The Quest for Lag Free
Gaming - Part 2
In the first part of this article (which you can read here), we looked into what we can
do to avoid or at least minimize memory related stuttering. That article
shows that most stuttering issues are caused by not having enough memory. The
solution was easy enough - supply enough memory for the games and
applications you're running. That means real memory (RAM) and not just
virtual memory. We want our games with frame rates as high as possible, so we
don't have the luxury of waiting for hard disk accesses with virtual memory
usage.But how about storage related stuttering? At one time or another, even PCs with 2 or 4 GB of RAM must access the hard disk, either to load new levels or saving game saves. Having more RAM does make for faster loads, particularly in newer games, but even the fastest RAM won't do much good if you have a too slow hard disk. With game saves, that's even more important - we want the hard disk to write them as fast as possible. Smart developers 'coped' with this problem by forcing us to access a menu and / or pausing the game every time we want to save or load a save game. This way, we won't notice the stutter caused by slow hard disk access. However, bringing up a menu every time you want to save a game does 'interrupt' the gameplay experience. So, more and more games are using an auto save feature, where automated game saves occur at different points of the game. Quick saving and loading works pretty much the same way - you skip the menu (but not the hard disk access).
With action oriented games where you need high frame rates, saving and loading will undoubtedly cause stutter or at least a significant frame rate drop. So, what can we do about it? There are a few steps you can take (in addition to having more memory) - get a faster hard drive or use a RAID 0 (stripe) array. The fastest hard disk for desktop users right now is undoubtedly Western Digital's Raptors. These 10K rpm hard disks have the fastest access time, but they also came with quite a hefty price tag and smaller capacities than most 7200 rpm drives. On the other hand, most chipsets and motherboards now come with SATA controllers supporting RAID 0 and 1. Since we don't have any of WD's Raptors right now, we're going for the latter option - two small capacities 7200 rpm SATA hard disks in one RAID 0 array. We think this is the most inexpensive way to boost storage performance without losing much capacity. So let's see whether or not RAID 0 is the right choice for lag and stutter free gaming.
Testing Preparations
During testing for the first article, we saw which games are prone to stuttering issues and which games are not. We can actually separate them into two groups - those which ran just fine with 512 MB and those who needs up to 2 GB or RAM. Here is the table from the first part of this article.| Windows XP | Battlefield 2 | Brothers In Arms | Call of Duty | Dungeon Siege | Dungeon Siege 2 | |
| Memory available | 382.55 | 39.47 | 181.18 | 12.14 | 287.68 | 124.56 |
| Memory installed | 512 | 512 | 512 | 512 | 512 | 512 |
| Memory used | 129.45 | 472.53 | 330.82 | 499.86 | 224.32 | 387.44 |
| Page file used | 172 | 1032 | 314 | 445 | 256 | 406 |
| Page file normal | 172 | 172 | 172 | 172 | 172 | 172 |
| 0 | 860 | 142 | 273 | 84 | 234 | |
| Total memory used (estimated) |
129.45 | 1332.53 | 472.82 | 772.86 | 308.32 | 621.44 |
| Windows XP | F1 Career Challenge | FEAR | Full Spectrum Warrior | Homeworld 2 | Lock On | |
| Memory available | 382.55 | 168.9 | 178.96 | 365.41 | 169.41 | 142.15 |
| Memory installed | 512 | 512 | 512 | 512 | 512 | 512 |
| Memory used | 129.45 | 343.1 | 333.04 | 146.59 | 342.59 | 369.85 |
| Page file used | 172 | 355 | 556 | 320 | 373 | 406 |
| Page file normal | 172 | 172 | 172 | 172 | 172 | 172 |
| 0 | 183 | 384 | 148 | 201 | 234 | |
| Total memory used | 129.45 | 526.1 | 717.04 | 294.59 | 543.59 | 603.85 |
| Windows XP | Nascar 2003 | Quake 4 | Richard Burns Rally | Splinter Cell | Splinter Cell Chaos Theory | |
| Memory available | 382.55 | 249.26 | 13.68 | 288.52 | 299.66 | 78.21 |
| Memory installed | 512 | 512 | 512 | 512 | 512 | 512 |
| Memory used | 129.45 | 262.74 | 498.32 | 223.48 | 212.34 | 433.79 |
| Page file used | 172 | 260 | 656 | 322 | 242 | 415 |
| Page file normal | 172 | 172 | 172 | 172 | 172 | 172 |
| 0 | 88 | 484 | 150 | 70 | 243 | |
| Total memory used (estimated) | 129.45 | 350.74 | 982.32 | 373.48 | 282.34 | 676.79 |
| Windows XP | Serious Sam II | SW: KOTOR | |
| Memory available | 382.55 | 36.84 | 266.04 |
| Memory installed | 512 | 512 | 512 |
| Memory used | 129.45 | 475.16 | 245.96 |
| Page file used | 172 | 472 | 266 |
| Page file normal | 172 | 172 | 172 |
| 0 | 300 | 94 | |
| Total memory used (estimated) | 129.45 | 775.16 | 339.96 |
all numbers are in MBs
Of all these games, not all of them can be used in this article. We need not only games with various memory footprints, but also those with both an automated and quick save features. Out of these games, we choose Call of Duty, Dungeon Siege, F.E.A.R, Homeworld 2, Quake 4, Serious Sam II and SW: KOTOR. In particular interest are Dungeon Siege, F.E.A.R and Quake 4 - Dungeon Siege (and Dungeon Siege II) still exhibits some stuttering even with 2 GB of RAM - most likely due to level loads while F.E.A.R and Quake 4 have the largest memory footprint (sans Battlefield 2 that we can't use in this article). On a side note, you really have to hand it to Croteam developers - even with that large memory footprint, the game runs very well with no stuttering in a 512 MB system. So, we're going to separate them into two groups - Dungeon Siege, Homeworld 2 and SW: KOTOR are games that already runs well enough with 512 MB, while Call of Duty, F.E.A.R, Quake 4 and Serious Sam II are games that are theoretically needs more than 512 MB of RAM.
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