Game loading times issue

[Mudrik]

Can anyone explain this obsession with defragging? It's a process that puts a decent PC (I have 600 gig that'd need doing) out of action for hours to save a few milliseconds here and there.

I'd be interested to hear from anyone who has defragged and noticed a worthwhile performance improvement

[GnarPow]

Originally Posted by Mudrik

Can anyone explain this obsession with defragging? It's a process that puts a decent PC (I have 600 gig that'd need doing) out of action for hours to save a few milliseconds here and there.

I'd be interested to hear from anyone who has defragged and noticed a worthwhile performance improvement

I use Power Defragmenter every now and then and it definately makes things a little quicker on my computer. Have your computer do it before you go to bed and you wake up with a nice defragmented HD so then there is no waiting for it.

[Yanaran]

I play on a c2d 6400, with 2gig ram. It takes me 2min to start sh4 to the main menu, then another 1-2min to load an ongoing patrol (from the replies I gather it depends on patrol length). The load times are definately way too long, but they're nowhere near 10 minutes for me.

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by Yanaran

I play on a c2d 6400, with 2gig ram. It takes me 2min to start sh4 to the main menu, then another 1-2min to load an ongoing patrol (from the replies I gather it depends on patrol length). The load times are definately way too long, but they're nowhere near 10 minutes for me.

Your load times are simular to SH3. I would have to say that SH4 does load somewhat quicker than 3.

[swash]

I normally defrag before installing a game. But didn't with SH4.

I defragged last night. Started the defrag, turned off the monitor and went to bed.

I loaded up my patrol today and it was faster, but not totally groundbreaking.

[shad43]

Originally Posted by SteamWake

You wouldent happen to have added the bearing tool mod would you ?

When I added that in my load times doubled.

I noticed this as well, seems any mod that changes graphics can slow loading times.

[-Pv-]

I concure the load times have something to do with the length of the patrol and/or how many save games per patrol. A new patrol loads instantly. Defrag/Malware/System issues are no more a factor than with any other part of the game. Watching the HD access is a clue.
During the long loads I see an occasional blink of the access light every 30 to 40 seconds. This is not a HD struggling to keep up with the processor/graphics.

My latest save directory is 10 megs and growing with "SaveFile.rep" being the largest file. Glad I'm not saving replays and I'm on the way home.
-Pv-

[maerean_m]

The save files will neved be bigger than a few megs (when not using SaveReplay), so defragmenting the HDD won't help (it reads that data in a second).

A save file in SH4 is actually a log of all the events that happened in the patrol. Loading a save file is like replaying the patrol with infinite time compression. That's why loading takes longer for longer patrols. It's the same method used in SH3.

[heartc]

Originally Posted by Mudrik

Can anyone explain this obsession with defragging? It's a process that puts a decent PC (I have 600 gig that'd need doing) out of action for hours to save a few milliseconds here and there.

Amen. Thank you. Imho it's one of those "voodoo" things people are doing with their PCs when desperate. Everyone knows those kind of things from own experience I bet . Granted, when the HD is fragged 40-50%, you might want to think about it, but defragging every other day surely is unnecessary. In fact, one time when I defragged my HD, something went haywire and the PC wouldn't reboot anymore. Go figure... It was a classic "Never change a running system" moment for me.