Think about it this way. A video card has
memory for a purpose. The video card's job is to draw, redraw, and crunch
the numbers that adds texture to graphics. EQ being a constantly changing
3D environment needs a card with the ability to render the graphics. In
layman's terms, the better the video card, the better graphics performance
you'll get. So why memory on a video card? Well the memory is a
localized storage for functions and information that the graphics processor on
the card will perform before sending the information to the CPU via the graphics
bus. The more memory your video card has, the more information it can
store and retrieve to complete its tasks before it gets sent to the
processor. The less distance it has to travel, the faster it will
be. Therefore, having memory on a video card makes sense. It doesn't
have to travel far.
If you don't have enough memory on a video card to
perform all the functions the game requires of it, then these functions have to
be performed SOMEWHERE. Where then does this happen? You guessed
it! Virtual Memory. Where is virtual memory stored? You
guessed it. On the hard drive. The hard drive is miles away from the
video card. Think about what the video card has to do to process that
information. First, it has to send that information via the graphics bus
to the processor saying it needs to assign this information to virtual memory,
then the processor says, "Okay, I'll get to it as soon as I can finish these
other functions." Then the processor looks up in its memory mapping to see
where information from the video card can be stored and then sends the
information to the IDE BUS and says "Put these here". So then the IDE bus
kicks in and sends the information to the appropriate spots. So the hard
drive kicks in and says "Wait! I need to locate those spots." So the hard
drive spins and spins and spins until it's managed to store all that information
that could be handled elsewhere. Once all this is done, the information is
stored and everyone is happy, until the video card says "I need this
information." Then the hard drive gets upset and says "Can't you see I'm
busy here??? CPU can't you do anything about this?" And the CPU
grumbles and says "Don't look at me man, it's the video card's problem; I just
do what everyone else tells me to." Then the hard drive gets
aggitated and says "Well if the video card would upgrade its stupid memory, it
wouldn't have to utilize my resources to do its work. I got my own
problems!"
Then the video card said "God, I wish my user would
upgrade my memory cause it's such a pain in the ass having to deal with all
these unnecessary steps!"
The repetitive act of accessing the hard drive
unnecessarily for virtual memory is called Disk Thrashing, and over a period of
time can cause undue wear and tear that could have otherwise been
prevented. Upgrade your video card. Let it do the tasks so the hard
drive doesn't have to. Your hard drive won't be accessed as often thus
giving it another few good years of life, and you'll get better graphics
performance in the game.
Wulfric
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, April 09, 2003 1:32
PM
Subject: [EverQuest] Re: Slow load and
zoning
Thanks again for all of the suggestions! Really
appreciate it.
I already have the VM set to max - no problem with all
of the
available disk space.
It seems most of you are pointing to
the Video controller as the
likely solution. Could well be - the existing
one is only 16MB. But
why would a slow video cause such a hit on the hard
disk, which seems
to be viusally where the bottleneck is - i.e. on zoning,
the hard
disk is very active until it zones are goes back to the server
screen. The hard disk is performing extremely well and is very fast,
so that is not the problemin itself - could the slwo graphics card
cause EQ to go to the hard disk more to compensate?
I am not sure I
could go to a 128MB graphics card - would 64Mb do?
Thanks once
again.
Regards.