Increasing performance for PE

Entropia Universe Discussion n00bs Corner
1

Ok, this topic comes up often on different forums, and I’m gonna share what I’ve done.

I see many people complain about big lag-issues. Yes, everyone lags but there is a lot you can do to reduce it. More ram helps, but I don’t know how much. Myself I run with 512 mb ram, and I only lag badly when there is more than 30 mobs on screen. And, I run the game up to 10 hours straight, including trips to PA, and it doesn’t slow down the game that much.

So, first thing to do, is windows Virtual Memory. I assume you know how to change this, so I won’t go into Windows details, but more line it out. Note: Changing the virtual memory/pagefile MIGHT damage your system.

First of all, some basics. The pagefile is Windows’ virtual memory, that is, where it stores things that there isn’t room for in the RAM. Reading from the harddrive is slower than accessing things from the ram-chips, so many thinks that removing the pagefile solves things. This is actually wrong. What this results in is that wrong things is kept in the ram, cluttering it up more.

To have an efficient pagefile, most people suggest it being the double of what you have installed of ram, so for my system, I need it around 1024mb. As a constant pagefile is not recommended (will come back to that) I’ve set it to 768 - 1280. That way it can grow some.

The pagefile, as all files on fat/ntfs-filesystems, gets fragmented. Fragmentation means that the file is not written in order. Imagine reading a book, where the pages are not after each other, but you have to “access” the book from more places. This is slow, so we want to have the pagefile defragmented at all times. Running defrag is a good idea, but it doesn’t help for long. And while on the subject, a constant pagefile gets fragmented way faster than a variable one! So, how do we avoid fragmentation? As fragmentation mostly occurs when the system writes to parts of the harddrive where the pagefile is located, we have to avoid this at all costs.

First of all, you need to know how to partition your harddrive. For a multi-disk system I reccomend having the pagefile on a different harddrive than both windows and PE if possible. For a two disk system, have pe and windows on one harddrive, and the pagefile on the other disk, preferable the fastest disk. (And by fastest I don’t always mean the one with the highest rpm, run some benchmarks to find the one to use).

Now we know which disk to use, and here comes the trick: Partition the disk so you have one partition that is Max size of Pagefile+half a gb in size. Also make sure that it is on the beginning of the disk. All excess free space can be used as always. (I recommend Partition Magic for windows, not very expencive, and I’m not sure if there are any other good non-destructive partitioning programs out there, at least not free).

Now, set windows to use the pagefile-partition as the drive to use. From now on, NEVER write to this disk. I’ve now run this setup for 3 months, and defragmentation of the pagefile has never been necesary. As I write this article, I wanted to defrag it just for fun, and it took under a second to do so. In other words, you can set up your computer to do it when it boots, or once a day without system interference.

Next tip: Turn of all those dingly thingsy windows xp comes with as standard. They really do take up some precious system resources, and they are nothing but mere eye-candy (ok, not really candy either). I also recommend for more experienced users to get rid of the whole taskbar, as explorer.exe is know to reat resources like an atrox likes oj’s.

The systray: People think programs that lay dorment here do just that, lay dorment. They don’t. They are longu, and your ram is noob. They take a big bite of things, and should be shut off. Same with any anti-virus software while playing. (I do not recommend having the anti-virus software disabled while using the computer for other things, see firew0lfs thread on windows security). Msn is also a bad wolf, so if you dear, close it completly while playing. As alt+tabbing from the game causes unnescesary writes to the pagefile and is not recommended, you won’t have need for msn anyway :wink:

That’s it this time, may add more later.

2

[QUOTE=Shadow-Ale]

I see many people complain about big lag-issues. Yes, everyone lags but there is a lot you can do to reduce it. More ram helps, but I don’t know how much. Myself I run with 512 mb ram, and I only lag badly when there is more than 30 mobs on screen. And, I run the game up to 10 hours straight, including trips to PA, and it doesn’t slow down the game that much.

To have an efficient pagefile, most people suggest it being the double of what you have installed of ram, so for my system, I need it around 1024mb. As a constant pagefile is not recommended (will come back to that) I’ve set it to 768 - 1280. That way it can grow some.

[/QUOTE]

i was with 512 ram and i lagged som , since i got 1024 , no lag.
for page file its better set the 2 ( mini and maxi) to se same number then window do not calcule all time how mutch he need , it also remove the fragmatention problem.
better put direct an huge number and forget it for ever.
2 time the ram is good but 3 time can fit too so 1024 or 1500 can be nice.

i have to say i player with average video card " 5200 fx" old pocessor " 1.3 gh PIII " and “512 ram” .
since i got : "radeon 9800 pro , 1024 ram , and PIV 3ghz " and do not lag.
the only lag i got is when there LG and 50 player that pk or when server slow down(kinda rare).

i am sorry to say , but lots of lag is clien side due to heavy PE and weak computeur.

3

Good article, but it’s actually worth noting this it actually IS recommended to set the minimum and maximum size of the page file to the same value, so long as it’s the correct value. Locking the size of the page file will improve performance as windows does not need to change the size of it as well as write to it.

Also, once the page file is locked, it cannot become fragmented. Ever.

The data within the page file can fragment of course, but it’s all overwritten each time you reboot so there both nothing you can do about it, nor a problem.

Executive Software’s Diskkeeper application (free trial available) can defrag the page file (the file itself, not the contents) so you dont need to even make it on a new drive, just lock the size and have Dk defrag the file, job done.

Oh, and files at the END of the disk are faster, so ideally, you’d want your page file at the end of the disk, not the start but the performance is not too noticable really. Good luck everyone :slight_smile:

4

[QUOTE=Dirk]
Good article, but it’s actually worth noting this it actually IS recommended to set the minimum and maximum size of the page file to the same value, so long as it’s the correct value. Locking the size of the page file will improve performance as windows does not need to change the size of it as well as write to it.
[/QUOTE]

I did some research of this topic prior to writing the article, and most sites prefered what they related to as semi-permanent. From my own experience I run into the “No more virtual memory available” more often when I have the pagefile set to a permanent value, something I also encountered while researching.

[QUOTE=Dirk]

Also, once the page file is locked, it cannot become fragmented. Ever.

The data within the page file can fragment of course, but it’s all overwritten each time you reboot so there both nothing you can do about it, nor a problem.

Executive Software’s Diskkeeper application (free trial available) can defrag the page file (the file itself, not the contents) so you dont need to even make it on a new drive, just lock the size and have Dk defrag the file, job done.
[/quote]

Having it on a seperate drive (read, not partition) is a major boost in itself, as windows don’t have to move the heads of the hd so much, and avoiding butterfly-reading etc.

[Quote=Dirk]
Oh, and files at the END of the disk are faster, so ideally, you’d want your page file at the end of the disk, not the start but the performance is not too noticable really. Good luck everyone :slight_smile:
[/QUOTE]

That is actually a matter of definition. The beginning of the disk is at the outer edge, so I hope that is what you define as end. All partitioning programs put the first partition at the beginning of the disk, and that is physical on the outer edge. I quote http://partition.radified.com/partitioning_2.htm :

“If you create a partition at the outer/leading edge of your drive (*1), and install your operating system & applications there .. and use the inner/slower parts of the disk for storing files that don’t require access during normal system operating (i.e. downloads, drivers, back-ups, Ghost images, etc.) .. you’ll limit/restrict your drive’s seeks to the fastest part of the drive.”

“System and program files that wind up at the far end of the drive take longer to access, and are transferred at a slower rate, which translates into a less-responsive system. If you look at the graph of sustained transfer rates (STRs) from the HD Tach benchmark posted here, you’ll see clearly that the outermost sectors of the drive transfer data the fastest.”

5

Oops, sorry, I didnt intend to send you scrambling for he google button, hope I didnt inconvenience too much.

When it comes to improving performance of PC, everyone has an opinion and some are right and some are wrong, I was simply trying to add another slant on your thread. In doing so I introduced an error, I think (cant bother checking) I was likely thinking of media such as CD’s wherein the ‘start’ is the innner tracks as opposed to a hard drive platter.

As for getting a windows message saying you are out of swap space when you have it statically assigned, well fair enough but you are running only 512MB, perhaps the amount you locked it to was insufficient or an application failed an ram away with the ram. The simple fact remains that a static page file cannot become fragmeneted and will take less OS resources to manage - provided it is sized correctly. A swap file can be too large, just the same way as it can be too small.

I really dont want to drag this into one of those threads where people argue over petty details, at the end of the day it’s down to the end user how to configure their own systems. Information is good, after all.

It may be worth mentioning that I have seen threads on other forums saying “set your page file to 4 times your ram, that will help performance” which is at best, short sighed and at worst, utter nonsense.

(if this seems like a rant, excuse me, I’m on the second bottle of wine) :wink:

6

Shads and Dirk, you’re both right of course

512 is adequate if you are running a lean W2000 system, or WXP with all the pretty stuff disabled, and no other programs

Personally, I think MA should up the minspec for PE, as in my opinion, your PC really needs 1GB to run PE smoothly

As someone who has worked with PCs for… damn… 20 years now, obviously the first thing I tried to do when getting PE was to optimise my PC for it

As Shadow-Ale said, if you have the means (eg. the number of hard drives on your system), then you should have Windows on one, PE on another, and your swapfile (pagefile) on yet another. (I personally also have moved “Program Files” to it’s own hard drive too, and changes all the regentries to point to the new path). This is the Linux way of doing things, and they do it for a reason. It works, and it work well

A fixed pagefile is far better than a dynamic one, as Windows constantly has to recalculate the optimal size of the pagefile needed, then resize it, then write the memory contents to it, when the file is not of fixed size

Yes Dirk, I also agree with you: 4x Ram sounds ludicrous, and just serves to keep in paged Ram data that has not been used for a long time

I have experimented with 1.5x, 2x, 2,5x, 3x, 3,5x, and 4x Ram as the size for a swapfile for PE

If you go by the *ix method, which generally recommends 2.5x Ram, I’ve personally found this to be the most efficient size for PE

Another thing to consider (and it’s in one of the next lessons in Windows Security, as it’s a security issue too) is to have Windows completely delete your pagefile on shut down, and recreate it when booting back up again. That way, fragmented data within the pagefile is much less of a problem. It adds a little to your initial boot up time, but how often do we reboot anyway?

Another thing you can do is to look for a program called CacheMan. It simply adds alot more memory profiles to Windows, and improves performance dramatically. It can also have a hotkey-enabled “clean my ram” function which actually works. Download it free from http://downloads.zdnet.co.uk/0,39025604,39061754s,00.htm

I also use a skinned desktop, along with some programs which let me use my PC more effectively day to day, but yes, unfortunately, they use system resources. The sensible thing while playing PE would be to turn them off

Etopia is also right. What players call “Lag” is often not lag, but simply a computer that cannot process the data fast enough, often because of paging to the swapfile, or other programs running in the background. Actual internet lag seems to be a rare thing

One thing that we can do nothing about, and it is something MA mentioned several VUs ago, is them optimising avatar loading. If they do this, it might just make Port Atlantis a sensible playable place to be

7

how do you do it

I like the idea of windows wiping the page file but how do you do it on XP home? I have 512 ram so have set my vm to 1300 min and max. I am downloading cacheman and will use it. any other specific suggestions for xp?
Bear in mind we are noobs and therefor are unworthy of your aid but also probably not that computor literate. Thanks for the help. 3’s
Grampa :slight_smile:

8

Firew0lf mentioned cacheman. Be careful with this. I had it running with PE, and I could not figure out, for the longest time, why PE was freezing, accessing the HD like mad, then unfreezing on a constant basis. Cacheman kept trying to defragment memory while PE was running, causing the lag. i uninstalled cacheman, and havent had problems since. I believe i had it set to only defragment when cpu usage was low, but it kept disobeying, so i uninstalled it.

Great thread, great info from everyone. looks like i will be in the market for another 512 of ram for the best PE experience…

9

yea you guys prolly shouldt complain about how laggy it is cause you guys dont know how good you have it… i have 192 Mb Ram and i dont complain. im only 13 years old so i dont know how much the stuff costs where to get it what it looks like or how to install it. if anyone can fill me in on this info that’d be geat. thanks :smiley: [