Hyperspace causing 100% Disk usage

_Dastardly_

D
Hyperspace for me has always been juddery, I put up with it but recently I noticed that whenever I jump to hyperspace disk usage goes to 100% and sits there. It *never* goes anywhere near that high and since I'm running Elite off an SSD I'd not expect it to be struggling.

Anyone else see this or have a solution? Is it a bug/fault?

hyperspace.jpg

The massive plateau to 100% is the whole hyperspace time. The rest of the time it's hovering around 1% other games or during loading it never goes above 20%
 

MrVibrating

MrVibrating
I also get horrible stutter in hyperspace. I haven't checked my disc usage stats but always assumed it was because the hyperspace anim is a loading screen for the destination system. Perhaps dropping the texture quality improves things? However i'm reluctant to try this as i play on a big 4k and need higher res textures...

My drives are 3 Gb/s SATA... but can't believe this is the bottleneck. Must be a problem in the gamecode..?
 

Iori

Iori
I'm also running Elite from an SSD, I don't know the usage, but I get serious stutter when entering Hyperspace.
 

SvennoJ

SvennoJ
The game renders the skybox during the hyper space jump. I guess the denser the stars are where you are the more taxing it is.
I also noticed more chugging after increasing the GalaxyBackground texture size in GraphicsConfiguration.xml
It's a loading screen, hdd speed determines how long it takes.
 

DoneWithFD

DoneWithFD
As far as processing and data i/o goes I'm running a pretty fast setup. I have an i7-4770K with 16 GB RAM and I'm running Elite: Dangerous from a Samsung 840 Pro SSD. I still get choppiness when I initiate a hyperspace jump. The first 25% of the jump is choppy then it stabilizes to a smooth tunnel.
 

Oheck

Oheck
I think we all get stutter, certainly at the entry into hyperspace. For those getting excessive jitter, how much ram do you have? Hyperspace is essentially a pretty loading screen after all.
 

Hell Razor5543

H
I cannot help with the stutter, but what is your swap file doing? Regardless of how much memory your PC has, Windows ALWAYS generates a swap file (also known as a page file or virtual memory). Regardless of how fast your drive is (HDD or SSD), the swap file will cause disk thrashing if it is on the same drive as the required files, and the swap file starts getting used a lot. The swap file is used when there is insufficient memory for the active tasks (it acts as 'pretend' memory), and dates back to Windows 3 (if not earlier).
I have overcome this problem in a simple way. I have set up a drive specifically for the swap file (it has to be a drive, not a partition on a drive with multiple partitions). Fit a drive that is at least twice as big as the maximum potential memory the PC can handle. Once the PC has recognised it, name it "Swap File" (or something meaningful, so that you know that this is a drive for the PC, and not for your direct usage), and then go digging around in the Device Manager advanced settings until you find the references to Virtual Memory (different ways to find this depending on what version of Windows you are running). Switch it off for the C: drive (normal location), and switch it on for the dedicated "Swap File" drive, allowing the system to manage it. Assuming this works (I have not had it fail me yet), and that you do NOT use the swap file drive yourself, this should help. It does NOT make the PC go any faster, but it DOES remove a major bottleneck in the PC. By the way, I have 4 SSDs in my PC; one for the O/S and applications, another for the Swap File, a third one for my photos/music/videos, and the fourth for my games. I have used this trick since Windows 98.
EDIT; I have just checked, and Windows 7 on my PC has created a 32GB swap file, even though I have 32GB DDR3 RAM, and with no major games or applications running.
 
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Daffan

Daffan
I run 2560x1440 @ max @ 60 fps

Than in open play when i supercruise in some areas i go to 45 - 30 - 15. And i've seen multiple streamers have the same issue.
 

Darkwolf

D
_Dastardly_ said:
Hyperspace for me has always been juddery, I put up with it but recently I noticed that whenever I jump to hyperspace disk usage goes to 100% and sits there. It *never* goes anywhere near that high and since I'm running Elite off an SSD I'd not expect it to be struggling.
Click to expand...

Err.. Hyperspace is a loading screen for the game loading up all the assets/data for the next system you're transitioning to - ie, high disk utilization is expected then. However...

Considering that your peak transfer rate there is a weedy 10MB/s, which corresponds to 100% disk active time, I'd suggest your disk transfer rate is terrible (SSD or not). Are you sure that your disk is working properly?

I'd also suggest that you run perfmon, and collect disk read _and_ write statistics. Also look at resource monitor when in hyperspace, it'll tell you how many bytes are being read/written and give you an idea whether it's actually a swapping issue and not a simple read issue (ie, during a jump reads should be high but writes low).
 

Leighroy

Leighroy
DoneWithFD said:
As far as processing and data i/o goes I'm running a pretty fast setup. I have an i7-4770K with 16 GB RAM and I'm running Elite: Dangerous from a Samsung 840 Pro SSD. I still get choppiness when I initiate a hyperspace jump. The first 25% of the jump is choppy then it stabilizes to a smooth tunnel.
Click to expand...

The Samsung 840 and other SSDs in that range have been shown to develop read/write speed issues. There is a firmware update for it. See :

http://www.pcgamer.com/own-a-samsung-840-evo-download-this-fix-for-slow-read-speeds/
 

simonlange

simonlange
Raaya said:
That's because it's a loading screen. It's loading the resources.
Click to expand...

check, but it shouldnt be too hard to get it done without stuttering. ;) the graphics while in hyperspace are not THAT extremly gpu intensive that it would excuse such an performance impact.
and pushing some vector data into memory should under no circumstances cause any stuttering on rigs with 16gb and above and if the whole graphics is performed by indepent memory and a dedicated gpu.
different mempipes diffrent processors different tasks. so?

however. as long as the stuttering does not come WHILE fighting/flying i can still live with that but on the other hand its ugly

Simon
 

_Dastardly_

D
Hell Razor5543 said:
I cannot help with the stutter, but what is your swap file doing? Regardless of how much memory your PC has, Windows ALWAYS generates a swap file (also known as a page file or virtual memory). Regardless of how fast your drive is (HDD or SSD), the swap file will cause disk thrashing if it is on the same drive as the required files, and the swap file starts getting used a lot. The swap file is used when there is insufficient memory for the active tasks (it acts as 'pretend' memory), and dates back to Windows 3 (if not earlier).
I have overcome this problem in a simple way. I have set up a drive specifically for the swap file (it has to be a drive, not a partition on a drive with multiple partitions). Fit a drive that is at least twice as big as the maximum potential memory the PC can handle. Once the PC has recognised it, name it "Swap File" (or something meaningful, so that you know that this is a drive for the PC, and not for your direct usage), and then go digging around in the Device Manager advanced settings until you find the references to Virtual Memory (different ways to find this depending on what version of Windows you are running). Switch it off for the C: drive (normal location), and switch it on for the dedicated "Swap File" drive, allowing the system to manage it. Assuming this works (I have not had it fail me yet), and that you do NOT use the swap file drive yourself, this should help. It does NOT make the PC go any faster, but it DOES remove a major bottleneck in the PC. By the way, I have 4 SSDs in my PC; one for the O/S and applications, another for the Swap File, a third one for my photos/music/videos, and the fourth for my games. I have used this trick since Windows 98.
EDIT; I have just checked, and Windows 7 on my PC has created a 32GB swap file, even though I have 32GB DDR3 RAM, and with no major games or applications running.
Click to expand...

Swap file is on secondary normal Hard drive.

System is a Core i7 950, 6gb ram, SSD for OS and the game. GTX460 SE graphics card. Not amazing spec but should be solid enough. I'll check on some more specific disk counters and see what comes up.
 

_Dastardly_

D
Oops I was wrong about my pagefile. It was actually on the same drive as elite.

Moved it to another drive and a few things happen.
  • Hyperspace is a bit less juddery
  • C-Drive (SSD that Elite is installed on and (more importantly) appdata is sat no longer spikes up to 100%
  • D-Drive (6gb/sec normal HD) which now has the pagefile on it now spikes up to 100% instead.

Looks like during hyperspace elite is absolutely hammering the paging file.
 

Caspar

Caspar
Hell Razor5543 said:
I cannot help with the stutter, but what is your swap file doing? Regardless of how much memory your PC has, Windows ALWAYS generates a swap file (also known as a page file or virtual memory). Regardless of how fast your drive is (HDD or SSD), the swap file will cause disk thrashing if it is on the same drive as the required files, and the swap file starts getting used a lot. The swap file is used when there is insufficient memory for the active tasks (it acts as 'pretend' memory), and dates back to Windows 3 (if not earlier).
I have overcome this problem in a simple way. I have set up a drive specifically for the swap file (it has to be a drive, not a partition on a drive with multiple partitions). Fit a drive that is at least twice as big as the maximum potential memory the PC can handle. Once the PC has recognised it, name it "Swap File" (or something meaningful, so that you know that this is a drive for the PC, and not for your direct usage), and then go digging around in the Device Manager advanced settings until you find the references to Virtual Memory (different ways to find this depending on what version of Windows you are running). Switch it off for the C: drive (normal location), and switch it on for the dedicated "Swap File" drive, allowing the system to manage it. Assuming this works (I have not had it fail me yet), and that you do NOT use the swap file drive yourself, this should help. It does NOT make the PC go any faster, but it DOES remove a major bottleneck in the PC. By the way, I have 4 SSDs in my PC; one for the O/S and applications, another for the Swap File, a third one for my photos/music/videos, and the fourth for my games. I have used this trick since Windows 98.
EDIT; I have just checked, and Windows 7 on my PC has created a 32GB swap file, even though I have 32GB DDR3 RAM, and with no major games or applications running.
Click to expand...

Swap isn't always created as it can be switched off. When you're playing ED, it's 32 bit so I imagine will never use more than 4 GB no? So if it needs data / textures etc then it will go to the game files and have nothing to do with swap.

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_Dastardly_ said:
Oops I was wrong about my pagefile. It was actually on the same drive as elite.

Moved it to another drive and a few things happen.
  • Hyperspace is a bit less juddery
  • C-Drive (SSD that Elite is installed on and (more importantly) appdata is sat no longer spikes up to 100%
  • D-Drive (6gb/sec normal HD) which now has the pagefile on it now spikes up to 100% instead.

Looks like during hyperspace elite is absolutely hammering the paging file.
Click to expand...

Ok ... Looks like I'm wrong. But why would it be paging? Perhaps because paging overcomes the address limitations of a 32 bit application?
 
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Jack Schitt

Jack Schitt
Hell Razor5543 said:
I have overcome this problem in a simple way. I have set up a drive specifically for the swap file

[....]

EDIT; I have just checked, and Windows 7 on my PC has created a 32GB swap file, even though I have 32GB DDR3 RAM, and with no major games or applications running.
Click to expand...
Have you tried running without any paging file? My system specs are broadly similar to yours except I have only 16GB of RAM but I've been running without a pagefile since day one.

This is the first machine I've ever been able to do that with, and while I don't hammer it with an insane number of simultaneous running programs there have been days when I've had Thunderbird, Open Office, Windows Movie Maker and a dozen Chrome tabs all open at the same time, along with all the background stuff, with no ill effects. Chrome tabs seem to be the biggest memory hog actually. On the rare occasions when things start to fall over due to lack of RAM it always tends to be when I've opened dozens of tabs simultaneously.

Windows is a bit over-enthusiastic when it comes to hitting the swap file, and if one is available it will be used long before it's really needed. There are probably very good efficiency reasons behind this, but that doesn't help if the read/write access to storage is itself a bottleneck.

For what it's worth my OS and most of my programs are on an SSD but all of my games and data, including ED, are on spinning HDDs. They're on 6Gb/s channels but the drives themselves are three or four years old so by no means cutting edge. I see very slight occasional stutter during the first second of hyperspace but that's pretty much it. These tend to coincide with other players' PCs appearing in the network log so the stutter might even be network related and nothing to do with the background rendering at all.

In every other regard ED is silky smooth.

As an experiment try disabling your swap file completely. If I can get away with it on 16GB your 32GB rig should take it in its stride. In combination with an SSD it does wonders for Windows' boot time, too. Windows tends to hammer the swap file while all the startup programs are loading.
 
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