rec.autos.simulators

I have herd that a good HD can make a big difference in the performance of
your computer. I am going to buy a new computer so I would like to know if a
SCSI 2 10000RPM with 17.5GBs is actually worth as much as an Ultra ATA
37.5GB 5400RPM? Will a SCSI 2 hard drive increase my performance in games or
are SCSI HDs only worth when dealing with CAD and that kind of stuff. Are
SCSI HDs faster only because thet run at 10000RPM instead of 7200 and
5400RPM that other HDs run at or are there other reasons? And I would
appreciate a lot if someone that has a SCSI HD would tell me what the think
about it.

Schumacher

You will notice 0% ( ZERO!!! ) percent of improvement in FPS in
games/simulators with faster HDs. I hope thats what your asking. You are in
rec.autos.simulators group, remember!

Borut

128MB of RAM would help more than a fast hard drive.  Once your in the game, GPL
for instance, there is no disk swapping taking place so what would a fast hard
drive give you?  Faster load times, but that's it and not worth the price of
SCSI.

Jason.

--------
Jason Monds
"My other car is a Ferrari"
http://members.home.net/gpl.mondsj/gpl - For my combined gas/brake setups
(Please remove 'no extra spork' when replying)

I am getting 256 RAM, but with PIII 600 in  stupid Belgium Dell only let's u
buy a 37.5GB 5400RPM or a SCSI for the same price. The 37.5GB hard drive is
so useless in my point of view and I'd rather have my current 8.4 GB 7200RPM
HD cause it's faster. And I wanted to see if SCSI would actually help
loading times and times it takes to defrag and scan your HD or if it was one
of those things that would only hep if u used stuff like CAD or if u
designed games.

Schumacher

    Schumacher, I can answer your question as I'm running full SCSI UW2's
and Ultra DMA's. If you are playing a game with huge HD swapping of
graphics you will see a big difference because of load times. The SCSI
also takes less of a hit on CPU resources when they are running them.
Once the game is loaded and if little HD usage is required there should be
little if any difference unless you are playing games networked over a lan!
Then the SCSI really shines. If you are running a cable modem and hosting
games such as RB6 on the net SCSI has a huge advantage. RB6 fills the
swap file faster than a speeding bullet and the SCSI hosts can clear it
without a hiccup but crashes with IDE hosts running games with 10 or
more people are common. Its all relative but once you've gone SCSI you
don't go back!
    Big advantage depends on what you are doing and what your needs are!
The costs have dropped recently and the spread isn't as large as it once
was,
especially if you go to ATA-66's and need to buy a Promise or MSI card to
run them. If you are looking for fast cheap SCSI UW2's look at the Quantum
Viking II's they are 7200 rpm drives but they match my 10,000rpm IBM's
and Seagate Cheetah's performance. Even though all the reviews have said
different. I have my P3 at 620 and they have run flawlessly.

    Pete

I've had NO problem running ANY simulations once I put the CD stuff on
my HD, as in the .wav files in EAW for example. I would add one
caveat, had I the purchase to do over I would have opted for 256 RAM,
but I can add that. Better yet if you check out the impending video
card, NV10 you may note that it pretty much takes over most of the
frame rate problems and leaves your HD and CPU to handle only the
physics. The card may have 256 RAM, independant of your processor!
Its' display may offer photo realistic graphics on even Celleron
systems.

On Wed, 11 Aug 1999 18:18:18 +0200, "schumacher"