ArmA 2 I/O analysis results

[Tankbuster 1747]

Yes, the seek times are faster but the load times are much slower.

I used USB2 for the SDHC and built in connector for CF. The IDE card may be better but I doubt it will hive much better results.

BTW I'm getting the SSD for work but I'm going to put ARMA on too ;)

I did an HD Tach test on a old 512 MB card I had lying around. Access time was 0.4 ms, which is great, but the sequential read speed was 16 MB/s, which is less impressive.

[liquidpinky 11]

Ignore my last post,now i have vsuite ramdisk server edition but how to make it load folders automatically?

If you have Vista you can use the method in my sig link, if not treat the folders as a mod.

[hamis 0]

Nope,i have XP32.I mean how to make vsuite ramdisk to load stuff in to ramdisk without copying myself. And is it possible that QWERTZ makes Arma 1 version of his i/o tool?

Edited October 27, 2009 by hamis

[wasserkool 1]

So have we come to a definite consensus if 4GB of RAM disk is enough to run ARMA2 smoothly or SSD is a MUST?

[Vipera 10]

Nope,i have XP32.I mean how to make vsuite ramdisk to load stuff in to ramdisk without copying myself. And is it possible that QWERTZ makes Arma 1 version of his i/o tool?

I used this RAMDisk program. This program is able to read an image file and load its content into the ramdisk memory at boot time.

[Tcherno Bill 10]

So have we come to a definite consensus if 4GB of RAM disk is enough to run ARMA2 smoothly or SSD is a MUST?

I have 4gb, made a 1.5 gb ramdisk with chernarus.pbo/plants.pbo/structures.pbo and it made the game playable in towns for me,

[InFireBaptize 0]

So have we come to a definite consensus if 4GB of RAM disk is enough to run ARMA2 smoothly or SSD is a MUST?

pretty much, sufficiency of 4GB of ram depends on how many applications are currently loaded in your background. I'm using XP because it uses less ram than win7, with xp i'm able to allocate 2GB of RAM for RAMDRIVE. I have loaded all buildings pbo files, all plants, structers the misc and game plays so good that i went from playing the game 2-3 times a week to everyday!

[rekrul 7]

Now if only BIS could make this automagically by making a x64 compile...

[txalin 2]

Now if only BIS could make this automagically by making a x64 compile...

Agree x 10000 :(

[lt_darkman 0]

For those considering a USB stick have a look at the new eSATA Flash Drives coming onto the market:

OCZ Throttle Review - 16GB eSATA Flash Drive

These kind of read speeds will beat most 7200rpm hard drives and the price isn't much more than a decent USB 2.0 stick:

OCZ 16GB Throttle eSATA Flash Drive @ OcUK

Nowhere near Generation 2 SSD drives I know but nowhere near the price either. Even if your mainboard doesn't support eSATA you'd be mad to go for a USB stick as these come with a USB adaptor cable and are faster using USB too ;)

P

Edited October 28, 2009 by Lt_Darkman
Added File Benchmark

[Tankbuster 1747]

Interesting, Lt. How do they perform on access.seek times?

[cjph 0]

So have we come to a definite consensus if 4GB of RAM disk is enough to run ARMA2 smoothly or SSD is a MUST?

I run a 4 gb RAMdisk under xp32 (I have 6 gb total), and the difference is amazing - I copied all the files in the original post and stutter is largely gone, with no increase in fps the game is much smoother. I tried 8 gb total RAM for a 6 gb RAMdisk but hit a snag since the RAMdisk sw thought i still had 6 gb, so i need to reinstall it since i want to add more files and addons to improve things further. It has really improved the game for me. If anything, there is more texture flicker though i as this was masked by the stutter before.

[wasserkool 1]

Interesting, Lt. How do they perform on access.seek times?

is that speed fast enough for ArmaII?

[waimser 10]

Hi there just joined. Thanks for this post has helped me heaps.

Im running 1.5 gig ramdrive and about 2 gig of the pbo files running from the memory card on my phone. Thas is a vast improvement for me. Was even an improvement without the ramdrive and with 4 gig of pbo on my phone. so a good flashdrive should work ok :)

The problem is the modline I use messes with our clans server so I cant use it, and im on xp so cant use the hardlink. Someone suggested I try SUBST. Does anyone know anything about this and can you help me at all.

Thanks for helping me out so much already guys.

[Tankbuster 1747]

I am SO getting one of these eSATA drives.

[.kju 3245]

@waimser

Your server admin should set equalModRequired=0; //off.

It only keeps beta patches out and adds no security/protection to the server.

VerifySignatures is to be used for that purpose.

[waimser 10]

Unfortunately we cannot turn this off. Partly due to crashing issues with ppl running different mods, we are using yoma also. But also to keep everyone inline for TvT matches. Clan is fairly strict on anything that gives unfair advantage.

Of course I could just change OS but its taken me 3 years to get my head around xp. I dont want to change if I can avoid it.

[.kju 3245]

Like explained, you need to use verifySignatures and NOT equalModRequired.

[wasserkool 1]

Appratenly you can even run the OCZ throttle in RAID 0 mode. http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=55433

Does the throttle offer enough IOPs performance in Random access mode?

[qwertz 10]

Appratenly you can even run the OCZ throttle in RAID 0 mode. http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=55433

Does the throttle offer enough IOPs performance in Random access mode?

Based upon the graphs here, it is borderline - it is certainly faster than HDD, and looks great on anything 64k and below, but random read is only at 179 IOPS and this might be tight. I guess someone has to try that out and post the results.

[TimRiceSE 10]

so.. anyone got any figures on how the latest beta patch has affected HDD IO? :D

[InFireBaptize 0]

hopefully with the latest patch ( i haven't tried yet) we wouldn't need to do the ram drive thing, it's annoying and i don't want spend extra cash to buy more ram just for one game.

[rekrul 7]

I've already bought a new quad-core CPU, 2x4950s and 2 extra GB of RAM for this game, and I just received my 4x2GB RAM sticks now so I'll test later tonight. Cancelled my SSD in the process too.

[cjph 0]

I don't have figures but a quick run through with the latest beta did not appear to make a big difference to performance in towns/buildings, if anything it is slightly worse. As I say, subjective rather than objective. I'm using a 4Gb RAMdrive with the specs below (total RAM is 6Gb).

Edited October 30, 2009 by cjph

[december 0]

Just tried the latest patch, WOW. I don't think I need this thread anymore. Just tried a flyby of the cities and forest areas, very smooth, no stuttering at all. Nice 1 BIS.