I know it all depends on how bad it is and stuff but in general if I defrag my game files will I get a noticeable increase in fps or is it all just mumbo-jumbo?
How much does defragging help?
- Thread starter Futurenerd
- Start date
Recommended Videos
Defragging is always essential for gamers. Cuts down drastically on load times and in general keeps the system running smoothly. The HDD is the weakest link in any modern PC, so anything that helps its performance is good.
Some games like Oblivion and FO3 that load map areas frequently from the HDD will greatly benefit from a defragged drive. When I first got Oblivion, it would always stutter when transitioning between areas especially outdoors. A proper defrag (I used a trial version of a popular commercial defragger) worked wonders and the stuttering went away.
Some games like Oblivion and FO3 that load map areas frequently from the HDD will greatly benefit from a defragged drive. When I first got Oblivion, it would always stutter when transitioning between areas especially outdoors. A proper defrag (I used a trial version of a popular commercial defragger) worked wonders and the stuttering went away.
It's helped me quite a few times when my computer was close to crashing. Let your drive fragment enough and your performance goes WAY down
Defragging will almost never affect your FPS (unless you have a very low amount of RAM, in which case the difference will be the least of your troubles). What it can do, however, is speed up loading times and file transfer rates. That means you won't get so much stuttering when you walk into a new area of the world, and when you first log in/start up the game, it'll take less time for you to be able to start playing.
To be honest, the effect it has is relatively small, and is only significant if you have a really badly fragmented file system (i.e. you've been using the computer regularly for 4 years and haven't once touched any sort of file cleaning software).
To be honest, the effect it has is relatively small, and is only significant if you have a really badly fragmented file system (i.e. you've been using the computer regularly for 4 years and haven't once touched any sort of file cleaning software).
It's pretty trivial, and if you're using a modern operating system (hint: not XP) it will be run in the background every so often anyway, so you really don't need to worry about it, and anyone who tells you you do is trying to con money out of you. (or has bought into the nonsense of someone who was trying to con money out of them).
It really depends what your playing.
I fly a hell of a lot in FSX. The FSX folder has 61,289 files in 2198 folders. My FS Global 2008 folder (complete NASA mapped worldwide mesh, detailed down to a few metres) has another 1800 files in 14 folders. Combined with software like EZdok free camera, FS Recorder and Ultimate Traffic 2, all trying to stream data at the same time, a defrag can see me go up from 30fps over cities to 45fps.
That's a critical amount when trying to use FRAPS to record, as FRAPS steals a serious chunk of frames.
But FSX is very very dependant on good streaming, fast data access and a decent CPU. Other games aren't as fussy!
I fly a hell of a lot in FSX. The FSX folder has 61,289 files in 2198 folders. My FS Global 2008 folder (complete NASA mapped worldwide mesh, detailed down to a few metres) has another 1800 files in 14 folders. Combined with software like EZdok free camera, FS Recorder and Ultimate Traffic 2, all trying to stream data at the same time, a defrag can see me go up from 30fps over cities to 45fps.
That's a critical amount when trying to use FRAPS to record, as FRAPS steals a serious chunk of frames.
But FSX is very very dependant on good streaming, fast data access and a decent CPU. Other games aren't as fussy!
You will get no increase in FPS at all. Diskspeed is about.... diskspeed (loading and writing files). The only time where it would affect FPS, is an application that is constantly accessing the disk.Futurenerd said:
As for how much it helps - well, pretty much only heavily fragmented files bog down speed noticable (like, a file being fragmented into 40 pieces). Unfortunatelly, most defragmenters focus on the disk "looking nice" (because thats what people consider important), instead of on "how to get diskspeed back to near-optimal with minimum effort". Translation: Most defragmenters will spend 80% or more of their time on doing stuff that makes no significant difference in performance, and the remaining 20% or less on stuff that actually makes a difference.
Defragmenting will help with load times, ...and ..pretty much just load times, as far as gaming is concerned. On modern systems though the difference is negligible. Or you copped out and bought a hard drive with -no- buffer, or a really small one, then you'd notice the change >_>
It'll only affect loading, possibly saving, and swapping.
But if your RAM is big enough, the latter is a non-issue, and if your disc is big enough (and you're using NTFS), and you've partitioned stuff up wisely, significant fragmentation shouldn't be either. How much of an occasional or continual disk-loading toll your machine is under is up to the game in question, but a well designed one shouldn't see massive slowdown from fraggy files, or end up having them in the first place.
Can't even remember when I last defragged my own PC or one of its discs. Everything runs just fine. It's got sufficient RAM, a decent size disk for what I do, and it's partitioned up.
The shared open-access machines at work, I defrag for sport, usually after clearing the best part of 20gb of tempfiles from 100 different transient users off them (bad practice, maybe, but I can't _read_ them, only zap them). I don't know if it actually speeds things up any, as the program, library/module and main data files shouldn't change much (except the antivirus), so in general use they just don't get fragged. Plus we're not using FAT32 any more, and certainly not FAT16.
The general advice I would give is to defrag the disk before installing any game or large new piece of software, particularly if you're low on free space (or will be once it's installed), and maybe give it a "can't harm" overnight run if you think things are lagging. But check your free space, your RAM, and any other processes that are running first. If you've e.g. got an antivirus that's contending for disk access with your games, that'll slow things down like nothing else.
Best thing you can probably do though is get an SSD to put all your essential often-loaded files onto. Or maybe a hybrid disk. Near-zero access times = fragmentation and concurrent access no longer matter so much (heavy fragging or contention can reduce a 50+ mb/sec disk to less than 1mb/s thruput... on an SSD, that'd drop to maybe 20-25mb/s? Still incredibly rapid for most practical purposes, and their raw transfer speed is normally >100mb/s anyway) ... I can't wait until they're standard fit on the aforementioned workstations. Sadly, we've only just got to the point where we can guarantee a minimum of 40Gb, 5400rpm spinning-disk across the site, so we'll be a while yet getting some 32 or 64Gb'ers in. The performance increase will likely be epic even if the rest of the machine spec (even the RAM) doesn't change.
But if your RAM is big enough, the latter is a non-issue, and if your disc is big enough (and you're using NTFS), and you've partitioned stuff up wisely, significant fragmentation shouldn't be either. How much of an occasional or continual disk-loading toll your machine is under is up to the game in question, but a well designed one shouldn't see massive slowdown from fraggy files, or end up having them in the first place.
Can't even remember when I last defragged my own PC or one of its discs. Everything runs just fine. It's got sufficient RAM, a decent size disk for what I do, and it's partitioned up.
The shared open-access machines at work, I defrag for sport, usually after clearing the best part of 20gb of tempfiles from 100 different transient users off them (bad practice, maybe, but I can't _read_ them, only zap them). I don't know if it actually speeds things up any, as the program, library/module and main data files shouldn't change much (except the antivirus), so in general use they just don't get fragged. Plus we're not using FAT32 any more, and certainly not FAT16.
The general advice I would give is to defrag the disk before installing any game or large new piece of software, particularly if you're low on free space (or will be once it's installed), and maybe give it a "can't harm" overnight run if you think things are lagging. But check your free space, your RAM, and any other processes that are running first. If you've e.g. got an antivirus that's contending for disk access with your games, that'll slow things down like nothing else.
Best thing you can probably do though is get an SSD to put all your essential often-loaded files onto. Or maybe a hybrid disk. Near-zero access times = fragmentation and concurrent access no longer matter so much (heavy fragging or contention can reduce a 50+ mb/sec disk to less than 1mb/s thruput... on an SSD, that'd drop to maybe 20-25mb/s? Still incredibly rapid for most practical purposes, and their raw transfer speed is normally >100mb/s anyway) ... I can't wait until they're standard fit on the aforementioned workstations. Sadly, we've only just got to the point where we can guarantee a minimum of 40Gb, 5400rpm spinning-disk across the site, so we'll be a while yet getting some 32 or 64Gb'ers in. The performance increase will likely be epic even if the rest of the machine spec (even the RAM) doesn't change.
>> Lyx: Most defraggers concentrate on making it "look nice".
This is why I'm sad both that Norton Discspeed doesn't work on NTFS drives, and Microsoft stopped using Symantec as their defrag supplier. That app genuinely sped up my old Win98 machine, but didn't do the usual "shove everything to the start of the disk" schtick. Even had a little TSR / system tray thing that would analyse your everyday PC use and then jiggle things around to make that happen faster. Bit like the XP "preload" folder, but affecting everything.
This is why I'm sad both that Norton Discspeed doesn't work on NTFS drives, and Microsoft stopped using Symantec as their defrag supplier. That app genuinely sped up my old Win98 machine, but didn't do the usual "shove everything to the start of the disk" schtick. Even had a little TSR / system tray thing that would analyse your everyday PC use and then jiggle things around to make that happen faster. Bit like the XP "preload" folder, but affecting everything.
As an example, i installed a game once and it kept crashing. After a defrag, ran smooth like butta.