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Yet another (re)build thread - OPINIONS / SUGGESTIONS?? - Page 4

post #91 of 107
1/28/13 at 10:30am
I use FancyCache.
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post #92 of 107
1/28/13 at 1:40pm
Daver - Don't turn off system caching. Also, you only have 16GB of ram, the ideal amount for Windows at the moment. Don't bother with any software caching solutions. You'd just end up making one thing a bit faster at the expense of making a bunch of other stuff a bit slower.

In our consumer systems, FancyCache doesn't really do anything that Windows' caching doesn't already do without you having to think about it. The interesting part is right here:

"FancyCache can utilize SSD (Solid-state Drive) as a cache medium, as ReadyBoost does."

If it works properly, then that can give us a nice hybrid SSD/HDD where the most commonly used files are on the SSD, but Windows still sees it as a large HDD. A second 128GB SSD paired up with a 2TB HDD could be a very nice solution to our storage problems. That is again if it works properly. A storage-level interception driver is a pretty deeply embedded thing to trust as a beta with your data.
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post #93 of 107
1/28/13 at 2:18pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by darklordjames View Post

If it works properly, then that can give us a nice hybrid SSD/HDD where the most commonly used files are on the SSD, but Windows still sees it as a large HDD. A second 128GB SSD paired up with a 2TB HDD could be a very nice solution to our storage problems. That is again if it works properly. A storage-level interception driver is a pretty deeply embedded thing to trust as a beta with your data.

That would be very cool. I have an empty mSATA slot on my motherboard - I would love to pop a 128 SSD card in that and create a hybrid with the 2TB game storage hard drive. cool.gif
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post #94 of 107
1/28/13 at 3:51pm
" I have an empty mSATA slot on my motherboard "

Is that because your board already natively supports exactly what you want to do through firmware? wink.gif The Z77s let you marry an SSD to an HDD for a caching system in the BIOS, last I checked. I'd trust Intel to do this reliably more than I trust FancyCache. That single feature is the one thing that almost got me to go Intel on this last upgrade.
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post #95 of 107
1/28/13 at 3:53pm
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4329/intel-z68-chipset-smart-response-technology-ssd-caching-review/2

Intel Smart Response SSD caching.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4329/intel-z68-chipset-smart-response-technology-ssd-caching-review/4

Page 4 is interesting. Almost SSD level performance, but not quite. Significantly faster than an HDD alone though.
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post #96 of 107
1/28/13 at 8:50pm
Thread Starter 
Very interesting, thanks for the info DLJ! I cracked open my motherboard manual to see how this is set up, and it seems simple enough - RAID mode in BIOS, plus loading the Intel Smart Response config software under Windows.

Although I'm not entirely clear if I can run a HDD+64gig SSD in RAID mode for Smart Response in addition to the SSD w/ my Windows 8 OS? confused.gif

Has anyone here tried this? I'm thinking about giving it a shot.
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post #97 of 107
1/28/13 at 9:15pm
You should be able to specify which SSD you want as the cache drive once you have the Smart Response software loaded.

http://www.asrock.com/support/note/z68srtguide.pdf

The last page in this PDF shows selecting the SSD and the target HDD. I'm wondering if you could just shrink your current SSD's OS partition, then create a new 32GB partition for HDD caching?

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/resize-a-partition-for-free-in-windows-vista/

This page shows you how to shrink partitions. It's the same process in Win7/8, and I know from first hand experience that it works fine. I shrunk my 128GB SSD partition to 100GB to force free space at all times so I never hit that wall of being too full that TRIM can't properly do it's job any longer without massive speed penalties. Then you can take the empty space and create a new partition. If you have a 256GB drive, I'd throw 64GB at caching as a test. If you have a 128GB drive, then just grab a new 64GB M4 mSATA drive to dedicate to this.
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post #98 of 107
1/29/13 at 7:19am
Thread Starter 
Thanks DLJ. I messed with this, but for some reason I'm only able to shrink my 256gig SSD by around 14gigs smaller, even though it has well over 100gigs free. I was experimenting with trying Intel Fast Boot, and it was recommending shrinking the boot SSD drive by the amount of RAM possible, so I was targeting 16gigs on my system but couldn't get my SSD to shrink that far. I think I have to disable hibernate mode, but at that point I realized this tech is probably better served on a laptop - my PC boots up almost as fast as the LCD-TV it's connected to. tongue.gif

Anyway, I notice the 64gig mSATA drives seem in low supply right now, so I might wait a month or two to see if the impulse to try Smart Response hits me again. Thanks for your help!
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post #99 of 107
2/24/13 at 9:36am
Thread Starter 
I'm playing Borderlands 2, and performance in some areas is not as good as I had expected. I was reading that the PhysX can be offloaded from the system's video card to the CPU or another video card to improve GPU performance.

So I'm thinking about adding my old 8800 GTX back in the rig, only for PhysX, to remove the load from the GTX 670.

But the concern is:
  • a 8800 is a lot of power just as a PhysX card.
  • extra noise of the 8800
  • might cut down on air flow

So I'm wondering if the advantage of removing the PhysX load from the 670 is even worth the downside? Anyone doing something like this, or have any info and/or comments?
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post #100 of 107
2/24/13 at 11:07am
I'd not put that 8800 in your rig. The disadvantages out weigh the advantages. especially for a psychics card that won't be fully utilized.
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post #101 of 107
2/24/13 at 11:39am
Toss it in, give it a try. If it works how you like, then order up a quiet GTX 650 to replace the old 8800 with for like $100.
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post #102 of 107
2/24/13 at 11:57am
I tried it a while back and it worked ok. If you mix it with Lucid you're asking for trouble though.
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post #103 of 107
2/24/13 at 3:23pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by DaverJ View Post

I'm playing Borderlands 2, and performance in some areas is not as good as I had expected. I was reading that the PhysX can be offloaded from the system's video card to the CPU or another video card to improve GPU performance.

So I'm thinking about adding my old 8800 GTX back in the rig, only for PhysX, to remove the load from the GTX 670.

But the concern is:
  • a 8800 is a lot of power just as a PhysX card.
  • extra noise of the 8800
  • might cut down on air flow

So I'm wondering if the advantage of removing the PhysX load from the 670 is even worth the downside? Anyone doing something like this, or have any info and/or comments?
I don't think PhysX is your issue. I turned up all Borderlands 2 in-game settings to max, including PhysX, and rarely saw it drop below 60fps. I did not adjust the game in the Nvidia control panel. I'm running a 2500K and a 670, so your setup should have no problems with the PhysX.
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post #104 of 107
2/24/13 at 4:30pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by jmwatkins View Post

I don't think PhysX is your issue. I turned up all Borderlands 2 in-game settings to max, including PhysX, and rarely saw it drop below 60fps. I did not adjust the game in the Nvidia control panel. I'm running a 2500K and a 670, so your setup should have no problems with the PhysX.

Hmmm... thanks for letting me know.

But now I'm wondering the source of this issue. BL2 runs at 60fps most of the time, but there's some areas where the frames will bog down in the 40s and occasionally in the 30s. I'll mess with it some more to see if I can figure it out. Maybe it's textures loading? I'll try moving the game to the SSD to see if that helps.

EDIT: moving over to the SSD didn't really help. It seems to be bogging down in a complex environment when there's a lot of explosions and particles. That's why I was thinking PhysX. Must be something else. confused.gif
Edited by DaverJ - 2/24/13 at 4:58pm
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post #105 of 107
2/24/13 at 5:29pm
That's weird. I never saw the game drop below 50. I don't really have any ideas.

I will say that I got stuttering with Nvidia CP vsync turned on, but the in-game vsync worked perfectly. Thought that was strange, because I thought the hardware vsync was supposed to be better. Not sure how your vsync is set up.

EDIT: I have my copy installed on the HDD.
EDIT #2: I think I read somewhere that Borderlands 2 was one game that had some performance issues with Windows 8. I played on 7 and I'm pretty sure you have 8. Check into that, maybe.
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post #106 of 107
2/25/13 at 7:02am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by jmwatkins View Post

I will say that I got stuttering with Nvidia CP vsync turned on, but the in-game vsync worked perfectly. Thought that was strange, because I thought the hardware vsync was supposed to be better. Not sure how your vsync is set up.

Thanks for this, it might have put me on the right track.

I messed with the in-game v-sync and frame-cap settings, and my solution seems to be a choice between hardware v-sync (off, on, or adaptive), the game's v-sync (which wasn't working well for me), and the frame-rate capping.

I need to experiment more, but I think my solution might be hardware v-sync on adaptive, and in-game framecaping on "smoothing 22-62fps".
Edited by DaverJ - 2/25/13 at 7:08am
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post #107 of 107
2/27/13 at 12:36am
I've been reading a bit about Windows Blue. I'm curious to see how it plays out. It would be nice if they tweaked the Metro apps for 720p, but knowing MS I'll keep my enthusiasm in check.
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