Use a RAM drive to reduce stuttering

[LoBiSoMeM]

Originally Posted by katdogfizzow

Wow, Nice observation! I just changed that and I think I am able to report the same. I was flying around for about 10 minutes of testing and couldn't really notice any stuttering at all anymore.....so appears to be gone...possibly even a fps improvement over cities. No RAMdisk attempt here yet either

i7-2600K
2 x 460s SLI 1GBea w/280.19beta
8GB
+vsync on

30-45fps

Yes. And more info:

- I change my old AM2+ motherboard for a decent AM3 one, and from 4GB DRR2 800 I jump to 8GB DR3 1333.

No other tweaks and changes in W7, VM, "Desktop Composition", just Aero disabled and Indexing.

Much better FPS and no more "abnormal" stutters at all. And after I tested with VM off, Desktop composition off, using RAMDISK... all the same.

I believe this issue is much less "HD related" than people think. More and faster RAM will do the trick if you don't have 3GB VRAM VGA until more work in high resolution texture streaming in CloD.

I'm really happy now with performance, just waiting for the new soud engine.

[StkNRdr]

I found this thread, and the idea of a RAM drive, very interesting. After some thought I don't think I would use it as posted BUT I have a question. After creating a RAM drive, is it possible to dedicate its use to that of additional VRAM?

I have a 1GB GTX 285 and thought, if 2GB+ cards were better for the game, wouldn't it be great if I could add virtual VRAM. I tried to Google it but mainly what I received back was how to make a RAM drive out of video memory.

If this was even possible I have no idea if it would help run the game any better but I'm willing to give it a shot.

Haven't done a RAM drive since my old Apple IIe days.

[III/JG53_Don]

Sorry I don't have an answer to your question. But it is quite interesting actually!
Anyway is the Ram Drive still an option to reduce stuttering after the last patch? I recently got a middle class GPU (Radeon 6870) which runs the game quite well. But allthough I'm barely under 30fps with mostly maximum settings I get the freakin' stutters.

[Thee_oddball]

Originally Posted by III/JG53_Don

Sorry I don't have an answer to your question. But it is quite interesting actually!
Anyway is the Ram Drive still an option to reduce stuttering after the last patch? I recently got a middle class GPU (Radeon 6870) which runs the game quite well. But allthough I'm barely under 30fps with mostly maximum settings I get the freakin' stutters.

you would be better off just buying a small SSD and loading you OS and most demanding games on it. 40GB $75
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820233177

[335th_GRAthos]

Originally Posted by StkNRdr

After creating a RAM drive, is it possible to dedicate its use to that of additional VRAM?

I have a 1GB GTX 285 and thought, if 2GB+ cards were better for the game, wouldn't it be great if I could add virtual VRAM.

You do not need to do this because your GPU is actually doing this for you: What is not inside the available VRAM, it will be loaded from the RAM or if not there, from the hard disk.
If something is loaded from the hard disk, there is risk of experiencing a mini stutter.

If (very common CoD situation) your VRAM is full, your GPU starts unloading things from the VRAM in order to mae free space and load the additional things.
If this is a constant situation then you will notice that easily, your fps will usually drop to 50% of what you usually have.
The reason for the drop is that loading data from the RAM (or even worse the hard disk) has to go through the motherboard circuits (your PCI Express) and it is much much slower than the ultra high speed VRAM (nowadays GDDR5 class).

In short: Your idea is clever but unworkable as it will not deliver the performance you hope for.


On the other side, if your problem is on the data handling from your hard disk to the VRAM, creating a 5-6Gb RAMDISK and loading most game files there, will solve your problems.
You need to have 12-16Gb RAM on your PC in order to do things like that...

~S~

[StkNRdr]

Thx GRAthos. Foiled again...

[jimbop]

Originally Posted by Thee_oddball

you would be better off just buying a small SSD and loading you OS and most demanding games on it. 40GB $75
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820233177

This is becoming a very viable solution. Note, though, that there is still >10x access speed difference between RAM and SSD.

[Ataros]

Originally Posted by III/JG53_Don

Sorry I don't have an answer to your question. But it is quite interesting actually!
Anyway is the Ram Drive still an option to reduce stuttering after the last patch? I recently got a middle class GPU (Radeon 6870) which runs the game quite well. But allthough I'm barely under 30fps with mostly maximum settings I get the freakin' stutters.

I do not use it any more since summer I think. Just reduce settings if you still have stutters, e.g. texture quality and lighting-related are very important to get rid of stutters. Also reduce settings in the video driver. Check out the last link in my sig.

Anti-virus real-time file and network monitoring makes stutters too.

If you are stuck at 30 fps than probably you have vsync ON without triple buffering.

[StkNRdr]

Thanks Ataros.

I checked out your thread. I turned down Textures to Medium and this helped. I believe I am currently at a flyable mp state.

I also tried this:
7. In video drivers put mip-map levels and texture quality to performance or high performance to save vram (especially 1gb card owners).

Very strange, in nVidia, going from Quality to Performance actually gave me fewer fps and higher stutter. I'll have to try High Performance. Just strange how things that by common sense should improve things, don't. And that they work on one system and not another.

[Ataros]

Originally Posted by StkNRdr

Thanks Ataros.

I checked out your thread. I turned down Textures to Medium and this helped. I believe I am currently at a flyable mp state.

"High" is actually lower than "Original". You can also try "High".

Originally Posted by StkNRdr

I also tried this:
7. In video drivers put mip-map levels and texture quality to performance or high performance to save vram (especially 1gb card owners).

Very strange, in nVidia, going from Quality to Performance actually gave me fewer fps and higher stutter. I'll have to try High Performance. Just strange how things that by common sense should improve things, don't. And that they work on one system and not another.

I have it on Quality instead of High Quality.

Also try emptying the cache folder in Documents/1C... after changing settings.