definative answer : raptor vs raptor raid 0

[strikeout]

looking for game MAP loads specifically in BF2 ( read : tankwhore ). I dont care about applications loads even in bf2. If you know nothing of bf2, let me clue you in. Bf2 is an fps game. For balance reasons, there are limited number of vehicles per map so ulitimately not everyone will get a vehicle and will be forced to groundpound. Now my vechicle of choice is the tank, usually only 1 per side. What happens if 2+ or more want it? its a mad dash while spamming 'E' to try to get into it first. Sometimes i loose it by a fraction of sec so everything counts. Getting your vehicle of choice can mean 30pt round or 60-110pt round with a gold medal.

basically i think i already got things to help me load faster into the game faster. 2gb of ram of good ram,brodband etc etc. Now im looking for that extra sec of loading faster. Im looking for a raptor 74 16mb vs raptor 74 16mb raid 0. I know the dangers of having raid 0 as my raid 0 partition got owned recently. I have two seperate external hds for backup so no biggie. Pls no, "well its not worth it cus of this or this etc". Im also not looking for snythetic benchmarks that tell me nothing about real world performance.

on side note, if you took the extremes and had 1 side all with top of the line gear/broadband and the other team had slower stuff, you could get first strike capability. I've seen it many a time. People are loaded in with fast vehicles like jeeps and capping half the map while the other side still has 80% of their team loading. No commander on duty and no defenders for the main base = lose in a few minutes.

 

[Neutrino]

Well if this is such an important issue for you and BF2 loading times are HD limited and not CPU llimited have you considered an iRam and loading BF2 on it.

 

[drizzt81]

Well if this is such an important issue for you and BF2 loading times are HD limited and not CPU llimited have you considered an iRam and loading BF2 on it.

excellent idea.

 

[unhappy_mage]

Well if this is such an important issue for you and BF2 loading times are HD limited and not CPU llimited have you considered an iRam and loading BF2 on it.

QFT. BF2 should fit fine on 4GB of memory. That's a cost of $130ish for the card and $89 * 4 for the memory. Total around $500. A little more than the Raptors, true, but it's got much more potential for speed.

 

[sprocket]

A little more than the Raptors, true, but it's got much more potential for speed.

Indeed.
A comparison between my Raptor RAID0 array and the i-RAM...

And the i-RAM all by itself...

If speed is all you care about, the Raptors are soooo yesterday.

An added (and greatly appreciated) side benefit- the i-RAM is totally silent, something that cannot be said of the Raptor(s).

 

[strikeout]

isnt iram volitile though? would suck to have to reload bf2 everytime i shutdown. I shutdown at least once a week.

 

[Neutrino]

isnt iram volitile though? would suck to have to reload bf2 everytime i shutdown. I shutdown at least once a week.

Yes its volatile; however it will receive power through the PCI slot even when the computer is off. To lose power completelly it would require you to either unplug the computer from the wall or use the switch on the back of the psu. Furthermore even in the event of complete power outage it has an onboard battery backup.

So to loose everything you would have to cut all power from the computer (not just turn off) and wait a while till the battery dies.

 

[strikeout]

Yes its volatile; however it will receive power through the PCI slot even when the computer is off. To lose power completelly it would require you to either unplug the computer from the wall or use the switch on the back of the psu. Furthermore even in the event of complete power outage it has an onboard battery backup.

So to loose everything you would have to cut all power from the computer (not just turn off) and wait a while till the battery dies.

ah still considerably inconvient. I forgot to add that i lan heavily to compete in... bf2. So there is no real way to avoid that volitility. I can see it now, our team is starting our first match, oh shit i gotta load bf2 and update to 1.3

 

[Neutrino]

ah still considerably inconvient. I forgot to add that i lan heavily to compete in... bf2. So there is no real way to avoid that volitility. I can see it now, our team is starting our first match, oh shit i gotta load bf2 and update to 1.3

Well personally I think the iRam is designed well enough to work in a 1st world country where power access is quite ubiquitous. Of course your circumstances could be different so in the end it’s up to you.


Performance wise there is nothing in the HD world that can touch it tough, it measures its access time in ns where the fastest 15K drives can only do ~4ms or so. So if you are looking for a big competitive edge in load times the iRam is your best bet despite the hassles. But again it’s your money and your final decision.

 

[drizzt81]

ah still considerably inconvient. I forgot to add that i lan heavily to compete in... bf2. So there is no real way to avoid that volitility. I can see it now, our team is starting our first match, oh shit i gotta load bf2 and update to 1.3

you just install it on the HDD, move it to the iRAM on the off-chance that your PC is disconnected for more than 18 hours straight.. but yes, the iRAM is soooo inconvenient.

 

[strikeout]

Well personally I think the iRam is designed well enough to work in a 1st world country where power access is quite ubiquitous. Of course your circumstances could be different so in the end it’s up to you..

what i meant by power was that i try to load and setup everything at home the night before. Then in the morning i take everything down and usually drive with gear to where ever the lan is. So basically i cant avoid shutting down my psu.

but yes there have been instances like a friends house just messing around. Its very iffy to have 10-12 guys on a single family home circuit lol. Dont use the microwave!!!

 

[drizzt81]

what i meant by power was that i try to load and setup everything at home the night before. Then in the morning i take everything down and usually drive with gear to where ever the lan is. So basically i cant avoid shutting down my psu.

but yes there have been instances like a friends house just messing around. Its very iffy to have 10-12 guys on a single family home circuit lol. Dont use the microwave!!!

His point is that you are unlikely to be disconnected from power for 18 hours straight. the iRAM has a battery backup that lasts ~18 hours. If you set stuff up in the evening, leave the PC plugged in until the morning, drive 1/2 way across the USA and plug it back in, chances are that your iRAM data is still intact.

 

[ilkhan]

simple solution:
install windows to a magnetic drive.
install BF2 to the iram.
copy BF2 directory to magnetic drive.
restore the iram in the event of a power loss.
would take less than a minute to restore the directory and the settings and everything are kept.

 

[Neutrino]

His point is that you are unlikely to be disconnected from power for 18 hours straight. the iRAM has a battery backup that lasts ~18 hours. If you set stuff up in the evening, leave the PC plugged in until the morning, drive 1/2 way across the USA and plug it back in, chances are that your iRAM data is still intact.

Pretty much what I was trying to say. As far as I'm concerned volatility is not really big issue with iRam, for me it’s the price vs. storage space that makes it impractical. To get my os/apps on it I would need at least 2 iRams in stripe for a total of 8 GB, but this option is simply too expensive. I can justify one but two are a bit out of my budget.

simple solution:
install windows to a magnetic drive.
install BF2 to the iram.
copy BF2 directory to magnetic drive.
restore the iram in the event of a power loss.
would take less than a minute to restore the directory and the settings and everything are kept.

I was thinking the same thing; however the copy protection systems many new games come with might interfere with it.

 

[dualblade]

if you have the pc plugged into a ups, that would fix the possible travelling problem. it's going to be a really small drain, so you wouldn't need a ups with large battery capacity.

 

[sprocket]

I have tested my i-RAM's battery backup for 12 hours and it was fine.
Beyond that, I don't know.

To get my os/apps on it I would need at least 2 iRams in stripe for a total of 8 GB, buts this option is simply too expensive. I can justify one but two are a bit out of my budget.

Clearly, the i-RAM makes zero sense if dollar/GB is factored in.
However...
Using nLite I was able to get my OS (x86Pro) down to .8GB installed which does leave some room for more important apps in the C: drive's Program Files- others must go elsewhere.

A secondary consideration....
Due to the i-RAM's layout, cooling is nonexistent- the memory is layered very closely (you have to use naked modules- heatspreaders wouldn't fit) and two i-RAMs in adjoining PCI slots would probably create a mini supernova in your case.
As yet I haven't seen any problems attributable to heat but it would be something to plan for if you went with two RAIDed cards.

I admit that after three months I'm still conflicted about my purchase.
The price is absurd but the speed and silence are unrivaled.
Having two i-RAMs would make life much simpler but at $100/GB it's almost impossible to justify...almost.
Installing Vista on an i-RAM array would be a total hoot and even watching Windows try to figure out how to "format" the i-RAM is still good for a chuckle- it sits there for a moment and then the entire progress bar turns blue at once...total time to format- approximately 5 seconds.
That's gotta be worth something....

 

[Neutrino]

Yeah I though several times that I might be able to get by on only 4GB and I’m already using nlite on my xp pro but I just keep thinking that I'll run out of that 4Gb so fast it will make the price of the iram sting even worse.

Oh and since you mentioned Vista, that is my other problem. It’s supposed to be quite bloated and I'm afraid 4GB simply won't cut it.

So what I’ll do is wait till I have money to buy 2 irams or till the version 2 comes out which I believe is supposed to support a larger amount of memory.

As far as heat goes I have 3 PCI slots so I could easily space them apart, plus if necessary an extra fan can be added for some active cooling.

 

[DougLite]

StorageReview's game tests showed practically zero gains from running RAID-0. Indeed, two of their tests showed losses in throughput as the number of drives striped together increased (two was lsower than one, four slower than two). Of course, believing that cost me everything on this board

Game developers tend to view physical disk access as an unlimited resource, and spend little to no time optimizing for it. Console developers tend to do a better job on this, as they have to load verything from very slow DVD media, and they get slammed in reviews for long load times.

If you want the absolute fastest localized random access possible, have you considered the Fujitsu MAU?

 

[sprocket]

Oh and since you mentioned Vista, that is my other problem. It’s supposed to be quite bloated and I'm afraid 4GB simply won't cut it.
No, it won't.
Installed, Vista takes nearly 7GB.
So what I’ll do is wait till I have money to buy 2 irams or till the version 2 comes out which I believe is supposed to support a larger amount of memory.
The second generation i-RAM still only supports 4GB of memory but uses a SATA2 interface and is bay-mounted (like an optical drive), powered by a Molex.
I think....specs seem to change frequently, so until it's actually in the wild who knows?
As far as heat goes I have 3 PCI slots so I could easily space them apart, plus if necessary an extra fan can be added for some active cooling.

The problem is not so much PCI slot spacing as it is the DIMM spacing on the i-RAM card itself.
The memory sticks are cantalevered over at an angle and overlap each other.
Active cooling would certainly help but getting air into the densly packed area would be difficult at best.