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RAM Drive

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by rob k.

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I play HL on-line with a bunch of friends and noticed that my latency time is very slow. I have tried many diff. things to make this better. My next step is maybe a RAM drive.

Here is what I have so far. Pentium 200Mhz. 64 MB of RAM (128MB on the way right now) for a total of 192 MB in 2 or 3 days. 8.4 Gb pri. Hard drive, 4.3 Gb sec. hard drive. All virtual memory is mapped to the sec. hard drive (1000Mb). 56.6 K modem (winmodem). AOL ISP.

When I start to go online I shut everything down except systray and explorer. It gives me around 90% of my resources free.
I want to be able to play the game with out it being so choppy. What are your thought on a RAM drive, and maybe some pointers on how to do it.

thanks for your input

Rob K.

12 replies

by jamesrl

Not sure that drive access is your problem.

You are playing a demanding game online with minimum system requirements. You have to look at all aspects of performance to see where the problem.

Does the game play ok when you are not online and playing in single player mode? If it does then look at your modem. A winmodem uses your CPU for communications and that taxes it at the very same time you want to use it for a demanding game. Hardware modems don't use the CPU's processor and are a better bet for low end systems. I went from a 266 MHz machine with a hardware modem to a winmodem in a 733 Mhz machine, and on large transfers my older machine was faster.

If your PC has a VX motherboard, which was common in the days of a Pentium 200,it can't make any real use of RAM over 64 MB anyway, except for a RAM drive.

In my experience, the one component that makes the biggest difference in game performance is the video card. Look for a used high end video card (Invidia is my fav chipset) and that will give you great game performance. Systems that use the computer's RAM for video RAM definately slow down games and this too is common especially in video built onto motherboards.

Hope that helps.

James

by rob k.

I presently have an Asus P3000 AGP video card. It has only 4 MB on the card. I will be looking to upgrade the card here in a couple of weeks but was looking for a way to enhance the game play until I can do this.

by jamesrl

You may check to see if there are newer drivers for your card - often the earlier drivers are buggy or slow.

James

by rob k.

I will have to try the website for new drivers. I also found a website that has tweaks that I can try to boost my modem.

www.tweak3d.net

I am hoping to get an ATI rage 32 MB video card in the very near future. Any thought on this card?

Rob K.

by jamesrl

I have used early Rage cards and they were ok. If you could find a card with a TNT2 chipset for the same price I'd be more inclined.

James

by clearsmashdrop

I think your primary choke points are your CPU, Video Card, and AOL. You will get high ping times with AOL no matter what the system. If you like to play games like HL, UT, and Quake online. Look into getting a regular ISP.

ATI makes good solid cards. 32MB is a good amount for playing a game like that. I have a Diamond Viper 770 TNT card with 32MB. Its fairly old now but still keeps up.

Once you get a better card, and switch to an ISP then you will be left with the P200 chip which isfine for games like Starcraft, and Civilization but I think its a stretch for HL.

1 more thing to think about. How good is your Hard Drive? I ask cause my machine was performing really poorly and I replaced the drive and it made such a world ofdifference. I didnt realize how bad the old one was. ( Old one was a Seagate, new is a 30 GB maxtor. )

I downloaded a utility from ZDnet called Sandra32. It showed my old drive had a seek time of 18ms instead of the stated 9ms on the manual.

by twhaight

What OS are you using. If you are using win95 still, then the max memory it will use is 64mb. Any more than that is a waste of money.

by rob k.

I am running 98se. on a Ausu P5a-b board. I also have a asus P3000 agp card.

by mc cunningham

Sorry to dispute your claim T.W.,

But the Win95/64meg limit is an "Urban Legend"! The so called "64/Meg" limitations were on older FX/GX/HX chipsets in Pentium class motherboards. Since the user has admitted he has a Pentium computer... you are correct that his system will actually run --slower-- if he puts more than 64/meg in the machine.

So not only is it a waste of money to buy the extra memory, but it will actual make his machine run slower because the older bios won't cache anything over the last memory segment above that (64meg)... which will slow down the whole machine 20%-30%.

We both agree... buying the memory is a waste of money-but not that it is related to Windows 95!

Matt

by shanghai sam

I don't know what HL-online is, but I'll assume its an internet playable game... The other guys had points about the Winmodem and video card. Winmodems are taxing, and you are hard pressed for CPU slices... Let's face it, you hardware is at least 3 years old, and maybe 5 years old. If the game is current, you're lucky it will play at all... I don't mean to sound crass but the software developers forget sometimes that we're not all able to use current technology. The days when a programmer took extreme pride in their ability to perform big tasks with small hardware are gone... 4k graphic demonstrations that would fit in the boot sector of a 720kb floppy disk are a thing of the past. Programmers have access to simply fabulous hardware as developing platforms. I digress...

Do you have AGP? If so the best bang for buck is by far the 32MB NVIDIA TNT2 MX from Cardepert (Gainward). PC magazine agrees, and I have had opportunity to test some of the best hardware out there, its part of my job. Its not the fastest, but for $120US you cannot even come close with most of the others. I'd say its 75% as fast as the $500 cards I have tested.

If yopu have PCI only than I guess you should look for any TNT2 or TNT (both NVIDIA chipsets).

A RAM drive is going to be a pain for you, and just how are you going to install that game into what little RAM you have available? I don't think that's worth the effort. If it will fit (must be small)there used to be DOS commands to creat one. I just checked my system but can't find anything, so I guess just search the Web for a shareware tool or something.

Really.... If you can do it, upgrade. If you can't, ditch the Winmodem, and get a video card.

Hope this helps,

James Heal

by rob k.

Plan on going to a cable modem next month. Will also be upgrading my video card in the next couple of weeks. Once I get the cable modem I will be changing my ISP. AOL is free right now because of introductory offes. I guess I really cant complain.
The harddrive that I have is a Western Digital Caviar 84AA (8.4 Gb), MoBo is an Asus P5A-B, Video card is a Asus P3000 AGP.

Do you think that upgradeing RAM will help, presently have 64Mb but will be upgrading to 128 or 192 Mb in next couple of days?

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