Any sugestions in this post have been widley used and tested by thousands of people for a number of years and will not harm your computer.
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Info
At one time or another, all of us have complained of too low or choppy frame rates at least once when we're playing games. Low frame rates can be detrimental to the gaming experience, particularly if it happens at that critical moment when you've lined up for a frag and got fragged instead by the one on your crosshair. Naturally, we don't want any lag when playing games, so what can we do? A lot actually, but we must know what caused these problems in the first place.
When most people complain about lag, they either mean too low frame rates or choppy frame rates (stuttering). Actually, they are very different from one another - low frame rates are often caused by the lack of performance from either the processor or graphics cards in your PC. On the other hand, stuttering can be caused by a number of different things. Solving low frame rates problems are relatively easy: either get a faster processor, graphics card or both. A less expensive solution will be to turn down the details and / or resolution of the game you're playing. Stuttering problems are harder to solve - it can be anything from a software bug, either in the drivers or the game itself, to something else entirely. That's why people are always telling you to update your drivers and games with the latest drivers and patches.
So, if even after updating your drivers and applying the latest patches, you still have stuttering - what's next? Barring software bugs and hardware problems, stuttering problems are often caused by the game taking too much time retrieving or fetching data it needs - either from the memory or hard disk. In short, that could mean your PC's memory is too slow or too small. Here we look at what we can do to eliminate memory-related stuttering and what's the best solution to have a lag free gaming rig.
Virtual memory (Page File)
The paging file is widely known as the windows virtual memory file. This file is used by the system when the windows run short of the actual RAM. Windows keeps on increasing and decreasing the size of the page file, which in itself is not very efficient. This affects the accessibility of fragmentation of your files. You should rather define your own paging size. Select the minimum and maximum size of the virtual memory to be the same. <<(This one really works well). A preferable size is about 1.5 times the RAM you have.
To enhance performance, it is good practice to put the paging file on a different partition and/or on a different physical hard disk drive. That way, Windows can handle multiple I/O requests more quickly. When the paging file is on the boot partition, Windows must perform disk reading and writing requests on both the system folder and the paging file. When the paging file is moved to a different partition, there is less competition between reading and writing requests.
To access the Page file in Win XP
In Windows XP go to My Computer, right click it and then choose Properties, go to the Advanced tab, click the Settings button in Performance. Then click the Advanced tab and the click the change button in Virtual memory.
Now you can view and set the parameters you need.
Under Drive [Volume Label], click the drive that contains the paging file you want to change.
Under Paging file size for selected drive, click Custom size, type a new paging file size in megabytes (MB) in the
Initial size (MB) or Maximum size (MB) box, and then click Set.
Make shure you set the Initial size and Maximum size to the same amount (about 1.5 times your Physical Ram)
If you decrease the size of either the initial or maximum paging file settings, you must restart your computer to see the effects of those changes. When you increase the paging file size, you typically do not need to restart your
computer.
For best performance, do not set the initial size to less than the minimum recommended size under Total paging file size for all drives. The recommended size is equivalent to 1.5 times the amount of RAM on your system. Usually, you should leave the paging file at its recommended size, although you might increase its size if you routinely use programs that require a lot of memory.
If you do put the file elsewhere, you should leave a small amount on C: - an initial size of 2MB with a Maximum of 50 is suitable - so it can be used in emergency. Without this, the system is inclined to ignore the settings and either have no page file at all (and complain) or make a very large one indeed on the C: drive.
Virtual memory does have its limits and these limits can be very 'limiting'. Suppose you only have 512 MB of memory (in addition to virtual memory), but the game you're running is using up to 1 GBs of memory (or more). Even with virtual memory, there's only place for less than half of that in RAM. You'd have to put the rest of it in virtual memory. If the game needs to access all of them at once, the operating system must swap between the RAM and the page file. In this situation, the processor will be able to quickly process the data in memory, but it may have to wait until the rest of the data (in virtual memory) is swapped from the hard disk - the hard disk is much slower than RAM. That's when you'll notice a sharp drop in frame rates - a 'stutter'. Frame rates will go back up once the hard disk finished reading (or writing) and all the data processed. With larger amounts of data, the hard disk will have to spend more time accessing data, so the 'stutter' can take more time. The worst scenario in this case will be if the game needs to access all this data all the time, then the operating system must continually swap data between RAM and virtual memory.
Larger is better
The next question is how much RAM do we really need - especially to run games. Now, let's take a look at some memory 'footprints' - how much memory and page file used by several games.
Windows XP
Mem available 382.55
Mem installed 512
Mem used 129.45
Page file used 172
Page file normal 172
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>0
Total memory used 129.45
(estimated)
BF2
Mem available 39.47
Mem installed 512
Mem used 472.53
Page file used 1032
Page file normal 172
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>860
Total memory used 1332.53
(estimated)
Brothers in Arms
Mem available 181.18
Mem installed 512
Mem used 330.82
Page file used 314
Page file normal 172
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>142
Total memory used 472.82
(estimated)
Call of Duty
Mem available 12.41
Mem installed 512
Mem used 499.86
Page file used 445
Page file normal 172
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>273
Total memory used 772.86
(estimated)
(all numbers are in MBs and are rough examples)
You can see that older games usually have smaller memory footprints than newer games - most of them will still fit comfortably within 512 MB of RAM. Higher details (both polygons and textures) means larger amounts of data and larger amounts of memory needs to be accessed. Games with total memory used lower than 512 MB should be (relatively) 'stutter-free' since we don't always have to access the hard disk. Games with memory footprints slightly larger than 512 MB should still be stutter free, since the game may only need small bits of data from the hard disk. For games with larger memory footprints, it would be wise to upgrade this 512 MB system to 1 GB or even 2 GB (like for Battlefield 2) to completely avoid memory related stuttering. Larger amounts of memory, while tempting, is not really necessary. Remember, a 32 bit application (and operating system) can only address up to 4 GBs of memory. The 32 bit version Windows XP does come with a feature that allows it to address more than 4 GBs of memory, but it won't be useful for games (particularly 32 bit games).
A typical motherboard has 3 to 4 memory slots (DIMM slots) to hold memory. Most modern chipsets such as the NForce 4 or VIA K8T800 cam support up to 4 GBs of RAM. So if you want to have 4 GB, you need 4 modules of 1 GB, preferably PC3200 DDR SDRAM modules (or greater). If you're shooting for 2 GB, you could either use 4 modules of 512 MB or 2 modules of 1 GB. The difference will be the command rate - the 1 GB modules may be dual bank modules so you'll have to use 2T instead of 1T. The other difference will be latency: 1 GB modules usually comes as CAS Latency 3 modules, while 512 MB may come as CAS Latency 3, 2,5 or 2 (if you're willing to spend the money).
Lower Load Times
There is one other point I wanted to address in this post that while it doesn't affect gameplay performance, you as users will appreciate too: load times. By having more memory, the game will be able to make use of the additional memory and load all the data it needs entirely in RAM. This could make load times shorter. At least in theory. Take a look at this example: if an application has 640 MBs of data to load at one time on a 512 MB system, the rest (about 128 MB) will be written back to virtual memory (hard disk). Now, the game may not need all that data at once, so the additional data can be loaded in background while we're playing (without causing a stutter). However, during loading, the operating system must write back the data into the hard disk, adding more time to the loading process. In this situation, having more memory provide extra benefits that performance testing alone can't show.
Closing down background tasks
Almost certainly there are a variety of programs running on your computer, eating up resources, even if you don't know they are there. These range from programs you have open to windows processes or even spy ware running without your knowledge. Often these 'background tasks' cause conflicts when trying to play games and eat up some of your RAM that the game needs. Even users with plenty of system resources can still experience conflicts with background tasks such as Antivirus or Crash guard programs running. Thankfully it is easy to shut down background tasks and this can be done each time you want to play without affecting your computer.
To shut down background tasks if you have Windows XP:
Hold down the Ctrl and Alt keys on your keyboard at the same time, and press the Delete key once to display Task Manager if you have Home Edition.
To End Applications
Click on the Applications tab to view the list of active programs.
Click on any program listed in this window and select the End Task button.
Repeat the previous instructions until all programs have been closed.
To End Processes
Click on the Processes tab to view the list of active processes.
Click in the User Name column header to organize the processes by login.
Click on any program listed next to your Windows login, other than EXPLORER.EXE and TASKMGR.EXE, then select the End Process button.
Repeat the previous instructions until all programs associated to your Windows Login are closed other than TASKMGR.EXE and EXPLORER.EXE
Note: Do not close any processes running under SYSTEM, LOCAL SERVICE, or NETWORK SERVICE.
That's it. Don't forget that any background applications or processes that you shut down will be unavailable to you, but they will return to normal the next time you reboot your computer.
Or you can get a good FREE program (Smart Close) to do it for you safely here
Multiple Partitions
It is also good practice to make multiple patitions.
One for the operating system.
One for the paging file.
One for games.
One for Graphics, Music, Downloads etc etc.
This way they do not get to Fragged, and it is quicker and easier to Defragment when nessecary (about once a week is a good guide.)
By the way this is the best defrag software available IMHO is......
Diskeeper 2007 home or small office.
http://www.diskeeper.com/defrag.asp
I hope this will help some people to get a bit more enjoyment from their games.
Outlaw
