Hard Faults!?

[Damien.]

Been trying to play Crysis 2 with DX11 and HD textures.

My rig is; AMD 965BE, Asus Crosshair III, Corsair Dominator 4GB, Crossfire 5870's.

Now I know this is a very demanding game but with the rig listed above, I should be able to max it out returning relatively smooth gameplay.

Not in my case.

My loading times are horrific and once it does load, sometimes when looking around the game will freeze and the FPS will drop to 1 then all of a sudden will start working fine again. This happens more often when im entering a new area.

When this has been happening, ive been watching the system monitor. I noticed literally in sync with every freeze, the Hard Fault bar graph on the memory tab, is going insane.

Could this be my problem and would someone mind describing what a hard fault is?

 

[Damien.]

 

[bremen1874]

It'll record a hard fault when it tries to access something in memory that has been swapped out to the page file (and therefore needs to be swapped back in).

 

[Damien.]

It'll record a hard fault when it tries to access something in memory that has been swapped out to the page file (and therefore needs to be swapped back in).

Ok.

Could this be causing my poor performance though?

I have read that more memory (RAM) will reduce the amount of Hard Fault occurrences.

 

[bremen1874]

Ok.

Could this be causing my poor performance though?

I have read that more memory (RAM) will reduce the amount of Hard Fault occurrences.

Given the available information it’s a fair assumption.

Every time you get a hard fault the system is having to visit the hard drive, which is never going to be quick. If you have other processes making heavy use of the same drive then this could cause the stuttering you’re seeing.

More memory should reduce the use of the paging file, as would having the minimum of other software running in the background.

It would also help if the paging file was on a drive separate to the one where the game is stored. The normal small SSD drive for boot, plus a bigger mechanical drive for game data configuration is ideal for this.

 

[Damien.]

What do you mean by paging file?

I apologise for my ignorance but thanks for explaining, really helping me understand this.

 

[bremen1874]

What do you mean by paging file?

I apologise for my ignorance but thanks for explaining, really helping me understand this.

The system uses a paging file on the hard drive to simulate extra memory.

When it runs out of physical memory it’ll move something it doesn’t need at the moment out to the paging file. When that data is next required it needs to be moved back to the physical memory. This paging will be recorded by the system as hard faults.

As this swapping involves reading and writing to a hard drive it’s relatively slow. If other processes are making heavy use of the same drive (loading a game level for example) it can be very slow.

 

[Damien.]

The system uses a paging file on the hard drive to simulate extra memory.

When it runs out of physical memory it’ll move something it doesn’t need at the moment out to the paging file. When that data is next required it needs to be moved back to the physical memory. This paging will be recorded by the system as hard faults.

As this swapping involves reading and writing to a hard drive it’s relatively slow. If other processes are making heavy use of the same drive (loading a game level for example) it can be very slow.

I get it!

Brilliant, thanks a lot for taking the time to explain.

I have just purchased an 8GB set as part of OCUK's daily deal, fingers crossed I will see improved performance from this!

 

[Damien.]

Sorry one last question

I have noticed you can set the windows page file drive.

I do have a second drive installed which I am using for films etc.

If I tell windows to use this drive, will it help? or does it need to page to the drive where the OS and programs are installed?

 

[bremen1874]

Sorry one last question

I have noticed you can set the windows page file drive.

I do have a second drive installed which I am using for films etc.

If I tell windows to use this drive, will it help? or does it need to page to the drive where the OS and programs are installed?

It is possible, and it could help. The only way to actually find out is to try it.

Not having a page file on the OS drive does have some very minor issues which the OS will warn you about if you try it. They aren't anything to worry about in most cases.

Moving the page file won't stop the hard faults, but it may make them less noticeable.

 

[bremen1874]

wrong thread