Not sure if ssd is trolling or just slow

[adi518 73]

Hey guys,

 

I have a Crucial M4 installed, 128gb model, with 8 gigs of free space as of now.

 

I noticed that fsx doesn't load that fast even with the ssd. The ssd is set on the fast intel chipset sata socket and I ran a benchmark to verify it reads @ 500mb/s, and indeed it does.

 

I was seeing someone's rig with a Samsung 830 loading up a default 747 in flytampa's dubai, and that was much MUCH faster.. like 10 seconds or so. I don't get it then. :(

 

Maybe my ssd is less fast on specific size files? I know that there are sub-categories for SSD where one can perform significantly better than another.

[some1 65]

Have you tested using the same addons and scenery settings? Because otherwise the comparison doesn't mean much.

Also loading the same place for a second time even after FSX restart is faster because the data is already in RAM, maybe the guy did just that.

 

Besides, FSX loadings times depend greatly on the CPU speed and number of cores. Actually, it's the only place where having more than 4 cores can make a difference. If you open up Task Manager you'll see that during FSX loading for most of the time all cores work at 100%.

 

I switched from Crucial M4 128GB to Samsung 830 256GB and apart from the space available, I haven't noticed any difference. Lack of free space was the only reason why I changed SSD's.

[adi518 73]

Hmm... yeh I know that it loads faster after the first load, so we can put that as base assumption.

 

I do notice something kinda weird... when I put fsx in windowed mode and load a flight.. it will load at the same rate as long as I can the fsx window in focus. If I turn to another program, same chrome, I can see that it sort of stops loading.. well not stopping, but the load rate is becoming much slower until I focus on it again. I mean, it will load eventually but much slower if I don't keep the fsx window in focus the whole time.

 

Btw, I'm using affinitymask set to 84 (board uses HT, can't disable it because it's a non-gaming board and lack some of these features) .

 

That's what the cpu load looks like when I load a flight. Btw, in-game cpu usage remains like 30-40%, but one core seems to be sky high all the time (I think core #2):

 

 

Strange. I thought affinitymask=84 suppose to distribute the load somewhat better. I just removed it from my cfg and the initial load stands around 40 seconds. The reload (once the flight is cached) it loads into flight extremely fast, 2-5 seconds.

 

The overall cpu load goes up to 45-50% now.

[JimmiG 244]

Your problem is the Affinity Mask. The 2500K does not support Hyper Threading. This is why you only see four graphs in task manager, not eight, so 84 is a really strange value to use.

84 is is 01010100 in binary. You count from the right, and start with Core #0. 0 means "Don't use this logical or physical CPU for the terrain engine", 1 means "Use this logical or physical CPU".

 

With only 4 threads, that would probably be interpreted as 0100, ie. only Core #2 will actually be used by the terrain engine. Loading performance will therefore be similar to a single-core CPU.

 

You either want to use 14, which is 1110, ie. three cores are used for the terrain engine, or get rid of the affinitymask line altogether (all four cores are being used). Personally I'm not a fan of the affinitymask "tweak", but try both and see what works best for you.

[adi518 73]

I'm such an idiot. Someone give me a good knock in the head, a'right?!  :rolleyes:

This all time I was blindly believing 2500k has HT while it is the 2600k that has it. My bad.
 

Now all cores are used.

 

I noticed the following:

 

1st load- 40 seconds.

2nd load - 20 seconds.

3rd load - up to 5 seconds

It's still funny how one core of the 2500k took on fsx without much effort haha! badass cpu, that's for sure.

[Howellerman 104]

Hi Adi, 

 

Short follow-up for you. SSD drives get slower as they get fuller, primarily for writes. This is due to the "sector" assignment engine on the SSD working harder figuring out where to put the new data. A brand new fresh SSD can be very much faster than one that is near capacity.

 

What may also be happening is that your reads are also generating a write. Every time Windows reads a file it resets the Last Accessed time, which is a write. There is a small little Register utility that disables this activity. Do a search on DisableLastAccessUpdate.reg.

 

It may help a bit.

[adi518 73]

Yes, I heard that indeed become a little slower.

 

I need a new ssd, with at least 400 gigs of space. You don't know that until you get into fsx haha.

 

Btw, I'm using a temp solution that saves me some space and allows for more scenery installs. I took my simobjects folder and moved it to my mechanical drive, then I used this third party app to create a link between the folders. I did that because loading the plane seems to be at lower priority while loading. It saved me like 20 gigs, and fsx still loads fast enough.

 

Thanks a lot for the reg tip, I didn't have it!

[Luke 782]

What may also be happening is that your reads are also generating a write. Every time Windows reads a file it resets the Last Accessed time, which is a write. There is a small little Register utility that disables this activity. Do a search on DisableLastAccessUpdate.reg.

 

 

FWIW this behavior is already disabled in Vista and Windows 7.

 

Cheers!

Luke

[adi518 73]

Hmmm.. yeh, I found an article where it was purposed on xp. Well, anyway, looks like things are much better now, so the case is pretty much solved. Thanks a lot everyone.

[OldMaintChief 7]

No need to turn your cores off. Use AM=14, or no AM.

 

Dave