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Old pc out-performs new powerhouse mystery

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 Thread : Old pc out-performs new powerhouse mystery
 
Profile: stranger
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I've got an older rig that loads COD4 maps about 3 times faster than my new pc. Wondering if anyone could give me hints as to why. Here are the specs:

OLD
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P4 3.2 Ghz
2 gig PC4000 ram
35g 2x 10k rpm drives, Raid 0
Win XP SP2

NEW
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Core 2 Quad 2.4 Ghz
2 gig PC2-6400
145 2x 10k rpm drives, Raid 0
Vista

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"Hmmmmmm"
Profile: Honorary Poster
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How fast is 3x faster?


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Profile: member
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What video card/drivers are you using? Any background programs on the new rig?


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Profile: stranger
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itotallybelieveyou wrote :

How fast is 3x faster?



The xp machine loads in about 3-4 seconds the quadcore about 8-10. If you're thinking "big deal" well the rest of the team can usually cap the first base before I can there. Mainly it just seems wrong that the big rig is slower.


Message edited by greymann on 11-18-2007 at 08:32:31 PM
Profile: stranger
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Trialsking wrote :

What video card/drivers are you using? Any background programs on the new rig?



vista machine has geforce 8800 gtx with latest beta drivers. Other has radeon 850.

As far as background programs... yeah, antivirus, dell support, acrobat, logitech.. do you want me to list processes?

"Hello" lied the politician
Profile: Faithful Poster
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its a simple problem.... its called...... yes, you guessed it, VISTA i may be wrong, however, in some games (i dont have COD4) it slowed my load times TREMENDOUSLY (it was appaling in splinter cell double agent, online, people kept stopping the game becasue they thought i had lagged out because i took so long to load)

"Hmmmmmm"
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Srry... I didn't notice the Vista, it's the Vista. Vista strikes again!


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Profile: stranger
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Ok thanks. This confirms my fears. /waits for sp

"Hmmmmmm"
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The SP1 beta is out right now


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Quote :

The SP1 beta is out right now

 

CCCCCCCOMBO BREAKKEEEEEER!!!

 

I don't know how much SP1 is going to fix, but we shall see...


Message edited by rgeist554 on 11-19-2007 at 05:36:00 PM
Dragoon reborn.
Profile: nimble knuckle
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uhh what settings are you running the game at?

Old machine LOW?
New machine HIGH?
resolutions?

My old pc (p4 3.2Ghz 7800GS) loaded faster than my new (quad6600, 8800GTS) but I ran my old on LOW and it looked like ****, new on high, and it doesnt look like that so much, but it takes longer to load (better textures etc).


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Profile: newbie
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The problem you are having stems from the XP vs Vista OS.

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Turn off a few Vista features and see if you can improve performance. I can name a few off the top of my head - the superfetching service for one will reduce the amount of RAM being consumed by "The Vista". Also, you can turn of indexing service if you wish. I think auto-defrag is also enabled to run either weekly or bi-weekly (and the Vista defrag tools suck, so turn that off as well).

Profile: Ancient Poster
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Ok I for one do not think it is Vista. I have one game that literally loads 5x faster than my old machine. I base this off of loading the game on both machines and watching the load % on each and the Vista machine is much faster. It also runs faster while playing and its a MMORPG. Now it doesn't slow down when in a area filled with people.

I would agree that it could be the resolutions that could cause slower loading. I would have stated it was the harddrives but you should be running SATA2 in the new machine and SATA1 in the old machine.

Might be whats running in the background as awell. I tend to try to run as little as possible even when it comes to virus scans. I am using Windows live Onecare and it seems to use very little resources. As for the autodefrag it is usually set to run at 2am and I read up on it and its not as bad as you think.

BTW My old machine was similar to yours except I upgraded a few things before giving it to my fiance and building my new one. I had a P4 EE34.GHz(Northwood), 2GB Corsair XMS PC3200, ATI Radeon X850XT, 2 SATA1 in RAID0.

Edit: Just thought of one possibility but probably not the reason. It is possible that COD4 is a single threading app so the 800MHz difference might change things. Try to cclose the gap by OC'ing the Q6600 to 2.8GHz or higher and see if that changes it. I might be wrong though.


Message edited by jimmysmitt y on 11-21-2007 at 03:46:02 AM

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Profile: Honorary Poster
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Quote :

Ok I for one do not think it is Vista. I have one game that literally loads 5x faster than my old machine. I base this off of loading the game on both machines and watching the load % on each and the Vista machine is much faster. It also runs faster while playing and its a MMORPG. Now it doesn't slow down when in a area filled with people.

Vista has some advanced prefetcher, called superfetcher, or something. By disabling it you can reduce the amount of RAM your system eats while idling, dramatically. I believe the default idle is anywhere from 500-800 MB of page file usage just idling w/ nothing else open. XP runs maybe less than 100MB-320MB(peak) idling. I think you can get Vista down closer to this range by some tweaking and a little research. The amount of RAM you have available does make a difference too. Try loading a game with 1GB of RAM, time it, and retry with a 2nd GB of RAM.

She turned me into a newt.
Profile: old hand
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I see the DX10 hack for XP from falling leaf but does it really work? I have a feeling that some idiots are using their DX9 cards and debunking it but if you have a DX10 GPU...is it really running DX10 or is it just an emulation to run DX10 games in DX9 like Halo2?

We need a good hack to get DX10 running on XP is my point. It is such a shame that Vista bogs everything down but is the only way to DX10 at the moment. MS is so lame. They are to technology what the Catholic church was to science.

Profile: addict
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Do you run with higher visuals on the new system, namely higher resolution textures? Those take longer to load from the HD to the video card ram. I know, you have a newer CPU and a better video card. The new hardware is not really going to improve transfer rates from the HD to the video memory that much, as it is pretty much limited by the speed of your HD, which is the same on both systems.

Could also have something to do with Vista, though, probably not.


Message edited by basketcase on 11-28-2007 at 03:28:00 PM
Profile: journeyman
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Higher textures would defiantly cause a longer load time. As far as Vista goes yeah that would probably cause a slight slow down as well. But I'll tell you despite what everyone says it isn't cause of superfetch. Superfetch "preloads" data into the RAM so that when you launch applications some of the data is already there thus they load up quicker, thats why Vista uses so much RAM when idle. If any program requests that RAM however superfetch "gives it up" therefore COD4 will have access to just as much RAM, just as fast, with superfetch on or off

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Quote :

If any program requests that RAM however superfetch "gives it up" therefore COD4 will have access to just as much RAM, just as fast, with superfetch on or off.

I learned something new.


Message edited by rgeist554 on 11-28-2007 at 10:27:54 PM
Profile: journeyman
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Assuming no driver issues, I'd say it is Vista. I have 2 identical machines on my desk, one XP, one Vista x64. I had to put 4gb of ram in the Vista machine and disable a bunch of useless crap in msconfig to level the playing field.

Profile: addict
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Sugarcane, are you talking about in game performance or loading times. Loading times should be about the same between your two machines, assuming all the settings are the same.

In game performance (your FPS while playing) on the other hand, could see some serious differences between the two O/Ss.