8mb buffer harddrive: is it worth it?

[Bronxkid]

I'm curious how much effect the 8meg buffer of a harddrive will have on performance of games. I know cpu and video card are everything, but can 2meg buffer vs 8 improve performance? Thanks.

 

[xSilentBoBx]

I'm nor sure how much it helps in games but I noticed a difference in windows when I went from a 7200 rpm 2mb cache to a 7200 rpm 8mb cache.

 

[Tbirdkid]

it makes a huge difference in load times and in application completion.

 

[oldman420]

8 meg of cahce will make things run smoother less stress on the ide bus

 

[SXMP]

Originally posted by: Bronxkid
I'm curious how much effect the 8meg buffer of a harddrive will have on performance of games. I know cpu and video card are everything, but can 2meg buffer vs 8 improve performance? Thanks.

Just to throw my 2 cents in, they are not everything. There will always be a bottleneck in a system and often times its the ram, motherboard, harddrive, even soundcard. Please don't take it as if you could run HL2 with a 3500xp and xt800 with 128mb of ram! (or at any rate expect decent framerates!)

 

[Gurck]

It shouldn't make much of a difference in actual gameplay (if you run low on ram and a game accesses your page file, you'll stutter no matter how fast your hard drive), but it should improve load times and make windows feel snappier.

 

[Bronxkid]

A little off topic but if I'm getting stuttering in a game and I feel my cpu (2.4ghz) and video (radeon 9800pro) and ram (512) are sufficient, will changing the file page make a difference, and how can I do that? Thanks.

 

[TRUMPHENT]

You could also explore SCSI. The "egg" has an LSI U160 interface card for 30 bucks. 80pin drives are cheap these days 80 to 68 pin adapters are too. The cable with terminator might be the biggest obstacle, but you only need one for up to three drives. Pick your speed from 7.2K to 15K rpm. It will, ahem, remove a tremendous burden from the IDE bus.

I am probably going to get the card because WinXP is supposed to have the drivers for it built in the installation. My Advansys cards don't have XP support. Me still running 2KPro.

😎

 

[Mloot]

Originally posted by: Bronxkid
A little off topic but if I'm getting stuttering in a game and I feel my cpu (2.4ghz) and video (radeon 9800pro) and ram (512) are sufficient, will changing the file page make a difference, and how can I do that? Thanks.

What game are you playing? Some of the newer games that stutter w/512mb of RAM will smooth out when you upgrade to 1gb total RAM.

 

[Appledrop]

oh yeah after upgrading from 512-> 1024, it was soooo much less jerky in games.

 

[Bronxkid]

I'm playing the same game almost everyone else is playing right now: halflife 2 🙂. I had heard others with lower computer specs than me were running smoothly at 1025x768 so I was trying to figure out what I could do.

I can open my computer to find what kind of ram I currently have installed (likely 2x256meg). Suppose I find its 133sdram (I'm making that up). Would the choice of new ram (speed) depend on the limitation of the motherboard?

 

[PhoenixOrion]

Should not make a big difference in the in-game performance except for load times especially with big maps ex: doom3, bf1942, farcry, etc.

 

[Bronxkid]

Just wanted to add file paging is currently 766mb. Is that sufficient? Thanks.

 

[Appledrop]

the idea of getting smooth game performance is not to make the harddrive work better, rather, its to make it not work at all. with 512mb ram halflife 2 WILL be using your pagefile ALOT, resulting in inconsistent gameplay and stuttering when moving view. to find out what ram you have at the mo, download cpu-z, and click on the Memory tab.
report back with what ram you have and ill try to recommend some to match.

 

[Bronxkid]

Thanks Azzy64; that's useful info. Here's what I got (I have a dell by the way).

CPU: intel pentium 4 cpu 2.4ghz - core speed 2390mhz; fsb 132.9mhz; bus speed 532.6mhz
Cache: L1 kbytes, L2 512kbytes
Mainboard: chipset: intel i845PE
Graphic interface: agp ver 2.0, transfer rate 4x, max supported 4x, aperture size 128mbytes
Memory: DDR-Sdram 512mbytes Freq 166.1mhz, FSB DRAM 4:5...(rest probably not important)
SPD: slot 1 - DDR-SDRam 512mbytes, pc2700 (166mhz). Manuf: Infineon.
slot 2 - empty

So do I have to replace the one i have and get 2x512 or 1 gig or can i keep the one already in and get 512more? Also, why does it say ddr-sdram? I thought it's one or other?

 

[Bronxkid]

So do i have to buy a dell upgrade or you think I can get kingston, etc through hot deals on the net? I guess I'm looking for ddr sdram 166mhz. What about number of pins? How do I find out?

I went do dell site and when I choose upgrade system memory and choose my system it says to buy this:

Package Type: 184-pin DIMM
Logical Type: 64x64
Speed: PC2700 / 333 MHz
Description: Non-Parity, Unbuffered
Units Required: 1
Install Notes: Desktop/PC
System Type: Desktop/PC

But according to the results I showed above, i have 166mhz ram

I did the same thing in Crucial's website and it came up w/ same ram as dell's website. And it's only 90 at crucial. Should I get it there?

 

[Auric]

Primary difference is in operations within the same drive such as copying (or extracting archives). Otherwise I would not expect a significant general difference given enough system RAM. The density and spindle speed are more important in that regard.

 

[Blain]

Originally posted by: Bronxkid
8mb buffer harddrive: is it worth it?

You're kidding... right? There's what, like a $10 difference at most between 2mb & 8mb cached HDs? :shocked: