Very high hard drive access makes it impossible to play a game

[PascalT]

It's me again!

One after another, I nail down the problems. :/

This time it's the harddrive (or windows). I installed HL2 on my 300gb maxtor drive, when i play CS it's impossible to play due to very high hard drive access rate. aka it seems to access the drive way too much, I hear the drive working all the time, and I get like 10 fps.

My drive is NTFS (could that be it?), I am using the latest nvidia drivers, my cpu/gpu are OCed (10% gpu, 25% cpu) and my drive has a good 250gb of space left. I have no paging file on the partition, one on the C: and one on another empty drive. (system managed)

I use 512mb of ram, which is low, but when I checked Task Manager while playing CS, I had 250mb of ram left. I did close ZoneAlarm/AV while playing.

I have the latest bios for my mobo, and all updated drivers. Using winXP sp1.

I've also this problem with LOTR:BME..

Any suggestions?

 

[mechBgon]

What's your firewall software & hardware, and your antivirus software? With 50GB of capacity in use, I have to assume you've got s0mething besides the OS and HL2 on there.

 

[montag451]

I would think that the thrashing is due to trying to access the pagefile, or do you have an active antivirus tester?

Try setting the pagefile to about 400MB min and max.
More memory would be an idea, [i know you still have some juice left, but windows is weird sometimes]

 

[PascalT]

using ZoneAlarm/PC-Cillin, but like I said they were disabled. I have a 20gb HD backed up on the partition, another game, and icq. and the other partition is my C: drive.

400mb min and max on whih drives would be recommended?

here's my HD situation:


IDE1: IBM 40GB -> E: - empty 20gb
F: - filled 20gb (music/backup)

IDE2: DVDRW


SATA1: MAXTOR 300gb -> C: 15gb
G: 280gb -> CS partition/backup/games

 

[montag451]

Hi Mech, just ordered [about 20minutes ago] the AbitNF8 on your advice[last week]. Am looking forward to its arrival into my kingdom so that it can be prodded and poked.

Pascal, put the pagefile on the nonsystem drive. You may have to experiment with the size of the pagefile [needs a reboot imbetween]. See what works for you.
Can you see, out of interest if any errors have managed to sneak into the Event viewer?

 

[PascalT]

The infrared file transfer service encountered an error while checking for configuration changes. Changes made from the Wireless Link control panel will not take effect until the next logon session. The error reported was 6.

i got this but i doubt it's relevant. I dno't have a wireless link control tho.


I'll try using no pagefile on the C:

thanks.

 

[mechBgon]

You're running a WinXP SP1 machine connected to the Internet with your firewall down and your antivirus software disabled?

 

[PascalT]

I disabled them to see if that was the problem with my games yes. I have them on otherwise.

I tried the paging file tip, it did help a bit but it still lagged. I am wondering if it's not my sound. I use onboard sound. Altho that doesn't explain the hardcore HDD accessing.

I'll put in my sb live and see.

 

[Pr0d1gy]

Did you say wireless? lol Could be the problem....?

 

[PascalT]

I don't use wireless. I don;'t know where that error msg came from. Probably from me shutting down ZA/AV.

 

[mechBgon]

Update your antivirus definitions to the very latest, then run a complete system scan. Time to infection for a WinXP SP1 machine with its firewall down and no antivirus software averages 20 minutes. If your system is chanced upon sooner, the actual worm infection itself is going to take under a minute on broadband.

Considering that you already had virus problems before, I'll suggest it again: un-network your computer, reformat the hard drive, reinstall WindowsXP, patch to SP2 after you un-OC your RAM and boost the RAM voltage, install and fully configure your antivirus software, then connect the network cable, update your antivirus software, go to Windows Update for the remaining patches, and now see where you're at. Don't install any other software or utilities or etc until your defenses are completely maxed out.

 

[Gentle]

In Half-Life 2, have you changed any of the Video options from the "recommended" ?

If you have less than 768 meg of ram and select Texture Detail: High, you may get lots of hard drive thrashing.

Reselect Texture Detail: Medium (if you had it on High) and let us know what happens.

Gentle

 

[boshuter]

I agree with the "not enough ram" solution. 512mb is not enough for a lot of the newer games, starting with Doom3 (at least that's the first one I noticed it on). I don't think playing around with dubious page file settings is going to fix anything though. I'ts poplular to set a static page file size, and have it on another physical drive, though I've never seen any data that backs up any improvements this makes. Windows XP actually does a pretty decent job of managing the page file. Don't "tweak" yourself into another problem, just buy more ram

You should to what mechBgon said though.... just to be safe

 

[PascalT]

I don't want to re-format, my comp is free of viruses now. and sp 2 sucks ass.

i think it could be the ram, even tho i have "250mb free". i have 2gb of ram coming so that'll be good.

gentle: I'll try lower resolutions/etc, it won't change anything. it'd HD access doing it, not poor video.

 

[avey]

Its generally recommended that you set your page file like this: 1.5 x ram + 12mb. Having No pagefile will cause slow system performance.

Here are some basic rules you should follow:

Move the pagefile off the disk that holds your system and boot partitions to another fast and dedicated hard disk. If you do put the file elsewhere, you should leave a small amount on C: - an initial size of 2MB with a Maximum of 50 is suitable - so it can be used in emergency. Without this, the system is inclined to ignore the settings and either have no page file at all (and complain) or make a very large one indeed on the C: drive.

Format the partition where the page file is placed with NTFS and a 4kb cluster size (which is in fact the default setting for an NTFS partition).

Have the initial size be at least 1.5 times bigger than the amount of physical RAM. Do NOT make the pagefile smaller than the amount of physical RAM you've got installed on your system.

Make its initial size as big as the maximum size.

Do not place multiple paging files on different partitions on the same physical disk drive.

If you have a RAID-0 (Stripe Set) array, use it to store the pagefile.

Avoid putting a paging file on a fault-tolerant drive, such as a mirrored volume (RAID-1) or a RAID-5 volume. Paging files do not need fault-tolerance, and some fault-tolerant systems suffer from slow data writes because they write data to multiple locations.

If you use Windows XP and Fast User Switching, there are special considerations: When a user is not active, there will need to be space available in the page file to ?roll out? his or her work: therefore, the page file will need to be larger. Only experiment in a real situation will establish how big, but a start point might be an initial size equal to half the size of RAM for each user logged in.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: avey
If you have a RAID-0 (Stripe Set) array, use it to store the pagefile.
Avoid putting a paging file on a fault-tolerant drive, such as a mirrored volume (RAID-1) or a RAID-5 volume. Paging files do not need fault-tolerance, and some fault-tolerant systems suffer from slow data writes because they write data to multiple locations.

I generally agree with all of the other pagefile tips given, but why the positive recommendation to place it on a striped disk, and yet at the same time not place it on a mirrored volume?

Is that simply because the default page size (4K) is generally smaller than the stripe size (generally 16KB and up), and so pagefile I/O doesn't have to hit both drives, but only one at a time anyways? (Obviously, since writes are slow on a RAID-5 array, you wouldn't want to place a pagefile there.)

The reason that I'm asking is, Windows' will already effectively stripe pagefile accesses across two seperate paging files on different physical disks. Given that, it would seem to be fine to allow Windows' to do its own effective "pagefile striping", wouldn't it?

Granted, I can't see how it would do any real harm either to place the pagefile on a striped array, except for the fact that oftentimes the reason for creating a striped array is for performance for a specific task, and if the pagefile was competing with that performance-sensitive task on the same stripe set, that wouldn't be good. I would estimate that overall performance would be better with the pagefile on a disk that was physically seperate from the stripe set, given comparable-speed disks.

 

[Gentle]

Originally posted by: PascalT
I don't want to re-format, my comp is free of viruses now. and sp 2 sucks ass.

i think it could be the ram, even tho i have "250mb free". i have 2gb of ram coming so that'll be good.

gentle: I'll try lower resolutions/etc, it won't change anything. it'd HD access doing it, not poor video.

I am not saying lower your resolution.

I am saying...

If Half-Life 2 recommended Texture Detail: Medium (It did, if you have 512 meg of ram) and you force it up to Texture Detail: High... You will get page file swapping and hard drive thrashing, along with longer load times in the game.

Set Texture Detail to Medium.

Adjust all the other settings back to the settings that are recommended (they have asterisks by them).

Then, play and test and so on for a little while and report back here with what it plays like.

Gentle

P.S. When you get your ram, the settings will change to new recommended settings, most notable of them will be the Texture Detail will change to High (*recommended).

 

[avey]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
it on a striped disk, and yet at the same time not place it on a mirrored volume?

I was more talking about how the page file needs no fault tolerance. Having the page file on a mirrored disk wouldnt hurt performance. Just that if you lost a disk it wouldnt matter if you lost the page file.

 

[friedrice]

Here's a nice link, most of you know but some may not. housecall.trendmicro.com It's a free anti-virus scan that works online, and it's very very good. It's found stuff McAfee didn't (of course McAfee sucks anyway). I usually find that it's spyware that accesses your hard drives all the time, not viruses. I personally think Spyware is worse since Ad-ware and Spybot doesn't always find everything, where as the trendmicro will usually get rid of your virus problems.

You may have a bad IDE cable (maybe) or a bad hard drive. I'm just throwing out ideas here, so don't bash me. In the line of trouble shooting, start with the most simplist thing possible.

 

[MisterChief]

THTAS WHAT HAPPENS WITH PORN!

 

[PascalT]

thanks for the tips

it didn't fix everything obviously, due to my ram issues. can't wait to get my ram!

 

[PascalT]

Well I tried an extra 512mb of ram and it fixed all the issues. I now get 40-180fps in hl2

 

[farubino]

Hey PascalT, I was just about to put a new topic on the TS forums, but I saw your title looked very familiar to my own problem.

I think I'm going to go with your solution of getting a new stick of RAM when my next paycheck comes in.

My problem was slightly different... I had previously installed XP on an IDE drive. (By the divine power of the Almighty God) CS:S ran beautiful for a month. This was with: Wireless card, Symantec Anti-Virus, Sygate firewall, and SP-1, playing music in the background, the works.

When CS:S started chopping hard every 1-3 seconds and thrashing the HD, I assumed it was a failing hard disk. I bought a new SATA 10k RPM with NO improvement (on a 30-minute new XP installation)

I didn't think the RAM would be the case, because I run UT2K4 on my Linux partition perfectly smooth, and because CS played so well before. Maybe SP2 is especially bloaty. We'll see.

Thanks for starting the post.