Benchmarking loading times

[ytoledano]

I've never seen any benchmark of loading times, maybe because it's stupid, how should i know. Some games are less fun to play because the amount of time spend loading is almost equal to that playing (Postal 2, Unreal 2, etc...). I wonder factors affect the loading time, does AGP 8x come into condiration here?

Coppermine, Banias, Opteron, Prescott, Barton... How 'bout investin less in the CPU and more in its name?

 

[Nights_L]

I guess it's more CPU and HD..
but I'm not sure

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

I got two quick suggestions to speed up your loading times.

A) Get a FAST HD. WD 8mb cache are great. Serial Raptors, AMAZING. I have a WD 80gb 8mb Caviar, love it.

B) Don't run the game from CD, load the whole thing on to your hard-drive, transfer rate is much faster. There are alot of programs out there that let you run the games without the CD (yes they are usually for 'stealing' the game but it also speeds up your performance), and from what I've read it's not techinically illegal if it is for your own personal use and you have the original. Fair use.

The first one may be hard to change, the second one should be fairly easy, just search the boards of the game you like for the app that works. I think (I don't know only use it for Morrowind) there's a general purpose app out there for many games. Someone elese might know what it is. I don't.

Also I doubt 8X AGP has anything to do with it, it's doing the work on the system and not struggling to display an image. It's all inside the box (making maps, random character placement, scene setting (night day, weather), etc.

Just my two frames worth.

- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp <i>(or internet account)</i> ! <font color=green>RED</font color=green> <font color=red>GREEN</font color=red> :tongue: GA to SK

 

[confoundicator]

I've never seen a general purpose no-CD crack. I've always had to get one for not only the specific game but the specific version of the game I'm running. Just google for "game_name+noCD+crack" an look for the right version #.

Build a foolproof system and they'll build a better fool.

 

[Willamette_sucks]

Factors:
*HD rotation speed, access time, cache speed/size
*CPU speed
*Ram amount and speed (although less important than the above 2)
*The "Coolness" of your computer.
*Vid Card bus (although influence is VERY minimal)


The 8mb cache hds perform better under certain conditions, but when it comes to loading large files theyre no faster, because the hd cant keep up with the cache for more than a few seconds. Also different HDs have different cache speeds, that cache speed determines whether the HD is ATA 66, ATA 100, or ATA 133, or WHATEVA. That value is the amount (in mb) of data the CACHE, not the drive, can transfer per second.
Figure it out: with an ATA100 hd, if the cache is 8mb, then the HD could empty the cache onto ram in .08 seconds. In that time, the HD will have loaded approximately (modern 7200rpm drive) 3.2 mb of data onto the cache again... WOW! So then that amount of 3.2 mb would be emptied onto ram in .032 seconds. In that time the HD will have loaded 1.28mb of data into the cache again. WOW! That would take all of .0128 seconds to unload to memory. In that time the HD will have loaded .512mb of data into the cache. WOW! Unlike the formula would sugest, there really is a stopping point to this. But in reality, an 8mb cache Hd should give around 13mb of data at the ATA100 (100mb/s) rate.

The CPU is involved (heavily) sometimes, because it has to do compression/decompression algorithms. This isnt always the case, but with games it is.

Lots of crap has to be loaded onto the ram, the reason size matters, is because if all the crap youre trying to load is bigger than the amount of ram you have, its gonna have to load it onto virtual memory, i.e. your pagefile, which is extremely slow to say the least, compared to RAM.

The coolness of your computer is another fairly large factor. If you have a 14m3 ass computer, in a crappy generic case with only 2 or 3 system fans, its gonna perform poorly, because it FEELS BAD ABOUT ITSELF, it has no self esteem. Build your computer up by giving it a nice HOME, i.e. its case, and give it plenty of fans for healthy circulation. Your computer will serve you well if you treat it right.

And last AND least, the Video Card bus, one way or another, this crap (assuming a game) is gonna have to go to the video card, BUT since the AGP bus is SO FREAKING FAST, its not a limiting factor AT ALL, if youre using a PCI card, then it becomes a limiting factor, because RAM is faster than the PCI bus. Only when the amount of texture data ETC. is too much for the vid cards local memory does the bus it uses matter.
Going from AGP 2x to AGP 8x would save you a few 100/ths, maybe 10/ths of a second in load times probably

"Every Day is the Right Day." -Pink Floyd

 

[ytoledano]

I was just wondering if it was worthwhile benchmarking these things and if it's a good indication of a good system...

Coppermine, Banias, Opteron, Prescott, Barton... How 'bout investin less in the CPU and more in its name?