SSD's

[Wiley]

Hi guys.  I've had an idea rolling around in my head for a little while, and figured it might be worthwhile throwing it out here.

As it stands right now, I've got a relatively old system running AH.  I'm reasonably happy with it, it runs 60fps all the time except on the runway during FSO when there's 50 or so planes sitting on top of one another.  Other than that, no complaints.  In flight, my framerate is good and solid.  All graphics set to full, no shadows, no AA, no AF.  This thing is just my AH terminal, all other considerations are secondary.

This system is not a worldbeater by any stretch:

Athlon 64 X2 2800+
Asus M2NBP-VM CSM motherboard
4 gigs RAM
GeForce 7800 1GB video card, manufacturer escapes me at the moment, not tremendously important.
Windows XP 32 bit.

The single slightly annoying thing with this system is, when I'm loading the game, it pretty much locks up as I'm going into the arena.  It sorts itself out, but after the progress bar runs and the tower appears, it takes a while for the graphic textures to load, I can't do anything, and occasionally if it pauses at the wrong time, it drops UDP and switches to TCP during this process.  Sometimes it switches off the advanced graphic features due to low frame rate during this process.  If the wrong map is loaded in the arena, I sometimes get booted from the arena for being nonresponsive.  If I reboot at this point, I'll be able to get in, no problems.

Once the game is fully loaded, it runs like a top.  If I start from a fresh bootup, I don't run into the dropping to TCP issues, losing connection, or the dropping of the advanced graphic features.  It still takes a while to load, but it doesn't have the issues mentioned above.

Now by what I know of how AH operates and how my system operates, here's what I believe is my situation.  My PC is capable of running the game under the settings I've specified with no problems, once it's up.  I know the reason I need to reboot sometimes is NVidia's drivers leak memory.  I know and accept this limitation.  Alt-tabbing out and back in, it seems to have to reload some stuff off the hard drive which slows it down.  Loading the game at first, the dropping to TCP and occasional bootings are due to the fact the machine is taking too long to respond to the server so it thinks the connection is flaky/graphic settings are too high.

My system seems to be capable of RUNNING AH just fine, but it seems to be a bit marginal for LOADING the game.  My impression is that my main bottleneck running AH has to do with hard drive access.  I defrag often, also.

Here's what I'm contemplating:  It's a 64 bit system running a 32 bit OS.  Would I see much of a performance boost on this system if I were to get myself a SATA SSD and a retail copy of Windows 7 64 bit, in preparation to slide them into the next complete rebuild I do?  Or should I just save my pennies and get a whole new system?  Secondly, in practical terms, would running a SATA SSD be that much worse than a PCI-e SSD in the future when I get a motherboard that's capable of utilizing a PCI-e one?

It would seem to me that while Windows 7 has a bit more overhead, it would be running in 64 bit mode instead of 32, which would probably pretty much cancel each other out, or possibly boost performance slightly.  The SSD would greatly decrease how long it takes to get the stuff off the HD and into RAM, but what I'm slightly concerned with is, I see by the benchmarks that the SATA SSD's aren't as fast as the PCI-e ones, and I don't believe my system will boot from PCI-e anyways.  I know generally speaking benchmarks and speed ratings don't always translate over in practice.

Does anyone have experience doing something similar?

Wiley.

[Krusty]

If your system is older, it's not really going to help with an SSD installed.

Your I/O will be faster, but for example on the texture loading -- what if that's not a problem of the HD? What if that's a problem with your bus being slow? Feeding the textures from the HD to the video card? The 7800 isn't exactly a fast card these days. A 7800 with 1GB probably has slower RAM onboard (marketing-wise, they tack on cheaper, slower, RAM onto older cards to make them look more impressive and boost sales).


You described a LOT of issues with your system. FPS may be fine buuuut.... (fill in your long laundry list of reasons why it doesn't play AH well). I don't think the HD is the problem.

[edit: Well, at least not the "only" problem -- what I mean is it won't fix your problems, most likely]

[Wiley]

Good points, Krusty.

I realize it's putting a racing transmission in a Yugo, I was just contemplating it as a possibly worthwhile stopgap until I can put together the cash for a processor/motherboard/RAM combo, with the added bonus of when that time comes, already having Win7 and a SSD.

The logic I was using was, regardless that it's running 800MHz RAM, 1000 MHz FSB, and at best DDR3 on the video card, any way you cut it, getting something from HD to RAM the HD pretty much has to be the slowest link in the chain, right?  Although typing it out, the fact that a reboot improves it does tend to point to RAM being a choke point as well.

Not arguing, really, your assessment is perfectly reasonable.  I was just wondering about the possibility and if anyone had experience doing something similar.

Wiley.

[Masherbrum]

SSD's seem to be the "Daft Topic" these days.   

[jocrp6]

   you would definately see a big differance in peformance, but with performance come's maintenance!  you've got to do a garbage collection every week on them, or set it to do it itself at idle, I was running 2-Intel,s in a RAID-0 setup till a bad OC corupted them,  im still using one for just game and tracker set up, it's own it's own OS, so when I play,I just boot from that HD, It smokes my velaptoraptor, Skuzzy don't like them,   he,he   Misfire out,

[Denholm]

Wiley, I'd hold off on the SSD. That technology is continuing to expand. My experience, if it's expanding, there's probably some bugs which need to be ironed out. Simply buy yourself some newer components and place them in a good case which provides plenty of air. A decent SATA-II, i7 920, 6 gigs of DDR3 and a GTX-280 will do the trick.

[NormH3]

Just going to a 64bit OS with a fresh install might help things. Currently you have a minimum of 5gb of memory addresses but only have the capability to utilize less then 4gb. I haven't played with Windows 7 yet, so not sure how that would play with your current CPU

[guncrasher]

updating your vc might help a bit more than getting an ssd.  If i remember correctly the 7800, 8800, 9800 might be similar cards, but getting a 9800gtx+ with 512 would be an improvement.  of course then your cpu will be the bottle neck and most likely you will need a new ps assuming that the vc will fit in your case. but in all honestly, save your pennies and get another puter, if waiting for a bit for everything to load its cool.  I would just wait to get enought money for a new one.

If i was you I would disable graphics prior to sitting on runway during sfo, as this is annoying for you.  as you beging to up then enable more eye candy as you see fit.

semp

[Wiley]

Thanks for the input, guys.  I've been considering it, and I do believe I'm just going to hold off until I can afford a full rig.  I've got most of this system's idiosyncrasies firmly in hand, it probably makes the most sense to just not rock the boat, then get an entire better system.

Again, appreciate the suggestions guys.

Wiley.