BF2 AKA Battlefield 2, is an exceptionally popular game, can anyone who has BF2 AND has more than one HDD tell me if their second/third/fourth HDD's spin up as soon as you actually log into a game.
I have 4 HDD's (please read Sig), My OS and Games are on one HDD, and I have the other 3 HDD's shut down after 3 mins, by "Windows Power Management".
My system spends the vast majority of its time with only 1 HDD spining, this makes my system a fair bit quiter.
However, I fire up BF2, I then "log-on" to my user account, I then look through the list of servers, I pick one, it loads up everything, and I am accepted on the server, I then click on the "Join Game" button.......... The system pauses while 3 HDD's spin up one after the other, the game then works perfectly. This also happens when a new map is loaded. The pause is about 15 seconds, and DOES NOT happen if all of the HDD's are running.
This is not just annoying as it takes longer to get into the game, but I also loose the advantage of a fast PC as I often beat everyone into a game. But also its not good for the HDD's to spin up every 10-20 minutes (game length) and the spin down 3 minutes later.
Q 1, Does anyone else have the same problem.???
Q 2, Why does this happen, is it a BF2 bug.??? None of the other 3 drives has a trace of BF2 on them, they dont need to spin up at all.
Andy
BF2 HDD Issue
Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee
Re: BF2 HDD Issue
I'm pretty sure (say, 85% certitude) it's Punkbuster checking all your drives for HDD serial numbers, hacks and cheats and stuff like that.andyb wrote:BF2 AKA Battlefield 2, is an exceptionally popular game, can anyone who has BF2 AND has more than one HDD tell me if their second/third/fourth HDD's spin up as soon as you actually log into a game.
I have 4 HDD's (please read Sig), My OS and Games are on one HDD, and I have the other 3 HDD's shut down after 3 mins, by "Windows Power Management".
My system spends the vast majority of its time with only 1 HDD spining, this makes my system a fair bit quiter.
However, I fire up BF2, I then "log-on" to my user account, I then look through the list of servers, I pick one, it loads up everything, and I am accepted on the server, I then click on the "Join Game" button.......... The system pauses while 3 HDD's spin up one after the other, the game then works perfectly. This also happens when a new map is loaded. The pause is about 15 seconds, and DOES NOT happen if all of the HDD's are running.
This is not just annoying as it takes longer to get into the game, but I also loose the advantage of a fast PC as I often beat everyone into a game. But also its not good for the HDD's to spin up every 10-20 minutes (game length) and the spin down 3 minutes later.
Q 1, Does anyone else have the same problem.???
Q 2, Why does this happen, is it a BF2 bug.??? None of the other 3 drives has a trace of BF2 on them, they dont need to spin up at all.
Andy
Bastards.I dont mean Punkbuster, I mean all of those cheating arseholes that force companies to use anti-cheating software.
Its just like anti-virus software, a neccessary evil
I suppose I will have to just turn it on and off, OFF when im BF2'ing and ON the rest of the time.
I dont suppose you know if you can create profiles, or shortcuts that can activate and deactivate the idle drive spinning or not, so I can do it in one button.
Cheers Andy
-
HammerSandwich
- *Lifetime Patron*
- Posts: 1288
- Joined: Sat Oct 25, 2003 3:21 pm
- Location: 15143, USA
- Contact:
I dont have one.
The having a page file vs not having one has been done loads before.
NOT having one, is Faster (with 2GB of RAM), and of course quieter.
FYI, system spec in sig.
I run BF2 dead smooth @ 12*10 32bit @75 Hz, everything on high, with 6x Anistropic filtering on an LG L1915S 19" LCD, my OS and games are all on my boot drive which is the 200GB Samsung P120.
I nearly forgot, I have 350MB of spare RAM whilst playing BF2.
Andy
The having a page file vs not having one has been done loads before.
NOT having one, is Faster (with 2GB of RAM), and of course quieter.
FYI, system spec in sig.
I run BF2 dead smooth @ 12*10 32bit @75 Hz, everything on high, with 6x Anistropic filtering on an LG L1915S 19" LCD, my OS and games are all on my boot drive which is the 200GB Samsung P120.
I nearly forgot, I have 350MB of spare RAM whilst playing BF2.
Andy
-
HammerSandwich
- *Lifetime Patron*
- Posts: 1288
- Joined: Sat Oct 25, 2003 3:21 pm
- Location: 15143, USA
- Contact:
I think that Windows Power Management on HDs, is different on
other mobo's.
I actually tried it, but hated the slow reaction when you start
using a HD. I read somewhere that HDs still spin with Power Management
ON on HDs, as they still have power.
And than another question, does WPM on HDs, works seperate on
every hard disk?
A quick other question. You play BF2 on your videocard at pretty high
settings. And still have good fps? I can't with my NX6600.
Maybe a good solution to upgrade my vidcard to ATI.
other mobo's.
I actually tried it, but hated the slow reaction when you start
using a HD. I read somewhere that HDs still spin with Power Management
ON on HDs, as they still have power.
And than another question, does WPM on HDs, works seperate on
every hard disk?
A quick other question. You play BF2 on your videocard at pretty high
settings. And still have good fps? I can't with my NX6600.
Maybe a good solution to upgrade my vidcard to ATI.
As far as "Windows Power Mangement" is concerned, under XP its pretty good, I can fire up explorer, and go to a drive thats not on, and it will spin up, the rest wont. Is clever and it works well, which is why I have never thought WPM to be at blame.
On every mobo I have ever used I have turned everyting off as its useless, as the hardware PM does not affect W2K or XP in any way.
The slow reaction is the worst part of having a HDD not running, however I keep everything I use regulary on one HDD so I am never bothered by the spin up time. I would never consider turning off my main HDD.
Sorry I didnt answer your questions in order I hope I made sense.
A 6600 is about 1/2 the speed of a 6600GT, my card is nearing double the speed of a 6600GT. However ATI card are NOT faster than nVidia cards, no one wins, nVidia are faster at some things (games), ATI are faster at others. What you really want is a faster graphics card that can run high resolutions with max detail at 75+ FPM, the drawback is cost.
What you can afford and what works for you makes your choice of what you buy.
Nearly forgot, one of the reasons why my my HDD's spin up one after the other is because they ALL support "Sequential Spin-Up", the whole idea is stability and reliability as only 1 HDD draws extra power at a time. Lets face it, it would be much quicker to spin up 3 HDD's at once than 3 sequentially, but it would draw 3x the current off of the affected rails, and that can cause problems for some PSU's, hence it is now standard.
Andy
On every mobo I have ever used I have turned everyting off as its useless, as the hardware PM does not affect W2K or XP in any way.
The slow reaction is the worst part of having a HDD not running, however I keep everything I use regulary on one HDD so I am never bothered by the spin up time. I would never consider turning off my main HDD.
Sorry I didnt answer your questions in order I hope I made sense.
A 6600 is about 1/2 the speed of a 6600GT, my card is nearing double the speed of a 6600GT. However ATI card are NOT faster than nVidia cards, no one wins, nVidia are faster at some things (games), ATI are faster at others. What you really want is a faster graphics card that can run high resolutions with max detail at 75+ FPM, the drawback is cost.
What you can afford and what works for you makes your choice of what you buy.
Nearly forgot, one of the reasons why my my HDD's spin up one after the other is because they ALL support "Sequential Spin-Up", the whole idea is stability and reliability as only 1 HDD draws extra power at a time. Lets face it, it would be much quicker to spin up 3 HDD's at once than 3 sequentially, but it would draw 3x the current off of the affected rails, and that can cause problems for some PSU's, hence it is now standard.
Andy
I spotted the HIS X1800GTO IceQ3 Turbo Dual DL-DVI VIVO 256MB PCIe
for 210 EUR incl tva.
and
the HIS X850XT IceQ II Turbo Dual DVI VIVO 256MB PCIe, also for
211 EUR incl tva.
Because the price is about the same I'm not sure which one to buy.
I don't find the difference between IceQ2 and IceQ3.
Which one would you advice? I would like to use it for gaming,
FEAR and Oblivion on high settings.
Or would you prefer a GF?
The HIS videocards have good reviews, and are pretty quiet from what
I read on this forum. So I don't need to void the warranty on another
brand with swapped quiet cooler.
for 210 EUR incl tva.
and
the HIS X850XT IceQ II Turbo Dual DVI VIVO 256MB PCIe, also for
211 EUR incl tva.
Because the price is about the same I'm not sure which one to buy.
I don't find the difference between IceQ2 and IceQ3.
Which one would you advice? I would like to use it for gaming,
FEAR and Oblivion on high settings.
Or would you prefer a GF?
The HIS videocards have good reviews, and are pretty quiet from what
I read on this forum. So I don't need to void the warranty on another
brand with swapped quiet cooler.