RAM and loading times [Archive] - SUBSIM Radio Room Forums

Zero Enz

01-13-10, 12:06 AM

I'm sure it would help, I am using 4 gb in dual channel mode, I can get from the desktop to patrol in about a minute. My sticks also run at 800 Mhz. You also have to take into consideration things like your ; Cpu, OS, start up list, and how fragmented your HDD is. Defragment your Hard drive if it needs it and clear up your start up list, If you're using Windows it's Start->Run->Msconfig->Startup.
If it's still slow you might wanna upgrade to 2 or 4 GB. 2 would probably fit most of your needs, but 4 will help with things to come.
~Hope this helps :salute:

Armistead

01-13-10, 12:38 AM

It would help some, alot depends on your motherboard/chipset. If your specs are low in general, you may not notice much more, but it would certainly help some. Make sure you cut all the background programs and services off that you can.

PC's are cheap now....

jerm138

01-13-10, 12:49 AM

I'm pretty good about keeping everything clean and streamlined... lots of stuff I learned when flight simming. I don't have any startup programs at all (that's how I'm able to boot in 30 sec.)

I keep my drives pretty well defragged too.
The only things I kept from my last system are the CPU (3.4 Ghz Pentium D Dual Core) and the RAM.

I actually had 4 1G sticks in my last computer, but my new mobo is picky and for some reason it doesn't like 3 of the sticks. I think the RAM is my bottleneck. I'm able to run nearly everything I throw at the computer without problems (Crysis maxed out with 30FPS).

The loading time of SH4 is the only thing I've found to be annoyingly slow.

Zero Enz

01-13-10, 01:04 AM

Are you running any mods? That may slow you down as well, I'm running TMO+RSRDC and it did add 20 seconds on to my load time.

Armistead

01-13-10, 04:20 AM

One gig just gonna cause problems for this game. For sure take it to 2, 4 if you can. If you have all the background crap not running, it should be helpful. It takes me 23 seconds to load the game and I run about 11 mods. If you can, I would replace the old ram with new also and up it's speed...so cheap today, it's worth it.

KlassenT

01-13-10, 05:51 AM

On the note of RAM, it's probably old news to you if you tried to recycle 4x1GB for a new build, but for anyone else reading, I'll toss in one of the recommendations I made to a friend earlier this week. As a general rule, more physical sticks will lead to higher performance. Take two identical systems of 4GB memory, one with 2 sticks of 2GB, and one with 4x1GB. Assuming the chipset and data bus are wide enough to support it, being able to request data from four locations instead of two can be a major advantage, and needless to say, they'll both top out a single 4GB.

As for your specific situation, if you're not sure whether or not your board will natively support DDR2-1066, I will caution you that it can take a bit of tinkering (Voltage, CAS) to get 1066mhz RAM working up to snuff on a few boards. Since it sounds like you're pretty capable when it comes to putting a build together, as long as you're not afraid to get your hands a bit dirty and call in some help from search engines, it's really not all that complicated. Just figured it was worth noting so that you can do a little preliminary research if you go with a 1066 model. :up:

Apos

01-13-10, 10:11 AM

Minimal size of RAM memory is 2GB for me. I highly suggest you to get another 1 or 2 GBs. DDR2 RAM (i belive you have DDR2) is cheap... I got 2GB for 80 PLN (~less than 20 euro) from friend of mine. If you're going to get 3GB (4GB totally) be sure to upgrade your OS to 64bits. 32bit windows doesn't use more than 3.2 GB Ram memory.

peabody

01-13-10, 01:18 PM

I have a pretty decent computer.

My weakest link is definitely my RAM. I only have 1G of it and it's only 800mhz.

Would upgrading/adding RAM improve my loading time?

Right now, it takes 6 minutes from the time I double-click the SH4 icon until I can be back on patrol.

I can boot up my computer from dead to on-the-internet in 30 seconds, so 6 minutes to start a program seems extreme.

Hello Jerm138,
I guess I am a good a candidate to give input here. I have the exact same chip Pentium D 3.4, and I have Corsair XMS 800mhz ram. And a Gigabyte board that has an 800mhz FSB. So even though there are a lot of other things that affect the loading we are the same on cpu and ram speed. But I have 3GB RAM (2X 1GB and 2x 512Mb) running in dual channel mode.

If I skip by everything, intros, reading the assigned port and the date, don't stop at the captains room to change anything and go straight to the mission, I am in the boat in 1 minute and 4 seconds. Of course if I have to load a saved mission that could add more time, or could be faster depending on what it has to load, since it is loading a mission it doesn't have to go throught the captain's room, so it evens out.

As for MODs it depends on what the Mods are. You can have a MOD that changes a file, but if it doesn't increase the size of that file it should load at the same speed. The Mods that would slow down a load would be Mods that either add more objects (ships,subs etc), more mission files, or overwrite files. If the game loads for example the Menu1024_768 file and the second MOD overwrites it and the third one overwrites it again, you have loaded that file three times.

So I would think your best bet is to try the stock 1.5 with no mods, skip by everything with a mouse click and see how long it takes to get into the sub. Then you would have more accurate info to compare apples to apples.

But either way more RAM should help the situation. But adding faster Ram may not make a bit of difference if the board doesn't support the speed. Also another thing that can affect loading is your hard drives. RPM, SATA, IDE, and how full they are.

I have run the game in the beginning with only 1GB Ram and although I did not time it, I am sure it was nowhere near 6 minutes. So there may be other things affecting the load.

Peabody

Webster

01-13-10, 05:29 PM

Also another thing that can affect loading is your hard drives. RPM, SATA, IDE, and how full they are.

Peabody

i can confirm this, i never thought having half of a 320gb hard drive full mattered (i had 190gb of data) but switching to a 500gb hard drive with the exact same cache level cut down on loading times by a good 30%

today they have 32mb cache hard drives for very reasonable prices and that can help you a lot, a 500gb @ 32mb cache sata 3.0 goes for $80

a 4gb set of (2x2gb) ram your computer will help you a lot too if your board will support it, if not then get a 2gb set of (2x1gb) ram

jerm138

01-13-10, 06:12 PM

Thanks for the tips, everyone.

I've learned some things about RAM that I didn't know.

Time to hit newegg and start shopping!

Urge

01-13-10, 09:52 PM

Webster wrote...
i cant confirm this, i never thought having half of a 320gb hard drive full mattered (i had 190gb of data) but switching to a 500gb hard drive with the exact same cache level cut down on loading times by a good 30%

Whoa, this is very interesting, do you have your hard drive configured as just the C drive or is it partitioned? I don't want to believe that a 60% full hard drive is causing performance problems but... I might have to start checking out Newegg's prices on HDs.

Urge

Ships-R-Us

01-13-10, 11:49 PM

If you devote a second hard drive for the installation you will get faster load times.

Hard drives start writing data at the outer edge of the platter. For every rpm more data is read at the start of the drive than is at the center of the drive.

If you install the game as the first thing on the second drive you are well off. Make a partition somewhere further into the drive for mods and other data or even some nonchalant programs and you will be fine.

Remember that your OS is at the start of C drive for the same reason, faster access to data.

If you barely had enough room on C drive to install the game because all other programs ate up the good space it could take forever to load the game.

When I devoted a second drive solely for the game and mods, load time decreased immensly.

Webster

01-14-10, 02:56 AM

Webster wrote...

Whoa, this is very interesting, do you have your hard drive configured as just the C drive or is it partitioned? I don't want to believe that a 60% full hard drive is causing performance problems but... I might have to start checking out Newegg's prices on HDs.

Urge

yep i had a typo

i meant to say i CAN confirm it

also it was a single unpartitioned drive

it was a 320 with about 20 unread for whatever reason it always hides part of the disk (backups for system restore or something i think)

so i had 300gb usable drive space with 190 filled and 110 unused so i figured it had plenty so it wouldnt slow me down but for the reasons shipsrus explained it causes a bottleneck in your system so its the size of the drive that is the most important and how full that drive is.

once you get to or pass the halfway point of your drive capacity it starts hurting the speed of your system and while it may not matter to the average person if you want the full speed you can get out of it try and size your disk so its never more than 1/4 to 1/3 full to keep max performance.

Urge

01-14-10, 10:49 AM

Webster

01-14-10, 12:37 PM

I have my drive partitioned into several partitions(actually I have two HDs-both partitioned). If the partition in question is 1/4-1/3 full do you think that is all that matters or is it the whole drive being over 1/2 full that causes problems?

Urge

again, take note of how we talked about how the disk is read.

*** incorrect comments removed ***

the fullness of the disk as a whole is the most important thing to watch.

DarkFish

01-14-10, 02:40 PM

the speed at the center of a 7200 rpm drive is 7200 rpms but at the outer edge its probably more like 5000 rpm because the center of a wheel always turns faster then the outer edges because they have a longer distance to travel and this cause the speed the disk can be read to slow down more and more the farther out from the center you go.
this is not true. RPM = REVOLUTIONS per minute. If the center rotates 360 degrees, the outside rotates 360 degrees as well. The outside of the drive thus makes exactly as much revolutions per minute as the inside. Converted to speed you're right. Because the outside of the drive is "longer" than the inside, it covers more distance in the same time and thus rotates at a higher speed.
Not sure if the rest of your story still holds though, I'm more kind of a software guy:)

SteamWake

01-14-10, 02:55 PM

Just some anecdotal account.

I had 4 megs in my machine for a long time till one day I got a bug and bought a pair of matching 4meg sticks for a total of 8 megs.

It was like getting a new computer for me. Holy cow what a difference ! :salute:

Oh and dont forget to leave some free real estate on your fixed disk for swap files ;)

Ships-R-Us

01-14-10, 03:25 PM

DarkFish............You are correct...........The outside of the disk in one revolution reads a huge amount amount of data compared to the inner tracks which only read a small amount of data in one revolution.

Recpectfully, I currently disagree with Webster that the disk starts adding data at the center of the disk. I may be wrong but will leave the site for a few minutes to research it. If that were true the OS would be located at the center

I think of a disk as an old fashion record on a player.

It may hold true that because of the different platters that data aquisition speed is the same across the whole disk. I will research.

FINAL NOTE: My C drive only holds the OS and all programs are on a second HD with a third HD dedicated to Silent Hunter. My C drive is only 80gb, therefore virus and malware scans take only a short time. I use Paragon Hard Disk Manager and have updated clones of C drive on another HD in a hidden partition. If I should aquire a "nasty" it only takes 4 minutes to pull up a clone and overwrite C drive. I ocassionally scan the other drive, but primary malware likes to invade the drive the OS is on.

Thank-You SteamWake for contributing here also....Ships...

Ships-R-Us

01-14-10, 04:00 PM

There is a lot of information on the web about this stuff. Your OS is located on the outside tracks for best data aquisition speed. Access speed on the outside tracks is roughly 2x that of the inner tracks.
Here is a snippet I found:

"Since data is written to the outer tracks of a drive first, hence the drive is filled with data from the outside in. The fastest data transfer occurs when the drive is first used and data retained in the outer tracks."

It all goes back to why your OS is the first thing added to the disk. If you want the fastest running application install it FIRST on the drive of your choice.........Ships...

Andrew82

01-14-10, 04:14 PM

the velocity of a turning hdd can be calculated by following formula;

v= π * d * n
60

v= velocity
π= pi = 3.14
d= radius
n= RPM

a typical hdd has a radius of 4.5cm=0.045m

v=3.14*0.045*7200 = 16.9 m/s
60

if we calculate the speed of the disk about halfway;

v=3.14*0.0225*7200 =8.5 m/s
60

therefor the the further towards the edge of the disk, the faster the surface(data) will turn.

(sorry webster)

Webster

01-14-10, 07:21 PM

ok, so i had it all backwards (it happens) but i'm glad you guys pointed out my error because i dont want to misslead anyone with bad info :up:

the end result is i removed the entire incorrect statement i made so nobody gets confused by it and we agreed that reguardless of how it gets filled, having too much on the disk slows down your system.

(sorry webster)

NP, only an idiot is unable to accept being wrong or admit his mistakes and i was wrong and i admit it. this isnt the first (or probably the last) time that i will make a mistake

your data also shows proof of how the disk being filled slows down your system and the more its filled the slower it gets and that is to the point of the original question being answered about the effect of the disk being filled up too much.

Ships-R-Us

01-14-10, 08:05 PM

ok, so i had it all backwards (it happens) but i'm glad you guys pointed out my error because i dont want to misslead anyone with bad info :up:

the end result is i removed the entire incorrect statement i made so nobody gets confused by it and we agreed that reguardless of how it gets filled, having too much on the disk slows down your system.

NP, only an idiot is unable to accept being wrong or admit his mistakes and i was wrong and i admit it. this isnt the first (or probably the last) time that i will make a mistake

your data also shows proof of how the disk being filled slows down your system and the more its filled the slower it gets and that is to the point of the original question being answered about the effect of the disk being filled up too much.

WEBSTER: I myself can go back through my own posts and boy have I made errors in posting without researching ahead of time....Keep up the good work.........you are a major asset to this community, and my JSGME is full of your mods......Doug

irish1958

01-14-10, 08:40 PM

Ships-R-Us

01-14-10, 09:06 PM

Subsim is an amazing forum. In addition to learning about navel warfare and history, you can learn about computers and how they operate.
Correct me if I am wrong, please, as I often am.
If you defrag your game files, doesn't it make little or no difference where they are located on the disc as the read time is much longer for large files that the seek time to locate them?

The seek time is nonrelevent. The outside of a disk contains many more sectors of information than the inside sectors. Henceforth in one revolution of the disk much more information is read from the files that were installed first on the disk. The commands from those files will be executed faster as a result. That is why again your OS is the first set of files installed on C drive. Yes, defragging helps to some extent but not much unless severely fragmented. I'm a neat freak and defrag all my drives several times a week.

THINK OF IT THIS WAY: If you play an old phonograph record there are more words to the song contained in the first revolution of the record at the start of the song than there is at the end of the song in the during one revolution of the record.

On any computer the game will load and run faster if the game is installed on its own drive and the first thing installed on that drive. If you do not have a second drive for the game, just edit C drive and move the game to the sectors next to your OS so that it is second in line

KlassenT

01-14-10, 10:28 PM

Subsim is an amazing forum. In addition to learning about navel warfare and history, you can learn about computers and how they operate.
Correct me if I am wrong, please, as I often am.
If you defrag your game files, doesn't it make little or no difference where they are located on the disc as the read time is much longer for large files that the seek time to locate them?

That's true for initial loading times, but the main reason you're encouraged to keep fragmentation low is for caching during run-time. If you've ever played a game or run a very memory-intensive program that tends to 'hiccup' just a bit right before a new model is rendered onscreen, that's usually where the seek time comes into play. Instead of being able to load new resources in one seamless sweep, you get those tiny little stutters from jumping around on the platter hunting for the right files.

So, in this case, you're certainly correct that fragmentation won't play a noticeable role at all during SH4's initial load, but don't take that as an excuse to get lazy with defragmenting. ;)

I think there are few enough models to cache in a naval sim that file fragmentation probably won't play much of a factor in SH4 specifically; but, that said, if you're in something much more fast-paced like an FPS where dozens of models are being pulled in as you progress, and there are too many of them to fully cache during pre-load, you're probably going to start feeling the effects of that seek time more and more.

Andrew82

01-15-10, 02:25 AM

NP, only an idiot is unable to accept being wrong or admit his mistakes and i was wrong and i admit it. this isnt the first (or probably the last) time that i will make a mistake too much.

hey, If I had a dollar for every mistake I've made in my life I'd probably be a millionaire by now, and most certainly be a billionaire at the end of this life! :har:

I'm just glad that we can point out each others mistakes without anyone being offended in any way on this forum, again this shows the degree of maturity and mutual respect on SubSim! Keep up the good work! :salute::up:

irish1958

01-15-10, 09:21 AM

On any computer the game will load and run faster if the game is installed on its own drive and the first thing installed on that drive. If you do not have a second drive for the game, just edit C drive and move the game to the sectors next to your OS so that it is second in line

Shopsrus, thanks for the info. How does one move the game file (files) next to the OS on the C drive?

KlassenT, thanks for the info.

Ships-R-Us

01-15-10, 09:32 AM

Shopsrus, thanks for the info. How does one move the game file (files) next to the OS on the C drive?

KlassenT, thanks for the info.

I am leaving for Seattle in 30 minutes for a Dr. Appt. at the VA Hospital. I will answer your question this afternoon upon my return.....Ships...

Webster

01-15-10, 02:48 PM

If you defrag your game files, doesn't it make little or no difference where they are located on the disc as the read time is much longer for large files that the seek time to locate them?

the only thing i would add with what answers you already have gotten is this:

the way to think about defragging is it is just like when you rearrange the files in a file cabinet in alphabetical order so when you search for a file you can find things faster.

files get scrambled out of order sometimes due to how and when they get into your system so every now and then when you defrag your system it looks for those "out of place" files and puts them back into a neat grouping system that allows quick fast location of any file so searches are quicker.

all this doesnt change the total number of files (the size of the filing cabinet) you have to look through but it helps you find files faster.

think of it in terms of having a bunch of file folders spread out onto a table vs having those same file folders neatly arranged in a filing cabinet and that explains why defraging helps to speed up location of files.

there are lots of different opinions on how often you should be defragging but i do it about every 5-6 months or anytime i add, rearrange, or remove a lot of data. to me its like washing your car, you only "need" to do it when it gets dirty but if you just want to do it more often it doesnt hurt anything

irish1958

01-15-10, 05:09 PM

to me its like washing your car, you only "need" to do it when it gets dirty but if you just want to do it more often it doesnt hurt anything
mmmmmmmmmmmmmm, I last washed my car four years ago.:|\\

Webster

01-15-10, 08:34 PM

mmmmmmmmmmmmmm, I last washed my car four years ago.:|\\

my 1998 truck has only been washed about 5 times but i do drive it in the ran occcassionally :O:

G2B

01-15-10, 09:00 PM

Doesn't Defragging move more commonly used files to the front of the drive for fasting access.

My kids are grown so my truck doesn't get washed anymore :wah:

jerm138

01-24-10, 12:43 AM

Ok... so I figured I'd test out the platter speed/installation location theory.

I have a 1TB Western Digital Caviar 7200rpm HDD.
My partitions were set up like this:

C: 50 GB - for WinXP
E: 50 GB - Reserved for future use (Win7 or Ubuntu)
G: 450 GB - For files (pictures, video, music, etc.)
H: 450 GB - For programs. This is where I had SH4 installed

If the theory is correct, I had SH4 (and all my other programs) installed in the worst possible place on the platter... furthest from the OS, therefore closer to the middle for worse seek times.

So I moved my Steam installation, along with SH4, to my E: drive to test it out.

Prior to the move, with TMO and RSRDC, it took just under 6 minutes to go from my desktop to being in control of my boat. This was timed immediately after defragging all partitions.

After the move, it's a MUCH more acceptable time: 2 min, 40 sec. This is without any other hardware configuration changes. :up:

SO... theory to practice proved (in this case, anyhow) that having a program installed closer to the OS will result in faster load times.

Of course, this means I have a LOT of work to do to move around my partitions and get everything in an optimal place.

Thanks for the tips everyone. I'll still eventually buy more RAM, but I'm not in any hurry now that my problem has been fixed.