HDD problems driving me mad

[Leopardi]

For weeks I have tried to squeeze out the best performance I can get from my HDD. Searching google 24/7 and all. For now I have just gotten things worse, I've been resetting the pagefile millions of times and I have ended up to the system managed size. Then the defragmenting, I've been using O&O, diskeeper, perfectdisk and now Ultimatedefrag. But I don't know what program gives me the best results, it seems that every program gives me crappy results. Perfect disk seemed the best, but is it? I've heard some people saying that moving from perfect to ultimate gave them much better performance.

Then I found this program called Systembooster, is it good to have it turned on 24/7?

In a nutshell:

1. What is the HDD defragment program that gives you the best performance for gaming?

2. What is the best pagefile size for a 2gb machine with a relatively slow HDD?

3. Is systembooster good to have?

I am really sorry for this messy thread, but i'm friggin tired of this sh*t and I want answers.. I am desperate!

So.. I will be very pleased if I could get answers. I just want to get things right, relax and finally start playing after weeks of this adjusting. I can't play unless I have the maximum performance I can get. Sigh

[Scinto]

Re: HDD problems driving me mad

1, the windows one will do, although a WD Raptor 10k rpm drive is best for gaming performance,, they cost a bit though,

2, just let the system set it there isnt really any need to fiddle with it unless your making it point to a different drive,

3, ive not heard of it and dont use it so i would guess not

[|CBW|Simon]

Re: HDD problems driving me mad

For weeks I have tried to squeeze out the best performance I can get from my HDD.

I'm going to take a guess and say that you want a faster and better action time in game.

For a real answer, we need to know your hardware.

There is only so much you can do. The age old dilema of "How can I make my AMC Pacer go faster so I can join the ranks of NASCAR" is one you will have to examine and say to yourself "Is my computer a Pacer?".

For someone with all the medium to top end hardware, some of these things will make a difference if they are completely mis-set in the first place. For others, there was no problem to begin with so they quote no problems after they 'fix' it.

If your computer is composed of 'just barely' equipment, no amounts of tuneups, defrags and minor alterations is going to put you in the same ballpark as a $1500 new computer composed of all top end components.

For specific answers to your questions.

1. I'm a DiskKeeper fanatic. http://www.diskeeper.com/defrag.asp
It's not free.

2. You have 2GB? So do I. I set mine at 3070 MB and have no complaints. I do not have a slow HD though.

3. NO. If your computer is a Pacer, live with it or upgrade it. DO NOT trust anyone who says my software will give you the same benefits as $500 to $1000 worth of hardware upgrades. Usually they are just trying to get you into their spyware network.

[lonegunm4n]

Re: HDD problems driving me mad

You can only tweak your system so much. After that, it's time to get a new rig.

[megawhompertoo]

Re: HDD problems driving me mad

Windows defrag does a fair job...painfully slowly.

Rest of specs would shed light on your particular problems.

Oh, and |CBW|Simon--I nominate you to be the BF2 Literary Supreme Commander.

[Leopardi]

Re: HDD problems driving me mad

My specs are:

AXP 3200+ barton
2x 1gb twinmos ddr400
samsung spinpoint 7200rpm 120gb
abit nforce2 nf7 2.0
Sapphire x800xl 256mb agp

And I think I should get better performance than just barely 30-40 fps average, when there are 32 players in 2142 cerbere landing for example. My settings are medium, except dynamic effects turned off and bloom too.

and this systembooster has worked out for many people I know, it makes ur pc to read 1/2 - 2/3 more from memory which is faster...

Doesn't diskeeper just crush the data to the inner rings of the hdd which are so much slower than the outer rings? And the I-faast, can you do it manually? Last time I checked it with 10 version and you could only do it with scheduling. And doesn't diskeeper mess your MFT?

About pagefile, it isn't logical that a system with 512 mb ram should have 768 pagefile? Then 2gb system should have a whoppin 3070mb? Someone told me that he got better performance with his 1gb system when he lowered his pagefile to 256...

So many questions, so many problems...

[|CBW|Simon]

Re: HDD problems driving me mad

You are seriously overthinking most of it.

Your spinpoints. Are they IDE or Sata? I saw data on both. If they are SATA then make sure they are set to DMA and not PIO for a serious kick of speed.

http://www.totalbf2.com/forums/showthread.php?t=81823&highlight=ide+pio+sata+verification

Systembooster and proggys like that are at best a cheat. I don't trust that they can do anything you couldn't do on your own with the amount of intelligence you show from your spelling and grammar. You are not computer illiterate and in need of this kind of electronic hand holding.

I don't remember if diskkeeper sticks them inside or outside although I do remember researching that a while ago. No you cannot just have an IFast session and yes that does bug me, but its a small loss. I don't run Diskkeeper fulltime but rather quick hits just to keep me tuned. Along with that I manually update Punk and get my AVG downloads and anything from MS that I need and THEN defrag.

Pagefile I set due to what was written in a most excellent optimization guide available at:

http://www.tweakguides.com/TGTC.html

Finally for the big hit. Electronic Arts and Battlefield 2 hate ATI in comparrison to NVidia. You are losing some speed just because the game was written with NVidia in mind.

Simon

[megawhompertoo]

Re: HDD problems driving me mad

www.tweakguides.com has a section for windows pagefile tweaks. highly reccommended reading, but the long and (mostly) short of it is that data that a program thinks is "high priority" gets loaded into ram, and data that a program thinks is "low priority" can get loaded into the page(swap)file, or if you are running out of memory, then windows can override the program's intuition and send the data directly to pagefile.

generally, windows and windows programs do a decent enough job at coordinating what ought to be loaded into ram and what is either low enough priority or necessary to be loaded to the pagefile. you aren't going to see any huge improvements by tinkering with the pagefile. if you are running low on space and aren't using lots (and lots) of memory doing things like CAD or proofing three dissertations with giant data slides/slides, it is probably best to set it at 1.5gb. Can't think of anything offhand (unless you were suspending the system to hd with ALOT of open processes/programs/documents) that you'd need more than that.

one thing you can do to increase disk access performance a little bit is to put the pagefile on a second hd--that way, the OS/programs can be accessed at the same time as the pagefile is written, saving some random writes and redundant seeks. you can also "defrag" your pagefile, by disabling it, defragging the hd, and then setting the pagefile, which will now be written in a complete block.

the most cost-effective way right now to get both a good amount of space and excellent speeds is to buy twin 250gb 7200rpm 16mb cache hd's and run them in raid0. you can get a couple of samsungs with those specs for less than $150, and then use your current hd as a drive to store critical data (raid0 data failures are irrecoverable).

i wouldn't do that though--because some very nice drives with larger caches, perpendicular recording, and other hybridized technologies are just around the corner. hd's are the last component in your pc that operate with moving parts (i don't count cd drives, because they don't have to always be spinning for your pc to operate).

having said all that, if your hd is ridiculously slow, it could be on the verge of dying. i recently got a pair of used WD 200JB's off ebay, and while one of them would read/write, it would hang on format and defrag operations. there are free programs that will test your hd (by randomly writing small chunks of data and then looking for those again) and tell you whether or not there are any significant problems.

[Leopardi]

Re: HDD problems driving me mad

My spinpoint is an IDE drive... I disabled and set the pagefile back a few times, and set it 1024mb, so now it's almost on the very outer rings. Games seem to work smoothly now, at least for now. However, something happened to my MFT when I set and set that pagefile all over again, now it's a huuuge chunk on my HDD, taking up approximately 10gigs from my HDD. Doesn't seem to affect my performance, though. Why did it make the MFT so huge?

Oh yea, and could the register key that kinda forces windows partly operate on RAM have an effect? I turned it off and seems to work better than when it was turned on.