Windows XP, snail slow load time for a flight simulator

[John Doe]

My SSD is just as fast in Windows XP as it is in Windows 8.

But. Loading X-Plane 10 (a flight simulator) takes 10 freaking
minutes. In Windows 8, it takes 2 1/2 minutes. In ubuntu Linux, it
takes 1 minute and 20 seconds.

It's the first version of the game, so no doubt they will decrease
the load times, but it's the contrast that's impressive.

 

[Paul]

My SSD is just as fast in Windows XP as it is in Windows 8.

But. Loading X-Plane 10 (a flight simulator) takes 10 freaking
minutes. In Windows 8, it takes 2 1/2 minutes. In ubuntu Linux, it
takes 1 minute and 20 seconds.

It's the first version of the game, so no doubt they will decrease
the load times, but it's the contrast that's impressive.

On WinXP, where is your pagefile ?

Maybe the game is paging while it is doing all that loading,
which increases the amount of file I/O.

If you have more than 4GB of memory, you can stick your pagefile
on a RAMDisk. For example, if you had 8GB of RAM, were running
WinXP x32, there would be 4GB of RAM "wasted". And that RAM, could
be used by this program. And then, you could put the pagefile on it.
When you do that, paging becomes buttery smooth. (I loaded 5GB worth
of programs in WinXP x32, to prove that. And switching programs, you
couldn't tell when paging was happening.)

http://memory.dataram.com/products-and-services/software/ramdisk

That experiment is only worthwhile, if you're convinced the problem
is related to paging.

Paul

 

[John Doe]

John Doe wrote:

On WinXP, where is your pagefile ?

Those were clean installations, I tried to leave everything alone.
It was whatever Windows had it set at.

Maybe the game is paging while it is doing all that loading,
which increases the amount of file I/O.

And you think that process would be significantly improved between
Windows XP and Windows 8?

There appears to be something fundamentally different between the
operating systems, highlighted by the load times of that
simulator. I did a few installations of Windows XP for testing,
all service pack 3 but various levels of Windows updates, with the
same result.

During loading, system memory (RAM) usage never goes above about
50% of total. But my 512 MB of video card memory is completely
used during the load.

If you have more than 4GB of memory, you can stick your pagefile
on a RAMDisk. For example, if you had 8GB of RAM, were running
WinXP x32, there would be 4GB of RAM "wasted". And that RAM,
could be used by this program. And then, you could put the
pagefile on it. When you do that, paging becomes buttery smooth.
(I loaded 5GB worth of programs in WinXP x32, to prove that. And
switching programs, you couldn't tell when paging was
happening.)

I suppose the RAM drive is still a lot faster than the SSD.

--

 

[John Doe]

A RAM drive does sound like fun.

An SSD, with a 4 GB RAM drive for the page file.

I had seen that utility before, probably before the 4 GB version was
free.

Hopefully it's hasslefree. I will do the appropriate research before
upgrading RAM.

 

[John Doe]

Loading X-Plane 10 (a flight simulator) takes 10 freaking
minutes [in Windows XP]. In Windows 8, it takes 2 1/2 minutes.
In ubuntu Linux, it takes 1 minute and 20 seconds.

Seems to me it must be a software problem. There is probably some
attribute to use in System/Performance Monitor to measure paging,
that could also be used in Windows 7 or 8 as a contrast. Using
Paul's RAM drive suggestion with 8 GB of RAM would prove it, but
I'm guessing that using it with only 4 GB will provide remarkably
different results. First, I will try leaving 3 GB for the
system/RAM and using 1 GB for the RAM drive (cache).

I have lots of incentive for upgrading to an operating system that
uses RAM more efficiently than Windows XP, but if using a RAM
drive to utilize an additional 4 GB of RAM will work, that would
make upgrading to 8 GB worthwhile (without sending money to
Microsoft). Windows XP would still be using 8 GB of RAM, even
though in a roundabout way.

 

[John Doe]

So far, I figured out how to get RAMDisk started. By making the disk,
using Windows to format it, and then using the utility to save it to
disk, so that the formatted RAM drive loads on the next Windows
startup.

 

[John Doe]

Uhg. Got nothing out of that experiment.

 

[John Doe]

Here's an explanation for the snail slow loading times of X-Plane
10 in Windows XP, from an X-Plane 10 flight simulation group.

"Every time explorer touches a file it enumerates every drive and
mapped network resource (whether or not any exist). If any of
those resources are offline there is a hardcoded 45 second timeout
before moving on. This behavior can not be changed. Windows
Vista and 7 do not suffer this."