SCSI and low FPS :(

[karmasore]

hey guys,

just set up two 10,000 rpm scsi drives and an ide scsi card (an older adaptec card). i'm not running them in raid or anything due to the limitations of my scsi card.

anyways, ive noticed that games i install on my D: drive (which happens to be one of the scsi drives) get HORRIBLE framerates. i've installed all the same games (primarily WoW and HL2) on my 250 gb ide drive before and get awesome fps but ever since the move to these "faster" drives, the framerates drop terribly. i'm currently getting 11-20 fps in HL2 when on my ide drive was pushing 100 fps steady..

any help guys? the games LOAD super fast, but are so choppy once playing that theyre almost worthless to me.

 

[unhappy_mage]

Same drivers? Still got the IDE drive? It'd be a good idea to test it with both and see if there's something else influencing it or if it's just the drive.

 

[aug1516]

Can you tell us what model of Adaptec card that is? Your description is a bit unclear.

 

[defakto]

Also, what type of harddrives, specific model numbers. Some of those older 10k scsi's don't have faster transfer rates than the newer ide/sata stuff.

 

[karmasore]

Hi guys,

My computer specs are as follows:

MOBO: Gigabyte GA-K8NSC-939
CPU: Athlon64 3000+
RAM: Two sticks of generic 512mb pc3200
VIDEO: Geforce 6800
IDE: 1 IDE Maxtor Ultra16 250gb
SCSI: Adaptec AHA-2940UW PCI card, 2 SCSI IBM xSeries 10,000rpm 36.4gb

Right now, I have WinXP installed on one of the SCSI drives and I use my second SCSI drive for games. I use my IDE drive for storage.

I tested Half Life 2 on my SCSI drive and the framerates were horrible. I then reinstalled the game on my IDE drive and the framerates improved, but not by much. I went from 11-15 FPS on my SCSI to 25-35 FPS on my IDE. Before I installed the SCSI equipment, my games were blazing fast.

Could my SCSI setup be messing up my PC?

Edit: Sorry, I don't know the specific model numbers for the hard drives right now

 

[E4g1e]

Hi guys,

My computer specs are as follows:

MOBO: Gigabyte GA-K8NSC-939
CPU: Athlon64 3000+
RAM: Two sticks of generic 512mb pc3200
VIDEO: Geforce 6800
IDE: 1 IDE Maxtor Ultra16 250gb
SCSI: Adaptec AHA-2940UW PCI card, 2 SCSI IBM xSeries 10,000rpm 36.4gb

Right now, I have WinXP installed on one of the SCSI drives and I use my second SCSI drive for games. I use my IDE drive for storage.

I tested Half Life 2 on my SCSI drive and the framerates were horrible. I then reinstalled the game on my IDE drive and the framerates improved, but not by much. I went from 11-15 FPS on my SCSI to 25-35 FPS on my IDE. Before I installed the SCSI equipment, my games were blazing fast.

Could my SCSI setup be messing up my PC?

Edit: Sorry, I don't know the specific model numbers for the hard drives right now

There's your problem. That AHA-2940UW has a maximum bandwidth of only 40 MB/s, while your IDE hard drive has a burst rate of 133 MB/s. What's more, the sequential (sustained) transfer rate of your SCSI hard drives exceed the maximum bandwidth limit of your older SCSI controller, increasing the overhead and latency. Worst of all, you're using that 40 MB/s setup for your OS and programs, slowing down performance even more. And Windows XP in general is notorious for not working as well as it should on SCSI-based systems.

 

[karmasore]

There's your problem. That AHA-2940UW has a maximum bandwidth of only 40 MB/s, while your IDE hard drive has a burst rate of 133 MB/s. What's more, the sequential (sustained) transfer rate of your SCSI hard drives exceed the maximum bandwidth limit of your older SCSI controller, increasing the overhead and latency. Worst of all, you're using that 40 MB/s setup for your OS and programs, slowing down performance even more. And Windows XP in general is notorious for not working as well as it should on SCSI-based systems.

Ah...thank you!

I will admit, although it's probably obvious to most you, that I'm a complete noob at this stuff...I was unaware of my SCSI cards horrible max bandwidth The main reason why I installed Windows on one of my SCSI drives was because I thought it would be faster!

Looks like I'll have to remove the SCSI equipment for a while. Will obtaining a newer SCSI card fix my problems?

Thanks again for the info!

 

[E4g1e]

Ah...thank you!

I will admit, although it's probably obvious to most you, that I'm a complete noob at this stuff...I was unaware of my SCSI cards horrible max bandwidth The main reason why I installed Windows on one of my SCSI drives was because I thought it would be faster!

Looks like I'll have to remove the SCSI equipment for a while. Will obtaining a newer SCSI card fix my problems?

Thanks again for the info!

Yes, a newer SCSI card will solve most of your problems. Go with at least an Ultra160 SCSI controller card for your drives.

 

[dirtydr]

You should be able to pick up an adaptec 29160 used for around $50 or less if you dont want to loose your SCSI setup

 

[feigned]

You should be able to pick up an adaptec 29160 used for around $50 or less if you dont want to loose your SCSI setup

Yeah, good card. I own one, worked well with my 15k.3 Cheetah.

 

[karmasore]

You should be able to pick up an adaptec 29160 used for around $50 or less if you dont want to loose your SCSI setup

does the 29160 allow for a raid array? i know my current card doesn't support raid

also, could you shoot me a link to where theyre sold for 50 bucks?

 

[dirtydr]

does the 29160 allow for a raid array?

Unfortunately its just a plain old SCSI controller... no RAID. An U160 SCSI raid controller will easily set you back over $100.

 

[aug1516]

Your best bet for a SCSI card is to browse our own FS/FT forums here and see what you can find. Ebay is also a good place for things like this. I would actually recommend a LSIU160 model card because they are just as fast as the Adaptec and can be found for less than $50 usually.