Will a difference in two hard drives have much impact on performance?

[rangoon 0]

I've been running ArmA II pretty well (getting 30fps with mostly maxed-out settings at a moderate draw distance) on my current system. Once in a while, especially after playing for a while, things do slow down a bit. I just restart and things tend to get better (memory leak?).

Because I have the Steam version, and Steam doesn't allow for an easy way of distributing games amongst multiple drives, I'm stuck having ArmA II on my largest drive. Right now, that is a 300GB Velociraptor. I have a 1TB Caviar Black on the way (64MB cache) and will probably migrate all of my Steam games to that drive. Should I expect any performance change going "down" from the Velociraptor to the Caviar Black?

The reason I care is that with the Steam sale, I will probably go ahead and purchase OA and the other packs. But if things will slow down at all on this drive, I might just buy everything on DVD and install back to the same old drive after moving the Steam games onto the new drive.

I'm guessing the real bottleneck is with my CPU and video card, not the HDD or RAM. This summer I will upgrade those, though. I'm currently using a GTX 285 and an e8400 at 3.825GHz.

Thanks!

[nmike 10]

I've been running ArmA II pretty well (getting 30fps with mostly maxed-out settings at a moderate draw distance) on my current system. Once in a while, especially after playing for a while, things do slow down a bit. I just restart and things tend to get better (memory leak?).

Because I have the Steam version, and Steam doesn't allow for an easy way of distributing games amongst multiple drives, I'm stuck having ArmA II on my largest drive. Right now, that is a 300GB Velociraptor. I have a 1TB Caviar Black on the way (64MB cache) and will probably migrate all of my Steam games to that drive. Should I expect any performance change going "down" from the Velociraptor to the Caviar Black?

The reason I care is that with the Steam sale, I will probably go ahead and purchase OA and the other packs. But if things will slow down at all on this drive, I might just buy everything on DVD and install back to the same old drive after moving the Steam games onto the new drive.

I'm guessing the real bottleneck is with my CPU and video card, not the HDD or RAM. This summer I will upgrade those, though. I'm currently using a GTX 285 and an e8400 at 3.825GHz.

Thanks!

Hard drive did make a difference to this game. If you can, install the game on SSD. My situation is that I have to defrag the hard drive in order to eliminate the stutter that is not graphic card and CPU related.

In your situation, I would recommend you upgrade to something like quard core CPU and GTX 570 and buy yourself a SSD install the game on it and have fun. Have a fair amount of Ram let's say 8GB would also help. Proper ingame settings also help a lot. No need to set everything ultra high. I set everything high except AA and other eye candy stuff I set to normal running in 1900x1200 res:bounce3:

[rangoon 0]

Thanks, nmike. I was hoping that wasn't the case...but if any game would be HD sensitive it would be ArmA because of its size and complexity. That's why I had to ask.

I sure wish Steam would allow for HD selection when installing games. It boggles my mind why they haven't implemented this.

[KR303 10]

Thanks, nmike. I was hoping that wasn't the case...but if any game would be HD sensitive it would be ArmA because of its size and complexity. That's why I had to ask.

I sure wish Steam would allow for HD selection when installing games. It boggles my mind why they haven't implemented this.

All you need to do is install STEAM itself on to the hard drive of your choice and all games will follow too

[Laqueesha 474]

HDD is important, though not as important as a good CPU. A great GPU combined with an average CPU will not run ArmA II well. ;)

[jonneymendoza 10]

i notice after sticking my arma 2 game in my brand new ssd, it felt a lot smoother and more responsive

[rangoon 0]

All you need to do is install STEAM itself on to the hard drive of your choice and all games will follow too

I wish I could. But there is not enough room for even one third of my Steam games on either of my fast drives. And the point of my OP is that I don't want to put HD-intensive games like ArmA II onto the spacious but slower drive I have on the way. I would like to select which Steam games go where, which Steam does not support.

I have another thread inquiring about symlinking them, but still have yet to get a clear idea if this is the right way to go, and how.

So, moving Steam and all of the Steam games onto a SSD is physically not an option. Keeping Steam and all of the Steam games on my Velociraptors is physically not an option. Moving Steam and all of the Steam games to my 1TB drive is not ideal, for the reasons people have stated that HDD speed plays a role in ArmA II performance. Once my summer upgrade gets done, I'll have a new CPU, GPU, more system RAM, etc., so HDD speed will be the last frontier. And at that point, hopefully I'll have a good solution.

[liquidpinky 11]

You can split files or program folders up using symlinks or junctions if you want, depending on your OS.

Then you could actually split Arma over multiple drives to really increase it's speed. In theory you can have every single PBO on its own HDD or SSD for that matter if you so wished.

You can also try Disk Trix Ultimate Defrag for example which allows you to put more commonly accessed (or files of your choice) on the outer edge of the platter to increase their speed also. Simple physics put into motion as the platter rotates at a set RPM but the outer edge has a larger diameter and therefore moves faster.

A good defrag of your HDD will always help performance also, unless you own an SSD then don't defrag at all.

Plenty of tricks to try and maximise your Arma 2 performance.

[Joseph Archer 10]

Wouldn't have thought you would suffer adverse effects on performance with your new drive.

[rangoon 0]

You can split files or program folders up using symlinks or junctions if you want, depending on your OS.

Then you could actually split Arma over multiple drives to really increase it's speed. In theory you can have every single PBO on its own HDD or SSD for that matter if you so wished.

Okay, so this will work even through the process of patching or otherwise altering the directory which is linked? Or will I have to unlink every time there is a patch/update, change mods, etc., then re-link? I am using Vista 64-bit now, and have Win7 64-bit ready to go for my next hardware upgrade. Each time that directory is accessed, whether to read or write, that reading/writing will automatically take place in the new location?

You can also try Disk Trix Ultimate Defrag for example which allows you to put more commonly accessed (or files of your choice) on the outer edge of the platter to increase their speed also. Simple physics put into motion as the platter rotates at a set RPM but the outer edge has a larger diameter and therefore moves faster.

Is this payware? Nvm...I will google it. :) Hopefully I will pick up a SSD anyway, which won't matter at that point. As long as the symlinking really works.

A good defrag of your HDD will always help performance also, unless you own an SSD then don't defrag at all.

True, true. What I'm wondering about the hard drives immediately, though, is simply whether the new Caviar Black (1TB, 64MB cache) will offer any noticeable decrease in performance from my Velociraptor (300GB). Some suggest yes...

Wouldn't have thought you would suffer adverse effects on performance with your new drive.

...others suggest no. Thanks for the input, o0Jedi0o.

I figure it really could have an impact since there is so much territory in ArmA II, and that territory is routinely traversed - just by driving and flying around so much. But I don't know how much of an impact it will have. Maybe it's undetectable.

[scruffy 21]

I never tried junction links with steam, but it is a one time operation. Most likely you have an A2 (and A2oa?) folder in your ...\steam\steamapps\common\ directory.

Copy the files inside those folders to the other drive and then create a junction link out of the folders in the steam directory. The system will then look in whatever folder you specified when searching in the steam folder, just use the name steam created.

I used "Junction Link Magic" which was mentioned for this somewhere on this forums. I'm on Win7 64, but using NTFS should be the only requirement, not OS.

[BasileyOne 10]

hm, difference between change 7200 rpm hdd to 5x00 rpm way more dramatic, than moving from 10000 rpm down to 7200 rpm hdd, until you had really SERIOUS/persistent IO-stress workload, like persistent background fiele operations, like 50 mbps file sharing[by multiple of users] and etc.

IMO, 7200 RPM hdd's is "golden midle" for [demanding]home users, while 5x00 rom harddrives only suitable for PVR, media players and portable data vaults/backupdevices.

[nkenny 1051]

You can manually copy your STEAM arma2 install to a different directory/HDD. I've done this with no issues having moved my Arma2 + OA to a SSD. Provided you've got the extra space there should be no problem. (quite convenient in many ways really)

-k

[no use for a name 0]

What I'm wondering about the hard drives immediately, though, is simply whether the new Caviar Black (1TB, 64MB cache) will offer any noticeable decrease in performance from my Velociraptor (300GB). Some suggest yes...

...others suggest no. Thanks for the input, o0Jedi0o.

I figure it really could have an impact since there is so much territory in ArmA II, and that territory is routinely traversed - just by driving and flying around so much. But I don't know how much of an impact it will have. Maybe it's undetectable.

You probably won't notice much difference (if any) between a Raptor and a Caviar; most of which would only be noticeable in benchmarks. Game performance would most likely not be affected much. Either way, I went from a generic 7200 WD drive to a Caviar Black and saw a nice increase. It will at least hold me over until I can afford an SSD (which would be the best options if you got the $$)

Edited May 3, 2011 by No Use For A Name

[liquidpinky 11]

You probably won't notice much difference (if any) between a Raptor and a Caviar; most of which would only be noticeable in benchmarks. Game performance would most likely not be affected much. Either way, I went from a generic 7200 WD drive to a Caviar Black and saw a nice increase. It will at least hold me over until I can afford an SSD (which would be the best options if you got the $$)

He is going from a 10k RPM drive to a 7.2k RPM drive, it is a big performance drop. Which is noticeable in ArmA 2 as it will give you more stuttering with a slower drive and not just in benchmarks.

Yours will have just improved thanks to a new fresh drive.

If you try that Disk Trix software or find a non payware equivalent you can improve things further by file placement on the outer of the platter to improve speed a little as well. Even this makes a small difference on a Raptor, I tended to put games of a streaming nature on the outer edges.

An SSD is of course the obvious chioce if possible though. :)

[rangoon 0]

I have installed the Caviar Black and moved all of my Steam games over to it. My plan now is to move the ArmA folders to the Velociraptor and link them back for Steam. In a few months I should be able to finally pick up a SSD and at that point will move ArmA to the SSD.

[Nutlink 10]

I recently went from a 640GB Caviar Black (that held my OS and games) to a new SSD (OS) and 300GB Velociraptor (games) and the main difference is load time. Loading a new island is a LOT faster, and when putzing around in the editor it's much quicker jumping from, say, Zargabad to Chernarus. It really didn't make much of a difference in the actual performance of the game though. Still, I can't go back to the Caviar Blacks. Before I had that I had 2 150GB Raptors in RAID 0, and going from those to the CB was a huge mistake performance wise(but I needed the storage).

Stay with the VR if load times mean anything to you.

[liquidpinky 11]

I recently went from a 640GB Caviar Black (that held my OS and games) to a new SSD (OS) and 300GB Velociraptor (games) and the main difference is load time. Loading a new island is a LOT faster, and when putzing around in the editor it's much quicker jumping from, say, Zargabad to Chernarus. It really didn't make much of a difference in the actual performance of the game though. Still, I can't go back to the Caviar Blacks. Before I had that I had 2 150GB Raptors in RAID 0, and going from those to the CB was a huge mistake performance wise(but I needed the storage).

Stay with the VR if load times mean anything to you.

It also reduces stuttering as well as load times.

Put A2 on your Caviar then take a jet down Cherno's coast at around 500 ft with a draw distance of around 5k. then put A2 on you SSD and try the exact same thing.

It doesn't effect FPS, just alleviates stuttering.