Checking the version of your game assets...
Post ideas and suggestions on new features or improvements here.
posted on September 1st, 2010, 4:22 pm
Myles wrote:running defrag every day is pointless, and it will actually reduce the life time of your hard drive.
and defragging definitely will improve all performance of your computer. especially checking the odfs. if they get fragmented then the hard drive will have to spend a lot of time finding the files.
making the odfs be all in the same place on the disk and all contiguous will decrease the time it takes to check the files.
new patches have more odfs so the check takes longer.
The speed improvement of defragmenting isn't very big actually, it only reduces seek time and latency a little on files. but there have to be lots of fragments to make the time savings add up. Defragging would cause a big increase if every single odf was in a different place, but usually fragmentation happens in a few chunks (maybe 3 chunks for FO, resulting in two additional seek times and a some more milliseconds maybe for latency.) The result is you get back maybe 30-40 milliseconds overall for the odf checking, which is nothing compared to the two minute plus total time.
And yes, I did defrag and check just in case the files were really heavily fragmented, result was the same 2 minutes of asset checking.
Defragging does reduce the damage caused by hard drive errors, so it's still a good idea to do every so often, but it is no replacement for a faster computer.
posted on September 1st, 2010, 4:26 pm
Nebula_Class_Ftw wrote:And yes, I did defrag and check just in case the files were really heavily fragmented, result was the same 2 minutes of asset checking.
your files werent fragmented to begin with, so obviously you wont get a boost by defragging lol.
but people with heavily fragmented files, such as odfs in several places, odfs fragmented themselves etc would see great improvements on loading time.
if all the files were contiguous and put in 1 place the difference (from the above example) will be big.
posted on September 1st, 2010, 4:28 pm
I wonder if you archived your game folder, the computer could access it faster?
posted on September 1st, 2010, 4:32 pm
Adm. Zaxxon wrote:I wonder if you archived your game folder, the computer could access it faster?
do u mean compress it? wouldn't the computer need to spend additional time decompressing the data before checking it, making it even slower.
unless everybody used the exact same compression method, then the check could be done on the compressed data.
but then reading the odfs for actual game usage would be made slower.
posted on September 1st, 2010, 4:57 pm
Last edited by Brother Gabriel on September 1st, 2010, 4:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.
a few defrag tools change also the file position for faster access, my personal suggestion is:
MyDefrag v4.3.1
it takes very long the first time, but its worth it.
edit: btw the windows defrag tool sucks
Also longloading times / start up times can be caused by your virus scanner. Make a exeption for the fleet ops folder. Also: nevah evah use norton.
MyDefrag v4.3.1
it takes very long the first time, but its worth it.
edit: btw the windows defrag tool sucks
Also longloading times / start up times can be caused by your virus scanner. Make a exeption for the fleet ops folder. Also: nevah evah use norton.
posted on September 1st, 2010, 5:03 pm
Brother Gabriel wrote:a few defrag tools change also the file position for faster access, my personal suggestion is:
MyDefrag v4.3.1
it takes very long the first time, but its worth it.
edit: btw the windows defrag tool sucks
Also longloading times / start up times can be caused by your virus scanner. Make a exeption for the fleet ops folder. Also: nevah evah use norton.
lol if u read mydefrag's documentation u will find out that mydefrag just uses windows built in defrag methods. it just does some additional stuff too.
mydefrag is the one i use too, its rather good. it puts more often used files at the start of the drive, where the drive is fastest. it also puts files that are used together often in the same places.
mydefrag is a good option.
for basic defragging the windows defraggers are average, and will be sufficient, just not exceptional.
posted on September 1st, 2010, 5:04 pm
i know, its just that defraggin alone is only half the job, so the windows tool sucks
posted on September 1st, 2010, 5:07 pm
Brother Gabriel wrote:i know, its just that defraggin alone is only half the job, so the windows tool sucks
lol sucks for u. if u dont need the extra bit of performance that optimising gives then windows defragger is all you need. it all depends on the user. for a lot of people the windows defragger satisfies their needs, but no more. its the C grade student, the average player on the team. it is acceptable for the vast majority of people.
posted on September 1st, 2010, 5:08 pm
Myles wrote:do u mean compress it? wouldn't the computer need to spend additional time decompressing the data before checking it, making it even slower.
unless everybody used the exact same compression method, then the check could be done on the compressed data.
but then reading the odfs for actual game usage would be made slower.
No, I mean when you right click and access the properties of a folder, right near the readonly check box is the archive button. It says it makes searches in that folder faster.
posted on September 1st, 2010, 5:12 pm
Adm. Zaxxon wrote:No, I mean when you right click and access the properties of a folder, right near the readonly check box is the archive button. It says it makes searches in that folder faster.
ah the archive bit. or the A attribute. thats for backup software. any time u change a file windows marks it so that backup software will know it has changed. backup software then removes the attribute when it backs it up.
marking files as ready for archive wont boost speed in reading them.
posted on September 1st, 2010, 5:20 pm
Myles wrote:lol sucks for u. if u dont need the extra bit of performance that optimising gives then windows defragger is all you need. it all depends on the user. for a lot of people the windows defragger satisfies their needs, but no more. its the C grade student, the average player on the team. it is acceptable for the vast majority of people.
its actually funny that you just rush on this single topic and didnt comment on the virus scanner.
I just try to help him (Besides: if the files are placed at the point of the harddisk with the slowest acces times, then the tool mydefrag will make a seriosly huge difference at the loading speed)
You can continue shooting me Myles, go on.
posted on September 1st, 2010, 5:26 pm
Brother Gabriel wrote:its actually funny that you just rush on this single topic and didnt comment on the virus scanner.
I just try to help him (Besides: if the files are placed at the point of the harddisk with the slowest acces times, then the tool mydefrag will make a seriosly huge difference at the loading speed)
You can continue shooting me Myles, go on.
you edited your post, i didnt see anything about virus scanners
im not saying mydefrag is bad (i use it too

i agree he should use mydefrag. but ur very general attack on windows defragger as always crap is too general and needed challenging.
never using norton is a very good suggestion. i hate norton.
posted on September 1st, 2010, 5:51 pm
oh yes, if you have a virus scanner installed and its an agressive one it will check all files you access for reading.... thats a loooootttttt of files and delay.
Disabling your virus scanner when playing fleetops cold be useful. Unless you happen to enjoy surfing dodgy sites or opening unknown attachments while playing fleetops then you will be fine.
Disabling your virus scanner when playing fleetops cold be useful. Unless you happen to enjoy surfing dodgy sites or opening unknown attachments while playing fleetops then you will be fine.
posted on September 1st, 2010, 5:55 pm
yup just add an exception for the data folder in your fo installation.
some programs wont allow wildcards though so you wont be able to make it ignore lots of things without making an exception for each file lol.
some programs wont allow wildcards though so you wont be able to make it ignore lots of things without making an exception for each file lol.
posted on September 1st, 2010, 11:05 pm
Last edited by Nebula_Class_Ftw on September 1st, 2010, 11:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Myles wrote:your files werent fragmented to begin with, so obviously you wont get a boost by defragging lol.
but people with heavily fragmented files, such as odfs in several places, odfs fragmented themselves etc would see great improvements on loading time.
if all the files were contiguous and put in 1 place the difference (from the above example) will be big.
Read that statement out loud, it makes no logical sense.
No you wouldn't see great improvements in load time, since the odfs being in several chunks would add less than a second total of seek time and latency. To get those milliseconds to add up you would need extreme fragmentation (thousands of fragments.)
Maybe if you had a bunch of other programs running that were all fragmented it would hinder performance and defragging could slightly improve things, but a better solution is to just not have a bunch of other programs running while FO is checking assets.
A computer doesn't need everything contiguous, when things are broken up into fragments the hard drive just reads the next part from somewhere else, the only added time is the seek time to get on the right area of the hard drive and the latency which is the time until the disk has spun enuff that the read/write head is directly over the data needed. Both latency and seek time are measured in milliseconds.
Now for some math to show you just how little the difference is:
For a file or collection of files in n fragments, the times that the reading head of the hard drive has to move is n-1, multiply that by the average seek time plus the average latency and you'll get a good idea how much time is added; (n-1)*(seek time+latency)=total added delay. For a hard drive with FO's odfs and such in 400 fragments the read/write head has to move 399 times, assuming an average seek time of 7 milliseconds (which is somewhat large) and an average latency of 4 milliseconds (also somewhat large these days, both these numbers would've been high-end in 2001), the estimated time added to read all of the odf data is: 4.389 seconds. Keep in mind that's for 400 fragments.
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