This will be a matter of trial and error, as I've heard that disk
compression affects some games, although I've never noticed on
the ones I have this way.
<snip>
If you only have the one drive, then I wouldn't compress the
whole thing. Operating systems generally don't fare too well
when squished. As a general rule, leave twice the amount of
space required for the OS, + 10% of the total drive for disk cache
and swap files.
You have 3.8Gb, and Win95, then 200 or so for Win95 + 400Mb
uncompressed on top, for a total of 600Mb uncompressed area.
A problem you might find with disk compression later, is that
when you want to increase the amount of uncompressed area (for
a program that might demand it), and your compressed files
exceed the amount of uncompressed free space, then you'll have
no choice but to buy another drive just so you can off-load some
items. Sounds complicated, but basically you can't change the
amount of disk compression while files are residing in the
compressed area.
The last thing to point out about compressing drives is that you
don't magically take a drive and split it in half. There's a little file
added to the uncompressed area that is simply a roadmap for the
OS to find things in the compressed area. Depending on how
much drive you compress, this file could get quite large.
Again, trial and error.
Yes, they're much better these days, but not infallable. Try
compressing only a 1/3 of the total area, and run some games.
You may like, or not like. I'm not sure if it'll make a real impact
on the ones you mentioned - it doesn't seem to hurt mine.
Cheers!
Marc
I just compressed my 1.1 Gig today.
I have tested all my games and they all run the same, some seem to load a
wee bit slower, but also some programs load faster. This is Due to the fact
that Compressed
Data is stored better and the HD does not have to look around as much.
Once the game is loaded into memory I do not think It makes a differance.
Even if it is using a swap file it is still much faster than reading the CD
for Data.
I have tried the following games with no problems...GL Quake, V Quake,
Descent2,
X vs T, Nascar2, ICR2-3D, Jetfighter 3, Warcraft2, Links 98, and AirWar2.
All No problems :) All my applications run the same. Office, etc..
One thing to note is that after compression all your files turn into sorta
1 big file,
so if your drive screws up that file goes with it...but then again they
all would go anyway.
Thats my thinking, And its better than spending 300+ dollars for another
drive.
