. Unchecking this option, background color will be uniform, the one selected in the "
Background 1" option.
Speed: the color of the line expressing speed (reading or writing speed according to the selected test).
Buffer level: the color of the line expressing buffer level when burning.
RPM: the color of the line expressing disc rotation speed.
CPU usage: the color of the line expressing CPU usage when burning.
To make easier reading of the graph, it's possible to plot a grid, and the user can select grid colors.
Grid (primary): the color of primary grid.
Grid (secondary): the color of secondary grid.
Show horizontal grid: if this option is checked, in the graph will be plotted also horizontal grid.
Show vertical grid: if this option is checked, in the graph will be plotted also vertical grid.
If both show-grid options are unchecked, the graph will not contain any grid.
All these colors can be modified by the user in the preferred way, but it's important to consider that colors can't be selected randomly, because resulting graphs can be unreadable. For example a yellow line on a white background will be hardly visible.
My suggestion is to use the color theme used in the picture.