Hard Drive RPMs

pinstripe007 · Oct 28, 2004, 04:29 PM

Will I notice a difference in a 80G 4200 RPM drive compared to a 60G 7200RPM drive in a laptop when I am playing games such as Doom 3 and UT2K4.

If it helps the laptop is the Ferrari 3200. Thanks for any info.

CaptinSxb · Oct 28, 2004, 04:35 PM

I would assume that a hdd with more rpms would generate heat. the 7200 will obviously be faster but ive never gone from one to the other so nto sure if youll notice it.

MiDKnYtE · Oct 28, 2004, 05:27 PM

the maps, etc. will load faster, but the gameplay won't improve much.

pinstripe007 · Oct 28, 2004, 06:52 PM

Thanks, so it's almost better to keep the 80G 4200 hard drive...cooler and most likely will not make too big of a difference. I'll just upgrade the ram then.

The_Neon_Cowboy · Oct 28, 2004, 07:07 PM

seak times will be faster should improve over all performance quite a bit

pinstripe007 · Oct 28, 2004, 07:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The_Neon_Cowboy

seak times will be faster should improve over all performance quite a bit

Hmmm...now coming from Neon Cowboy, back to square one and ponder this dilema.

MiDKnYtE · Oct 28, 2004, 07:58 PM

he specifically asked about games. overall the system will improve, but frame rates will not increase. once the maps, textures, etc. are loaded to ram, the hdd won't help much.

swimtech · Oct 29, 2004, 04:12 PM

I've done this to an older IBM 600E (366pe PII processor - much like a PIII) - it made the whole computer feel faster - you'll notice the difference during any disk access, probably a bit bigger difference with a more modern laptop and a much faster CPU. Above about 512 Mb, more ram doesn't seem to help overall computer speed so that you would notice unless you run several large apps at once (under XP).

That being said - a faster hard drive alone will not improve frame rates during gameplay. More ram should help the game run more smoothly, without hitches or pauses, when the video memory is full and the textures must be swapped from ram (first) or the hard drive (second) and the cpu must devote cycles to handle those actions.

I would say that more ram (up to a Gig) would help with the latest games most, but a faster hard drive would help overall Windows and single application speed more than adding ram above 512Mb.

~~Crash Override~~ · Nov 19, 2004, 12:23 AM

not quite true.

ever heard of dynamic loading games?

basically its a game where not all the textures and terrains and weather effects are loaded into memory but are streamed from the HD while the game is played.

Need For Speed: Underground being a prime example, and especially Halo where all the loads are pretty much done in real-time.

rjpogi · Nov 19, 2004, 05:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Crash Override

not quite true.

ever heard of dynamic loading games?

basically its a game where not all the textures and terrains and weather effects are loaded into memory but are streamed from the HD while the game is played.

Need For Speed: Underground being a prime example, and especially Halo where all the loads are pretty much done in real-time.

is HALF-LIFE 2 and DOOM 3 one of these "dynamic loading games" ???

MiDKnYtE · Nov 19, 2004, 02:02 PM

even with dynamic loading, that would not increase the video card performance. once the data is received from the hdd, the video card must process that information. It's like a toll booth. The toll booth operator can only process so many cars per minute. Even if you can drive more cars to the toll booth, you are limited by the toll booth operator.

Would I upgrade the hdd? definitely. however, it would be for overall system performance, not framerate.

The_Neon_Cowboy · Nov 19, 2004, 05:31 PM

A hard drive is the slowest more largest bottle neck in any system...

do me a favor take a system o/c 6gh p4 / 4000+ AMD 64 and a 6800 ultra or x800xtpe use 512 or 1 gb of ram

now try the system with a 2gb ata 33 hard drive and tell me when it takes you a minute and muntue and a half to boot and you game runs slowly.. that hdd has no performance impact on the entire system includeing games...

you can never have enough memory, your system and you game creates temprary caches where? of you harddrive! the read and written two while you game....

run something hdd intensive and try to play a game... it will drop fps and go verry slow...

A good hard drive is verry important.....

rjpogi · Nov 19, 2004, 06:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rjpogi

is HALF-LIFE 2 and DOOM 3 one of these "dynamic loading games" ???

bump

bump bump

bug77 · Nov 19, 2004, 06:14 PM

Also higher RPM means more power drain. So if you're planning on gaming on batteries...

Geminiwave · Nov 19, 2004, 06:48 PM

better seek time means better framerates. seriously. Because yeah sure your framerate will be fine...until the game has to freeze for a minute to load new textures. faster harddrive will eliminate such pauses, thus improving average framerates.

rjpogi · Nov 20, 2004, 09:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rjpogi

bump

bump bump

bump again

Geminiwave · Nov 20, 2004, 12:55 PM

dont bump it anymore. you got the answers you were looking for.

davidnsibs · Nov 20, 2004, 01:15 PM

well hl2 has loading points after each 'level' or whatever you want to call it, static loading. nfsu2 doesnt do this, you can drive all over the city without it stopping to load a new section, its sort of contiunously loading all the time so doesnt need a big pause. halo is similar, doesnt stop when loading the next bit of map, mos fps i guess are like hl2, each level loads after you finish the one you're on (CoD, farcry, nolf etc)