[Help!] Framerate problems due to hardrive?

[SunSamurai]

Been haveing this problem for a while.
Typically the game i play, WoW, runs fine at around 35fps-85fps. Even 10fps at a constant is better than what Im getting sometimes.

I can best describe it as frame-lag. Or choppy inconsistant framerate travelling though parts of the game that are constant. Such as turning a corner that I had just been to not a few seconds prior will sometimes trigger it.

What happeneds is the hard drive starts accsessing liek mad. I have nothing in the backgroud such as antivirus that would cuase this, so I know its something ingame. textures possibly loading ect.

My question is, how do I stop the video itself from freezing simply becuase its loading textures (or whatever) ? My hard drive should have such an impact on framerate _to this degree_.

Mobo:
EP-9NDA3+

Hard drives:
2xSamsung 120GB RAID0 32stripe

Card:
6600GT

Please tell me that the hard drives arnt shareing a pipe with the grafix card ..................

 

[alimoalem]

what's ur cpu?

 

[bob4432]

if the hdd is going like mad it sounds like you are hitting the pagefile. hit ctrl-alt-del, look under the performance tab and then under commit charge (lower left corner) if the peak is higher than the amount of ram you have, then you are out of ram and that could be the case.

 

[Compddd]

I am having this same problem with my super system. Its definatley not the RAM, theres no way WoW can use more then 2GB is therE?

 

[w00t]

Originally posted by: bob4432
if the hdd is going like mad it sounds like you are hitting the pagefile. hit ctrl-alt-del, look under the performance tab and then under commit charge (lower left corner) if the peak is higher than the amount of ram you have, then you are out of ram and that could be the case.

I am going to agree that it's hitting the pagefile.

 

[SunSamurai]

Originally posted by: bob4432
if the hdd is going like mad it sounds like you are hitting the pagefile. hit ctrl-alt-del, look under the performance tab and then under commit charge (lower left corner) if the peak is higher than the amount of ram you have, then you are out of ram and that could be the case.

I understand all that, however, thats not what I'm asking.

Why is hard drive accessing screwing up my framerate. Don't tell me becuase a hard drive is slower than RAM. My screen should not literally freeze simply becuase a texture is not loaded. The polygonal frame is still there. Is it just bad design?

Also note that other times when the hard drive is accessing and I know its loading game files textures ect for a differant area as im running along, framerate does not suffer more than normal.

CPU AMD64 1.8Ghz

 

[w00t]

sounds like you dont have enough free ram like your running stuff on the background while playing wow than it needs more ram so it acceses the pagefile on your hd. so i'd suggest trying to shut down the extra programs. also do what bob says. Your fps is lagging because your hitting page file simple and sweet.

 

[SunSamurai]

You guys arnt reading what I'm saying.

 

[w00t]

Originally posted by: aeternitas
You guys arnt reading what I'm saying.

Why is hard drive accessing screwing up my framerate

Because you are accessing the pagefile on your hardrive Is my guess. Maybe try a clean reinstall of wow?

 

[Bobthelost]

Originally posted by: aeternitas

Originally posted by: bob4432
if the hdd is going like mad it sounds like you are hitting the pagefile. hit ctrl-alt-del, look under the performance tab and then under commit charge (lower left corner) if the peak is higher than the amount of ram you have, then you are out of ram and that could be the case.

I understand all that, however, thats not what I'm asking.

Why is hard drive accessing screwing up my framerate. Don't tell me becuase a hard drive is slower than RAM. My screen should not literally freeze simply becuase a texture is not loaded. The polygonal frame is still there. Is it just bad design?

Also note that other times when the hard drive is accessing and I know its loading game files textures ect for a differant area as im running along, framerate does not suffer more than normal.

CPU AMD64 1.8Ghz

Bad design? Not really, what you're suggesting would effectivly be deliberate artifacting.

The games will have "loading areas" and overlap so that the HD has time to get all the data sorted out in time. It's when it suddenly realises that it's missing a particular datum that causes the frame rate drop.

Have you checked to see what your pagefile useage is? Have you defragged recently?

What CPU exactly?

 

[imported_rod]

You could try de-fragging your system (& games) drive(s). But honestly, I think the problem is that you don't have enough RAM.

What is the cache & speed of the HDD are you using, and what % is free/used?
How much RAM do you have?

If you want to know for certain if it's the RAM ctrl-alt-del into task manager next time you get a freeze-up. If you are using more RAM than you have, then the problem IS the ram.

RoD

 

[Luckyboy1]

Originally posted by: aeternitas

Originally posted by: bob4432
if the hdd is going like mad it sounds like you are hitting the pagefile. hit ctrl-alt-del, look under the performance tab and then under commit charge (lower left corner) if the peak is higher than the amount of ram you have, then you are out of ram and that could be the case.

I understand all that, however, thats not what I'm asking.

Why is hard drive accessing screwing up my framerate. Don't tell me becuase a hard drive is slower than RAM. My screen should not literally freeze simply becuase a texture is not loaded. The polygonal frame is still there. Is it just bad design?

Also note that other times when the hard drive is accessing and I know its loading game files textures ect for a differant area as im running along, framerate does not suffer more than normal.

CPU AMD64 1.8Ghz

Don't tell you? Ok, I'm easy!


Hhhhmmm, now, how do we help this guy without destroying his preconceived idea?

Ok, here's a start! We need more information like, please post your diagnosis. If you need instructions, see Luckyboy's Guide For Complete Users.

 

[SunSamurai]

Originally posted by: rod
You could try de-fragging your system (& games) drive(s). But honestly, I think the problem is that you don't have enough RAM.

What is the cache & speed of the HDD are you using, and what % is free/used?
How much RAM do you have?

If you want to know for certain if it's the RAM ctrl-alt-del into task manager next time you get a freeze-up. If you are using more RAM than you have, then the problem IS the ram.

RoD

1GB RAM.
HDD Samsung 120 RAID0 (around 70MB thoughput average) 8MB buffer each

I am not useing more RAM than I have. WoW uses between 400 and 500 at the absolute max and I have around 2-300MB RAM free whenever I play WoW.

I'd liek to also note that framerate does this when -other- things start accessing the hard drive hard. Tis could be due to simply CPU useage so I am not concerned with that.

WoW has full use of the CPU. Wow has more than enough RAM. Is windows XP being a jackass or is WoW?


-CPU = AMD64 3000 Venice
-30GB free on the RAID drive but I have my pagefile set to a differant free drive for preformance. This problem gets worse setting pagefile on the same drive as the OS/game itself (tip for anyone haveing pagefile swaps constantly)

 

[MWink]

I know everyone's probably going to disagree with me but my guess would be it's related to the RAID setup. When I experimented with RAID (a long time ago) I noticed a significant slowdown in games when they were accessing the HD. After getting rid of the RAID array and just using the HD's normally the games sped back up to normal. Thus I haven't used RAID since.

 

[SunSamurai]

Sadly I'm thinking the same thing.

My first experiance with RAID was on 2 40GB hard drive ATA. It was fast. It worked like a charm in everything and I could feel the differance. Ever since then i have not been able to really do that.

My next OS wipe i think Ill try and force myself to go sans RAID0 /tear

 

[drewintheav]

My videocard seems to slow down sometimes when my pc is acessing the hardrive even though I am not on raid. I am on the nforce SATA using the Microsoft default drivers. It is not because of high cpu usage, I have an X2. It is not because of low memory, I have 2Gb. Maybe it is a bandwidth issue? or a nforce chipset issue?

 

[SunSamurai]

Originally posted by: drewintheav
My videocard seems to slow down sometimes when my pc is acessing the hardrive even though I am not on raid. I am on the nforce SATA using the Microsoft default drivers. It is not because of high cpu usage, I have an X2. It is not because of low memory, I have 2Gb. Maybe it is a bandwidth issue? or a nforce chipset issue?

Ive considered this as well. Not that Im highly technical, but Im assumeing somewhere along the lines teh hard drive and video card are shareing the same bandwidth pipe and its not being handeled as well as it should in many cases.

Since I cant do anything about that if it were the case... im grasping at anything else