Hyperspace causing 100% Disk usage

[Hell Razor5543]

But Morbad was talking about 32 bit applications running on 32 bit or 64 operating systems. You are talking about the operating system and hardware so although you are correct you've got the wrong end of the stick and in that respect noting you said is of any value

He made an error. He clearly stated (in post #24) that the amount of memory a 32bit Windows O/S could address was 3GB, and a 64bit Windows O/S could only manage 4GB. My PC, running Windows 7 64bit can clearly see and make use of all 32GB RAM fitted (as well as the 2GB DDR5 on my graphics cards). While the applications may have their own limitations, they still have to work within the limitations of the O/S.
EDIT; Upon re-reading #24 I get that what he meant was that, while the O/S may be able to address a lot more memory, the application itself is constrained by its own limitations, so a 32bit application can only access a maximum of 4GB regardless of how much is really available.

 

[Windscreen Smudge]

There is IDE compability mode on SATA.

As a function of SATA or as a function of SSD drivers?
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Serious question, because one of the most asked question I used to see on forums when SSD's were becoming a thing was "Why won't my SSD work?" and the first response was always "You didn't set it up for IDE did you?" and if the answer was yes it fixed the problem every time. I can't speak from experience though because I have never tried to use one with IDE as a result of watching everyone else's issues with it first.

 

[Tryst]

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..?

Possibly the difference between download speed and disk access speed. If the former exceeds the latter, (it can happen, even with SSD's depending on your internet speed), it's going to cap the SSD. The only way to get around that is for FD to cap the upload speed while you're in hyperspace to allow for standard Sata drives to keep up.

I run the game from a 2Tb Sata 3 with a 10mb internet connection and have no problem at all. My disk usage rarely hits 75%. It probably means I spend more time in hyperspace than other people but the game runs smoothly for me. I get more stutter coming out of SC to a station but I'd say that's more to do with my processor and graphics not quite being strong enough to handle the graphics settings I've selected. Even now, it's stuttering like mad just writing this while the client is running in the background and the ship is parked on an outpost. I get a PC upgrade on Monday with better graphics and processor (a late Christmas present to myself) so even that will clear up then.

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As a function of SATA or as a function of SSD drivers?
|
Serious question, because one of the most asked question I used to see on forums when SSD's were becoming a thing was "Why won't my SSD work?" and the first response was always "You didn't set it up for IDE did you?" and if the answer was yes it fixed the problem every time. I can't speak from experience though because I have never tried to use one with IDE as a result of watching everyone else's issues with it first.

It's a BIOS setting for the disk drive in question. Some PC's BIOS doesn't default to IDE.

 

[Scoob]

As a point of interest, I've moved ED from an old 1tb spinner to a much faster SSD and finally on to a RAID0 pairs of SSD's and loading times are no different once I'm in-game. Judder continues to sync with network activity.

I'm guessing Frontier will continue to refine this If I'm having issues in SOLO with no other human peers to transfer data to/from then busy areas in OPEN must be terrible.

Scoob.

 

[erbal]

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.

If you want optimal performance, do this but do not allow windows to manage the swap file size, instead set it to the largest size it can be on that disk - that way windows won't bother wasting time resizing the swap file

Alternatively, if you have a huge amount of ram (eg: 32GB) just switch the swap file off completely - you don't need it and switching it off will avoid the extra processing of maintaining it!

 

[simonlange]

Well nice 32bit addressing discussion but lets say this.

why they do not provide a 64bit native executable? and why should ANYBODY need 2GB RAM for a pretty rudimentary hyperspace animation. jeez i could put a whole movie in HD into 2GB RAM. so a looping HD anim of several seconds - what would it take - 30mb at max? so we may stop this usefull subthread and focus on the issue. the issue is WHY the heck is it stuttering and when will it be fixed.
and maybe why is there no 64bit application which would allow far better (faster) memory operations on a recent rig.

just my 2 cents

Simon

 

[Hell Razor5543]

I can understand why there is (currently) only a 32bit version. It is probably because there are more 32bit systems playing the game than 64bit. Here is hoping that FD are planning to create a 64bit variant (probably once the Apple launcher and other things in the pipeline are done).

 

[neXib]

If you want optimal performance, do this but do not allow windows to manage the swap file size, instead set it to the largest size it can be on that disk - that way windows won't bother wasting time resizing the swap file

Alternatively, if you have a huge amount of ram (eg: 32GB) just switch the swap file off completely - you don't need it and switching it off will avoid the extra processing of maintaining it!

I wouldn't recommend turning it off. Windows will hard crash like a sumbitch if something goes wrong (memory leak or something) and at that point you may have forgotten about turning it off, leading to a mystery that would leave you well annoyed.

I have 32 gigs of RAM, but I let Windows control the swap drive on my OS SSD, all games go to another bigger SSD.

 

[Quineloe]

is it actually writing on your SSD?

 

[simonlange]

I can understand why there is (currently) only a 32bit version. It is probably because there are more 32bit systems playing the game than 64bit. Here is hoping that FD are planning to create a 64bit variant (probably once the Apple launcher and other things in the pipeline are done).

well creating a 64bit variant is not that hard. its a matter of days (only if u need to modify larger functions) more likely a matter of minutes. its all about how you compile.
also you are wrong. since years no 32bit cpu are sold anymore on PC. the mayority is native 64bit or at least compatible (intel). even windows x64 is more sold than 32bit versions. you were right 10 years ago. well we re in 2015 meanwhile.

however, i wonder why they still do discuss the pagefile matter. it doesnt cause the stuttering. i got 32gb of ram my pagefile is not even used by the system and guess what i got stuttering when into hyperspace. so instead blaming layer8 lets pinpoint to the real responsible - software engineering head of and maybe the head of QA as the cto which usually also do supervise the R&D derpartment.

Simon

 

[Lestradae]

I second that

1) the stuttering is an annoying bug that should go - hilarious that a glorified screensaver should stutter while the game when it really has to do something does not
2) devs, create a 64bit program please! what insanity is this to not have one with a game this graphics-intense???
3) in update 1.06 on my system the stutter was gone - and it returned with 1.07 ... perhaps something was rolled back that already worked?

This should really get priority, its ugly as hell in an otherwise breathtaking game.

EDIT: Got confused about the update numbers, and corrected that.

 

[Lestradae]

It would be cool if a dev could answer to the "why no 64bit application" topic.

If true, this is really absurd for a game this cpu-intense.

 

[_Dastardly_]

Here's my findings.

I switched the pagefile to a 6gb/sec SATA hard drive. Drive going to 100% usage (according to perfmon it was 70% writes to the pagefile, 30% reads from the pagefile). At this point I found that one of my memory banks had died reducing me to 4gb memory (still should have been loads more than enough, there was about 1.5gb 'available' as windows puts it). Hyperspace still really jerky and horrible.

Quick next day delivery from amazon later and this morning I had a nice triple-channel pack of memory turn up that I'm now running.

Pagefile stopped being used. Hyperspace slightly jerky but really not noticable.

It looks like the game has issues with this with 4gb or less memory. If any dev reads this they might want to look at it for poor souls with lower amounts of memory, 4gb should be easily enough to run without paging.