Early spawn: the battle within a battle

[Sloi sauce]

Re: Early spawn: the battle within a battle

Any SATA2 drive is now faster than your 10K SATA1 Raptor drive... it's no longer worthwhile to spend extra money for the latter when pretty much all of the former can read, write and have reaction times that are as quick.

*EDIT* It seems they only perform the same on certain tasks. My bad. :)

[Sir. MatDef]

Re: Early spawn: the battle within a battle

Any SATA2 drive is now faster than your 10K SATA1 Raptor drive... it's no longer worthwhile to spend extra money for the latter when pretty much all of the former can read, write and have reaction times that are as quick.

I wouldn't go that far, a new 150gb raptor is still the fastest sata drive money can buy.

[ramsie1]

Re: Early spawn: the battle within a battle

can anyone explain why my harddrive starts lagging after I load a map and join a game??? once i join the game it plays smoothly for about 30 seconds then after that the harddrive starts doing something and keeps pausing the game which gets me killed, it does this for about 2 minutes then goes back to normal. Is there anyway to prevent this? or is my crappy IDE 7200 hd just a load of crap??

[Redink]

Re: Early spawn: the battle within a battle

I turned down my graphic to the point where it is craptacular and was able to to take a vodnik from spawn point all the way to tv station

[Sir. MatDef]

Re: Early spawn: the battle within a battle

can anyone explain why my harddrive starts lagging after I load a map and join a game??? once i join the game it plays smoothly for about 30 seconds then after that the harddrive starts doing something and keeps pausing the game which gets me killed, it does this for about 2 minutes then goes back to normal. Is there anyway to prevent this? or is my crappy IDE 7200 hd just a load of crap??

How much ram do you have? Anything less than 1.5gb will make bf2 access the pagefile on your hd, which explains why the hd is whirring and making the game choppy.

[SERIALBUTCHER]

Re: Early spawn: the battle within a battle

Considering you're using an older model 36gb with 8mb cache, a few new 7200rpm drives can be faster. Now if you're talking about a newer model 36gb (or 74, 150) drive with 16mb cache and the updated firmware, then you'd be correct. As for the 1+1>1 analogy, with raid 0 and games you're not going to see much of an improvement at all.

For storage, you do double the amount, but you also double the failiure risk, so if thats worth it to you, great.



Does anything about my computer say "budget?" I just don't like it when I see people spending excess money when they really don't have to.

\

What is "faster" in a HDD? Speed in a HDD is measured in more than 1 way, there is burst transfer rate, sustained transfer rate, & seek time

16mb cache HDD's have an advantage over 8mb cache HDD's only in transfer of between 8-16mb (not over, & not under), so it does not give a real world performance boost in all applications, however, high rotational speed ALWAYS gives a real world performance boost when transfering large files (such as BF2)

In order for a 16mb 7200 rpm cache HDD to shine in comparison to a 8mb cache 10,000 rpm HDD the folder would have to consist of files between 8-18mb, & the folder would have to be very small, essentually an instantanious transfer that would be performed by either drive in milliseconds anyway making the 16mb HDD "technically" superior, not "real world" superior

Now Windows which is huge, & made up of a lot of small size files, & loads much faster w/ a 16mb 7200rpm HDD than a 8mb 7200rpm HDD

When you load BF2 the folder is so large that the bottleneck is not the sata controller, or interface, or the HDD OB cache mem, it is the spindle speed

The only comercially available sata HDD faster @ SUSTAINED transfer rates than a 8mb Raptor is a 16mb Raptor, & that is only @ certain file sizes

When you see HDD manufacturers (other than WD) compare their 16mb cache 7200rpm HDD's to the 8mb Raptor they have to carefully tailor the files sizes into a narrow range that gives the larger cache me size HDD an advantage that is in most cases "academic"

Btw I have had dozens of HDD's, & sold dozens more to the family, & friends for which I have built gaming rigs, & I have never had a HDD failure

Instead of believing everything you read in advertisements run HD Tach your self, & know for sure, I did, I even experimented w/ different stripe, & cluster sizes for max performance

In my experiments formating your RAID0 striped array w/ 16mb stripes gives best performance in loading Windows (which is made of zillions of small files), I did not take it so far as to see what the optimal stripe size for loading BF2 was, but since I STILL load in (on the first map) in the top 3 on 64 man maps (sometimes first) I am not "sweating" it

Bottom line: High rotational speed HDD's greatly improves sustained tranfer rate of lot of large files (such as loading BF2 into memory), RAID0 helps a little (10-20%, & you don't lose capacity like RAID1), 16mb cache drives really help loading times in loading Windows (which is mad of many small files), & high speed HDD's only help load time performance, not ingame performance, to me it was well worth the expense (I didn't get 41,500 kills in armor waiting around for the tank to spawn, I got the tank first, & usually held on to it for a good while)

For the ppl who are (no offense) not computer hardware literate

16mb Raptor > 8mb Raptor > 16mb 7200rpm HDD > 8mb 7200rpm HDD > 2mb 7200rpm HDD

Lieutenant General |SI|SERIALBUTCHER

peace

[Sir. MatDef]

Re: Early spawn: the battle within a battle

Bottom line: High rotational speed HDD's greatly improves sustained tranfer rate of lot of large files (such as loading BF2 into memory), RAID0 helps a little (10%)(but you don't lose capacity like RAID1), 16mb cache drives really help loading times in loading Windows (which is mad of many small files), & high speed HDD's only help load time performance, not ingame performance, to me it was well worth the expense (I didn't get 41,500 kills in armor waiting around for the tank to spawn, I got it first, & usually held on to it for a good while)

For the ppl who are (no offense) not computer hardware literate

16mb Raptor > 8mb Raptor > 16mb 7200rpm HDD > 8mb 7200rpm HDD > 2mb 7200rpm HDD

Lieutenant General |SI|SERIALBUTCHER

peace

I agree almost 100%, but I have to say that I feel that:

8mb Raptor >= 16mb 7200rpm HDD

Otherwise, what you said is spot on.

[SERIALBUTCHER]

Re: Early spawn: the battle within a battle

Any SATA2 drive is now faster than your 10K SATA1 Raptor drive... it's no longer worthwhile to spend extra money for the latter when pretty much all of the former can read, write and have reaction times that are as quick.

*EDIT* It seems they only perform the same on certain tasks. My bad. :)

Not true, not even a 15,000 rpm HDD can fully utilize the 3.0GB/s sata2 interface, the sata1 bus has never been saturated

Even 10,000 rpm Raptors in RAID0 only have about 125mb's sustained transfer rate

It is just like w/ PCI-E, there is nothing wrong w/ a new standard, but the old AGP bus was never a bottleneck either since gfx cards don't rely on system memory anymore

I am not trying to be funny, but ppl need to buy a book on how to build PC's, or get a subscription to a PC magazine or something @ the minimum (preferable get some formal education) before they go "spouting off" bad information about how PC's work, some 1 might believe you

Lieutanant General |SI|SERIALBUTCHER

peace:)

How much ram do you have? Anything less than 1.5gb will make bf2 access the pagefile on your hd, which explains why the hd is whirring and making the game choppy.

Good answer

LG SB

peace:)

[CHARGER_76]

Re: Early spawn: the battle within a battle

Wow, I didn't expect this thread to start a tech fight, I was kinda hoping to hear more stratagies and stuff. But anyway, any other cool ways to influence a game through early spawn?

[SERIALBUTCHER]

Re: Early spawn: the battle within a battle

I agree almost 100%, but I have to say that I feel that:

8mb Raptor >= 16mb 7200rpm HDD

Otherwise, what you said is spot on.

Thx bro'

LG SB

peace:)

[triten82]

Re: Early spawn: the battle within a battle

I'm usualy the first one in. I used to run just 1 gig and was alwas last or near last. I added 2 gigs and with 3 gigs I am first or second everytim.

[Sloi sauce]

Re: Early spawn: the battle within a battle

Not true, not even a 15,000 rpm HDD can fully utilize the 3.0GB/s sata2 interface, the sata1 bus has never been saturated

Even 10,000 rpm Raptors in RAID0 only have about 125mb's sustained transfer rate

It is just like w/ PCI-E, there is nothing wrong w/ a new standard, but the old AGP bus was never a bottleneck either since gfx cards don't rely on system memory anymore

I am not trying to be funny, but ppl need to buy a book on how to build PC's, or get a subscription to a PC magazine or something @ the minimum (preferable get some formal education) before they go "spouting off" bad information about how PC's work, some 1 might believe you

Lieutanant General |SI|SERIALBUTCHER

peace:)



Good answer

LG SB

peace:)

Some of us haven't kept up with the most recent technological developments: you must be relatively young. I used to be like you, reading up on everything "Tom's Hardware" related, but it gets tiresome to play "catch up" with all the stuff that keeps getting pumped out. So unless you plan on googling everything all the time, you have to take a few things at face value... and it so happens that this time, I was misinformed, which doesn't mean I'm not PC Savvy: I have a degree in CS and work in the field...

It's all about how much you care to read up on it... and like I said, I no longer have time to play "catch up" so I have to rely on others for a few things. Still, thanks for the info.

PS. Next time, you should pay attention to my *EDIT*, which very clearly nullifies everything I wrote before it. I had a hunch that I was misinformed so I checked a few benchmarks and it was clear I wasn't told the entire story. Two of you ignored that edit now... I wonder if a third will come up.

[Dairuka]

Re: Early spawn: the battle within a battle

Blah Blah Blah, I ignored Sloi's edit.

[Thirdeyez]

Re: Early spawn: the battle within a battle

My whole system runs on a gerbil on a wheel which in turn is directly linked to the brain of a 12 yr old Chinese kid.
My monitor consist of a JVC floor model 19" cabinet TV...which has a broken dial and no longer clicks over to UHF..

I usually load in on the 23rd map in the rotation..but on that 23rd map Im usually first, then I crash to desktop.

[SERIALBUTCHER]

Re: Early spawn: the battle within a battle

Some of us haven't kept up with the most recent technological developments: you must be relatively young. I used to be like you, reading up on everything "Tom's Hardware" related, but it gets tiresome to play "catch up" with all the stuff that keeps getting pumped out. So unless you plan on googling everything all the time, you have to take a few things at face value... and it so happens that this time, I was misinformed, which doesn't mean I'm not PC Savvy: I have a degree in CS and work in the field...

It's all about how much you care to read up on it... and like I said, I no longer have time to play "catch up" so I have to rely on others for a few things. Still, thanks for the info.

PS. Next time, you should pay attention to my *EDIT*, which very clearly nullifies everything I wrote before it. I had a hunch that I was misinformed so I checked a few benchmarks and it was clear I wasn't told the entire story. Two of you ignored that edit now... I wonder if a third will come up.

Actually Tom's Hardeware is not a very good site for information on RAID0, while they will exaustively run a hundred different tests on a gfx card (because they know a simple battery of tests can be misleading), they will run a relatively few tests on RAID hardware, ignoring the many possible configurations of stripe size on performance of folders of varing file size, & have come up w/ ill conceived conclusions, they actually report that 1 HDD may be faster than 2 HDD in RAID0, but they only tested it @ 1 file size @ 1 stripe size (they failed to optimize stripe size)

I do more than "keep up w/ the latest developments", I make it my business to understand "in depth" the strengh's ,& weaknesses of new technologies, so that I know "what it can do for I" before I decide how much money I am willing to spend, or recommend a customer to spend on a new project

Just like w/ 8mb vs. 16mb HDD comparisons you can configure (skew) a simple (incomplete) battery of tests to come up w/ whatever result you want the way marketing guys do

RAID0 shines on loading windows w/ 16-32mb stripes sizes, 128-256mb stripe sizes are usually best for video, 64mb is a good compromise, but if you can use a 3rd HDD as a video storage drive you can combine large clusters w/ large stripes to reduce "slack space" to get more data per revolution for increased performance

Also, a sata PCI add-on card is a solution for extra storage, but the PCI bus will bottleneck a RAID0 array

btw, I read your edit (which was after my replay) & took note, I didn't know you wanted a reply

ps. I don't "read up" on everything, but I do thurough research before laying down the plastic to do a new PC build, & I have 2 orders to fill now

edit: I am 42 years old, but haven't lost my youthful enthusiasm for learning

LG SB

peace:)