Internal/external hard drive question

[flag4]

hello hunters
wonder if i could have your views on this:

i have an external hard drive by Seatools at 500 GB's.
the one i have now - (windows xp home) internall, is over run by proceses that i can not stop and invade SH3 to the extent that cpu grinds to a halt on a regular basis. so i have got gamebooster on board - which has helped enormousley + i have manually shut down internet connection, firewall, anti-virus and anything i can put my damned foot against.
so my question is, is it possible to install everything SH3+GWX and mods etc onto the external harddrive?
do you think this external hard drive is big enough AND MOST IMPORTANTLY will the internal hard drive affect in any way with its processes, the new external hard drive, because im really tired of all the interference i get with these damned processes.

oh and, is it easy to do - put everything onto externall drive?

hope this is clear to understand
thanks in advance
flag4

[irish1958]

I have an e-sata (not USB or firewire) hard drive and I can run the game from it with no problems at all.
You might consider using AlcrityPC instead of game booster as it works better and gives you the power to close almost all processes and applications not necessary for your computer to run.

[Pisces]

Yes it is possible, except for your Career profiles and personal settings. Which are hardcoded to be in the SH3 folder in your (My) Documents folder. (You can redirect My Documents to another folder, so also an external drive.)

The performance of the external harddrive is primarily dependant on the way it is connected with your pc. USB connections are slower than eSata. (I presume it is not a network attached storage, which is even slower). Even if you install the game onto this external harddrive, it isn't going to make the CPU load lower. Those applications (required or desired or not) are still going to run in the background until you find a way to disable them (permanently). I don't think SH3 wil run more smoother if it is on an external disk. Most likely file acces is slower. Your best bet is to solve it at the root cause. My suggestion is doing a complete system wipe and re-install XP clean. And then be very carefull of which programs you install on your system. Install options (in popular 'free' software) that silently include useless things like IE-toolbars are one of the things you should be alert to.

If you run MSConfig (included in Windows) and check the Startup tab you get a list of applications that are started automatically at startup. Which ones you do not need is something you'll have to figure out yourself. Some might be critical, some would be handy, and some simply useless. Shortcuts that are placed in the "Startup" folder in your Startmenu are also automatically started up at user logon. (maybe these are also shown in msconfig, I'm not sure) Removing those shortcuts stops them from starting up next time. If you run the services.msc applet of Windows then you can see what services are running in the backgound. Most of them are neccesary services for Windows, so it's a bit risky to disable them. But sometimes you'll find services created by other software that you do not need running constantly. I warn again, messing with them could make your system unworkable. But atleast you should be able to identify them and have some names to look up on the internet about what they do.

[Tweety]

I agree with Pisces, also scan for malware and virus. Keep your antivirus program up to date.

I have all my submarine games on a separate internal hard drive and another internal drive for other games and stuff.

When I want to play a game I'll open the folder for GWX and click on JSGMEG to start that game or the folder for NYGM.

I don't have game short cuts on my desktop too much clutter.

Tweety

[Jimbuna]

Yes it is possible, except for your Career profiles and personal settings. Which are hardcoded to be in the SH3 folder in your (My) Documents folder. (You can redirect My Documents to another folder, so also an external drive.)

The performance of the external harddrive is primarily dependant on the way it is connected with your pc. USB connections are slower than eSata. (I presume it is not a network attached storage, which is even slower). Even if you install the game onto this external harddrive, it isn't going to make the CPU load lower. Those applications (required or desired or not) are still going to run in the background until you find a way to disable them (permanently). I don't think SH3 wil run more smoother if it is on an external disk. Most likely file acces is slower. Your best bet is to solve it at the root cause. My suggestion is doing a complete system wipe and re-install XP clean. And then be very carefull of which programs you install on your system. Install options (in popular 'free' software) that silently include useless things like IE-toolbars are one of the things you should be alert to.

If you run MSConfig (included in Windows) and check the Startup tab you get a list of applications that are started automatically at startup. Which ones you do not need is something you'll have to figure out yourself. Some might be critical, some would be handy, and some simply useless. Shortcuts that are placed in the "Startup" folder in your Startmenu are also automatically started up at user logon. (maybe these are also shown in msconfig, I'm not sure) Removing those shortcuts stops them from starting up next time. If you run the services.msc applet of Windows then you can see what services are running in the backgound. Most of them are neccesary services for Windows, so it's a bit risky to disable them. But sometimes you'll find services created by other software that you do not need running constantly. I warn again, messing with them could make your system unworkable. But atleast you should be able to identify them and have some names to look up on the internet about what they do.

Good response....and something I was/and still am considering doing with my new system.

[xarel]

Don't know your system specs, but it is possible that you are running out of RAM- Windows then uses the harddisk as "extended RAM" ("swapping"). This results in a strong impact on system performance. A RAM upgrade could speed up your system.
In my experience Windows XP should have a minimum of 1 GB of RAM, but 2GB increase system performance a lot. If you are below 1GB, even a naked XP with only the necessary processes running will result in hard disk swapping.
I think that Vista and Win7 need even more - 2GB minimum, 4GB is better.
You could check if you see a lot of harddisk activity (a flashing indicator on the case) when CPU is at 100%. This would hint on swapping.

In reply to your question, I agree with Pisces that an external installation will not increase performance. Chances are that everything gets slower, as the system has to handle 2 harddisks and USB-connections are slower.

Btw Process Explorer (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx) is a great freeware tool for in-depth checking of processes.

Good luck!

[flag4]

@ ALL!:yeah:

thanks to Pisces for your indepth help
thank you very much for your help and advice. i have tried alacritypc - maybe it was me but it seemed a bit complicated ?

when all things are shut down sh3 runs pretty good - it just that occasionally something gets through like svchost.exe and other .exe processes, i have checked in task manager and its like a feeding frenzy on cpu ???

i think im getting tired of having to go through the motions every time i set sail - the whole process can take ten minutes before im off on patrol.

@Pisces it would be a USB connection for the Ex.hard drive.
And the idea of wiping it all off and starting again is also on my mind - i can get it done for about £60.

thanks again for all your help
flag

[Pisces]

svchost.exe is an important executable that is part of windows. It allows 16 bit DLLs to run nicely in a 32 bit environment. [EDIT: Actually it's more complicated than that. But I do not have time to explain. Plenty of references on the internet for it.] The question is what those DLLs are and what they do. It could be regular Windows functionality that starts them up for legacy devices and programs. But also 3rd party applications that do stuff under the hood. I don't know of a way to figure out what dll's are behind it. Eitherway they start up automatically so there is no point in killing them. Though it might help short term.

[Gerald]

Don't know your system specs, but it is possible that you are running out of RAM- Windows then uses the harddisk as "extended RAM" ("swapping"). This results in a strong impact on system performance. A RAM upgrade could speed up your system.
In my experience Windows XP should have a minimum of 1 GB of RAM, but 2GB increase system performance a lot. If you are below 1GB, even a naked XP with only the necessary processes running will result in hard disk swapping.
I think that Vista and Win7 need even more - 2GB minimum, 4GB is better.
You could check if you see a lot of harddisk activity (a flashing indicator on the case) when CPU is at 100%. This would hint on swapping.

In reply to your question, I agree with Pisces that an external installation will not increase performance. Chances are that everything gets slower, as the system has to handle 2 harddisks and USB-connections are slower.

Btw Process Explorer (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx) is a great freeware tool for in-depth checking of processes.

Good luck! additional programs to think that your PC is better,just take it down is absolutely necessary, and nothing else, the rest is just cosmetics!