Long Load Times in Games

[zakee00]

Originally posted by: Gamingphreek

It would theorectically cut your current load times in half. It reads/writes to two drives as if they were one.

Theoretically yes. Actually in real world, no; it does virtually nothing.

Yes, even the newest s939 boards suffer from 2T command rates when all DIMMs are populated.

This is not a problem with the boards but rather a problem with the A64 Processors onboard memory controller. It is rumored that the E0 and E4 revisions fix this (when they come out).

-Kevin

:thumbsup:
nice post, i wasn't here to correct you people earlier jm

 

[farstar]

if you're spending the money on a fast drive get the 15k U320 and go all out. Incredible drives.

 

[MercenaryForHire]

:Q

Wow. Does 1T vs 2T really make that much of a difference?

- M4H

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: MercenaryForHire
:Q

Wow. Does 1T vs 2T really make that much of a difference?

- M4H

i'd also like to hear more about it . . . from what i understand fgrom GH threads, it does not make that much difference in gaming for the Athlon XP . . . in other words, it'd be "better" to have 1GB RAM at the slow timings rather that 512MB at the highest (refering specifically to performance in games including "reload times").

Please clarify . . . i'd like to be accurate

 

[blckgrffn]

I have run my NFS-7 2.0 with all slots occupied for about 8 months, and I noticed no negative effect filling all the slots for a total of one gig. Load times shortened a lot, especially far cry and games like BF. It is all Kingston HyperX, but I don't think that has anyhting to to do with it. With an Athlon XP, ram timings are not really very important to compared with how critical they are to A64 performance.

Nat

 

[homercles337]

Originally posted by: Avalon
No, you won't. Assuming the OP even has 4 DIMM slots, if he maxes those out, his system is going to force his memory to run at a command rate of 2T, which is noticeably slower for gaming.

Why do you say this? I started a thread over in CPU/OCing last night (which everyone has so kindly ignored :| ). My Corsair XMS is defaulting to 2T. My 3dmark05 is 5124 at this command rate, but any memory benches i run show poor performance. Command rate set to 1T improves memory performance considerably, but my 3dmark05 score drops ~1000 points. WTF?

 

[Gamingphreek]

Originally posted by: homercles337

Originally posted by: Avalon
No, you won't. Assuming the OP even has 4 DIMM slots, if he maxes those out, his system is going to force his memory to run at a command rate of 2T, which is noticeably slower for gaming.

Why do you say this? I started a thread over in CPU/OCing last night (which everyone has so kindly ignored :| ). My Corsair XMS is defaulting to 2T. My 3dmark05 is 5124 at this command rate, but any memory benches i run show poor performance. Command rate set to 1T improves memory performance considerably, but my 3dmark05 score drops ~1000 points. WTF?

Instead of "playing" 3dMark play your games and see if they run faster. It doesn't matter what 3dMark says if your games run the way they are supposed to.

-Kevin

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: Gamingphreek

It would theorectically cut your current load times in half. It reads/writes to two drives as if they were one.

Theoretically yes. Actually in real world, no; it does virtually nothing.

Yes, even the newest s939 boards suffer from 2T command rates when all DIMMs are populated.

This is not a problem with the boards but rather a problem with the A64 Processors onboard memory controller. It is rumored that the E0 and E4 revisions fix this (when they come out).

-Kevin

Kevin, I have two identical rigs at home save for the fact that one has a single 36GB raptor and the other has 2x36GB raptors in a RAID0 config. I can absolutely assure you that there is a substantial reduction in load times for everything I do from loading a web browser (for the first time and not from system RAM) to loading map levels in DoomIII, Call of Duty and FarCry. Yes, the PCI bus gets saturated to its capacity. More than 2 drives on a standard PCI bus would be a waste. But 2 drives is a sweet spot.
When I say theoretically twice as fast, I mean that is the best case scenario. In reality, I am getting a 40 to 50% improvement in load times. And it's not all in my head either
I have timed it with the second hand clock on my wall. :beer:

 

[Gamingphreek]

While ATs test were not all conclusive i doubt that if the browser starts in 10secs (man that would be slow) that it now starts in 5. Previously there was something different that made it slower. Simply using a RAID 0 array will not cut speed by 50%, look at any and all benchmarks.

-Kevin

 

[Cheesetogo]

YOu know, why don't you just buy 3 gigs of ram and get a 15k scsi drive?

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: Gamingphreek
While ATs test were not all conclusive i doubt that if the browser starts in 10secs (man that would be slow) that it now starts in 5. Previously there was something different that made it slower. Simply using a RAID 0 array will not cut speed by 50%, look at any and all benchmarks.

-Kevin

I trust Anand's articles more than any other review site, however, nothing beats personal experience. I can tell you that the biggest bottleneck in today's computers is the hard drive. How fast data can be read from a disc and stored in system RAM is what everybody waits on. Kevin, have you tried RAID0 yet? It's worth the expense of an extra hard drive and a controller card "if" your motherboard doesn't support IDE/SATA RAID already. I will concede to the fact that I am using the onboard SATA RAID on my mobo. Whether or not this utilizes the PCI bus or not is unknown to me. I don't know if the SouthBridge handles the data transfer exclusively and bypasses the PCI bus.
At any rate, the OP can do very well with a RAM upgrade. But if he really wants to reduce those load times. RAID0 baby.

I will try to post benches. I don't think it's OT if it reduces load times. I'll see what I can do.

Keys

 

[Fern]

Originally posted by: farstar
if you're spending the money on a fast drive get the 15k U320 and go all out. Incredible drives.

Thats EXACTLY what I'm looking at now.

HELP with me a card pls.

Whats good one, or reasonable one and what do they cost pls?

Thanks,

Fern

 

[Fern]

Originally posted by: Cheesetogo
YOu know, why don't you just buy 3 gigs of ram and get a 15k scsi drive?

Well, you're pretty close. I'll be getting the ram upgrade too.

Did have the money budgeted for a vid card upgrade. But can't seem to snag one. Just keep missing out

Fern

 

[Gamingphreek]

Ok before i start speccing a system out lemme make sure i understand you:

You do want to go SCSI...correct?

-Kevin

 

[zerocool84]

ok just tell the guy to buy 1gig and get it over with G33Z

 

[homercles337]

Originally posted by: Gamingphreek

Originally posted by: homercles337

Originally posted by: Avalon
No, you won't. Assuming the OP even has 4 DIMM slots, if he maxes those out, his system is going to force his memory to run at a command rate of 2T, which is noticeably slower for gaming.

Why do you say this? I started a thread over in CPU/OCing last night (which everyone has so kindly ignored :| ). My Corsair XMS is defaulting to 2T. My 3dmark05 is 5124 at this command rate, but any memory benches i run show poor performance. Command rate set to 1T improves memory performance considerably, but my 3dmark05 score drops ~1000 points. WTF?

Instead of "playing" 3dMark play your games and see if they run faster. It doesn't matter what 3dMark says if your games run the way they are supposed to.

-Kevin

Meh, i get so tired of hearing, "play the game, dont bench it." Well, no sh!t. My question was, why would faster memory timings cause a graphics bench to perform worse?

 

[BFG10K]

I don't know if more ram will lower initial load times,

It will because HD -> PF is slower than HD -> RAM copying.