If you have 2HDS, low RAM, Verifing Time Solved!

[Robske007a]

If you have this:

• 2 seperate Hard-Disks; not 2 different partitions.
• Less then, or 1GB RAM.

Ur cured from long verifing times.

First I'll explain how BF2 works: When BF2 loads a map, it writes it's data to the harddisk, in a file called 'pagefile'. At the same moment it reads data from the harddisk. So the harddisk has to read and write at the same moment. (this causes it to take that long.)

My Solution: Just change this 'pagefile' to another directory, on the other harddisk ofcource. this gives an 50% performance gain.

How To Do: Go to 'my computer' or 'system settings' and click on the 'advanced' tab, then under 'prestations' press 'settings' a window will pop up. then click again on the 'advanced' tab and under the 'Virtual Memory' press 'Change', another window will pop up.

This is where it gets tricky. click the hard drive where BF2 is installed. remember the numbers you see next to it. (mostly C:/ because of the 1.12 patch), then click on 'No PageFile'
Click the other Hard Drive and enter the numbers in the inputboxes. then click 'set','apply' or something like that. then click 'Ok', you will need to reboot your computer.

Tip: If you have an old HD with only 2-4 GB, install that and use it only for the pagefile.

I'm not responsible for any damage or dataloss to any Harddisk.

[Regent]

Re: If you have 2HDS, low RAM, Verifing Time Solved!

That would have about ZERO to do with Verifying Client Data time, as BF2 is doing an MD5 hash check on the game files in your game directory. In other words, a Read from the C: drive. The page file has nothing to do with it.

Moving the pagefile to another disk will give a small improvement to applications that page to disk, but it sure as hell won't speed up BF2 by 50% in any area. I don't run a page file at all, since I have 2Gb of RAM.

[firezip]

Re: If you have 2HDS, low RAM, Verifing Time Solved!

I have tested this method and it is proven to work, i can play with HIGH textures with minimum stuttering ingame

[fate0521]

Re: If you have 2HDS, low RAM, Verifing Time Solved!

bullshyt, tested this - did nothing. myth busted

[Robske007a]

Re: If you have 2HDS, low RAM, Verifing Time Solved!

Moving the pagefile to another disk will give a small improvement to applications that page to disk, but it sure as hell won't speed up BF2 by 50% in any area. I don't run a page file at all, since I have 2Gb of RAM.

Wel remove 1GB and set your pagefile on the same disk as BF2. watch and see

[Robske007a]

Re: If you have 2HDS, low RAM, Verifing Time Solved!

bullshyt, tested this - did nothing. myth busted

How much ram do you have?

[Hephaistion]

Re: If you have 2HDS, low RAM, Verifing Time Solved!

bullshyt, tested this - did nothing. myth busted

Agreed, I reinstated my page file for a week, I split it between 2 seprate physical drives, and my machine sucked (see sig). Shutting down BF2 the music would play for 2 minutes after I ended and the screen was slow to rebuild. After I removed my page file again, shutting down is INSTANTANEOUS! Don't listen to this fool and his harddrive advice, he is a lunatic (not you fate, the thread starter)

[Robske007a]

Re: If you have 2HDS, low RAM, Verifing Time Solved!

Agreed, I reinstated my page file for a week, I split it between 2 seprate physical drives, and my machine sucked (see sig). Shutting down BF2 the music would play for 2 minutes after I ended and the screen was slow to rebuild. After I removed my page file again, shutting down is INSTANTANEOUS! Don't listen to this fool and his harddrive advice, he is a lunatic (not you fate, the thread starter)

Hey! thats not sweet!!!!

you should read my post. this is only good for people with LOW ram. you have 2 gig!!!

[IVfluids]

Re: If you have 2HDS, low RAM, Verifing Time Solved!

it's probably not much different from part of the reason i keep my games (and only games) on a seperate hd from windows. i don't notice any difference in bf2, but in DC and BF42 it made a world of difference. And they are the same harddrives, one is just a 40 and the other an 80.

then again, i havent tried changin my pagefile and having my games on my hd to test this. so who knows, if it works for some, then it isn't so bad. if it doesn't work, it is easy to put back and you have only lost out of a couple minutes of your time.

[Regent]

Re: If you have 2HDS, low RAM, Verifing Time Solved!

Wel remove 1GB and set your pagefile on the same disk as BF2. watch and see

[Major-BG]

Re: If you have 2HDS, low RAM, Verifing Time Solved!

*cough* this is bullshyt *cough harder*

[HicRic]

Re: If you have 2HDS, low RAM, Verifing Time Solved!

I'm printing off a hundred copies of this thread as I speak-I needed some fertilizer for the garden and this is high-quality stuff. :p

But seriously. Verifying doesn't involve writes, only reads. So moving the pagefile to another hard disk isn't going to help.

First I'll explain how BF2 works: When BF2 loads a map, it writes it's data to the harddisk, in a file called 'pagefile'. At the same moment it reads data from the harddisk. So the harddisk has to read and write at the same moment. (this causes it to take that long.)

Wait, BF2 loads a map by writing to the disk, not reading fron it? Magic! And then it reads from the disk "at the same moment"? You have some magic hard disk technology I've never heard of. :p

This thread has no basis in technological truth. Remove it! :p

[Robske007a]

Re: If you have 2HDS, low RAM, Verifing Time Solved!

maybe i should alter the threads name, but it definitly improves BF2... the writing actions... ok... ok...

[Robske007a]

Re: If you have 2HDS, low RAM, Verifing Time Solved!

Wait, BF2 loads a map by writing to the disk, not reading fron it? Magic! And then it reads from the disk "at the same moment"? You have some magic hard disk technology I've never heard of.

Err, do you know how a HD works? you can write at the same moment, the head switches between places on the HD

[Lazy8s]

Re: If you have 2HDS, low RAM, Verifing Time Solved!

since you backed me up in my PKM vs MG thread I figured I should jump in here and help you out some. I don;t know how many people here know anything about OS's but I have studied windows in depth for my OS classes and thought I would enlighten some of you.

Myth - "Moving the Pagefile to a different partition on the same drive improves performance."

Reality - "Moving the Pagefile to a different partition on the same physical hard disk drive does not improve performance. Simply using a different partition on the same drive will result in lots more head-seeking activity, as the drive jumps between the Windows and page file partitions. Even though moving the pagefile in this case can have the positive effect of defragmenting it, the loss in I/O performance out weighs any gains. It is better to simply defragment the pagefile using PageDefrag and keep maximum I/O performance by leaving the pagefile where it is with a single drive setup. However you can enhance performance by putting the pagefile on a different partition and on a different physical hard disk drive. That way, Windows can handle multiple I/O requests more quickly. When the pagefile is on the boot partition, Windows must perform disk reading and writing requests on both the system folder and the pagefile. When the pagefile is moved to a different partition and a different physical hard disk drive, there is less competition between reading and writing requests." - Source

That was based on the information from here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314482/

To enhance performance, it is good practice to put the paging file on a different partition and on a different physical hard disk drive. That way, Windows can handle multiple I/O requests more quickly. When the paging file is on the boot partition, Windows must perform disk reading and writing requests on both the system folder and the paging file. When the paging file is moved to a different partition, there is less competition between reading and writing requests.

When you put a paging file on its own partition, the paging file does not become fragmented, and this counts as another definite advantage. If a paging file resides on a partition that contains other data, it may experience fragmentation as it expands to satisfy the extra virtual memory that is required. An unfragmented paging file leads to faster virtual memory access and to a greater chance of a dump-file capture that is free of significant errors.

Now, I don't claim to know a whole lot about what BF2 is doing when it is verifying, but if someone has some official documentation I would be glad to give it a read. Most BF2 "tweaks" are just windows tweaks, so as far as tweaks goes this one is solid. I don't know for certain what it will do for the verifying, but it will speed things up overall. This tweak is actually endorsed by microsoft.

Regent: You seem to know a bit about what the game is doing but I don't know about your idea on turning off the page file. I would point you towards the MCSE forums. Turning off the page file to improve performance only works in very limited instances. Try this link: http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;555223

J-train: I call shenz on you man. If you correctly moved your page file your game would not have messed up. My bet is what you're saying is not completely false though, I bet you did not sit down with the correct technical documents and you would up moving stuff or deleting things that were not meant to be touched. Microsoft has a walkthrough for moving your pagefile and endorses it. Also, unless your machine is somehow paging more and more of the music file while you play your game (impossible) then what you're saying could not have happened. I certainly hope you backed your system up before you made the changes, otherwise it may be worth payig for a computer tech to look if you want to avoid a reformat.

Bottomline: Move your page file to increase your performance across the board, including verification. This suggestion gets 2 thumbs up, low ram or not.