rabu 9 Posted March 21, 2009 Just wondering, has anyone tried installing an extra hard drive that would have another copy of the operating system on it and be dedicated only to playing games? There would be no other programs and back ground programs/tasks to robe CPU energy from and I'll bet the games would really smoke on such a set up. I have an older 200GB drive that I'm not using, it isn't a SATA like my other two, but it's a decent drive. BUT.. Is there a problem installing an OS twice? I have XP Pro Is it too much of a hassle to reboot each time you want to play a game then reboot when you want to go back to your regular programs? If my new game drive is H drive, seems like if I'm currently booted into my C: drive I would be able to copy things over to C from H, like screen shots, etc., or while in H drive, I could copy patches downloaded or other things from the C drive over to H for install, so there wouldn't be a problem that way. Any thoughts? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
almccoyjr 7 Posted March 21, 2009 Just wondering, has anyone tried installing an extra hard drive that would have another copy of the operating system on it and be dedicated only to playing games? There would be no other programs and back ground programs/tasks to robe CPU energy from and I'll bet the games would really smoke on such a set up. I have an older 200GB drive that I'm not using, it isn't a SATA like my other two, but it's a decent drive. BUT.. Is there a problem installing an OS twice? I have XP Pro Is it too much of a hassle to reboot each time you want to play a game then reboot when you want to go back to your regular programs? If my new game drive is H drive, seems like if I'm currently booted into my C: drive I would be able to copy things over to C from H, like screen shots, etc., or while in H drive, I could copy patches downloaded or other things from the C drive over to H for install, so there wouldn't be a problem that way. Any thoughts? I went down that road with 98SE awhile ago. Both OS were working fine in safe mode after booting. When I updated drivers in 98SE_1, I was no longer able to access 98SE_2. Forums indicated a chipset "cross-talk" between the two partitons and the _2 was borked. I honestly don't know if that'll happen with XP x 2. I think it will. You may want to look into OS on primary partition, data/apps on 2nd, "games" on 3rd and then "relocate" swap file to geographical center of your hd. SF will still be there for OS/data-apps, but will be closer to the "games" partition for better read-write performance. Another option might be to see if SF can be located at the "front" of hd_2. That would really increase SF performance between ram, SF and hd_2. I've never thought about it like that. That's pushing the envelope. Thanks! I'm going to have to chew on that one. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
almccoyjr 7 Posted March 21, 2009 I went to techspot to take a look see if anyone had put SF on front end of a 2nd hd. I had a couple of hits on 2nd hd, one that took me back into '04 archives and guess what, XP_1_hd and XP_1_2hd has been done. It has something to do with the way XP recovery works and a .ini line entry that's made to _hd when _2hd is recognized and it even setups up a dual boot entry screen at startup....THAT IS REALLY COOL. It looks like it's time to do some online education; and "they" did it back in 2004! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rabu 9 Posted March 22, 2009 I went to techspot to take a look see if anyone had put SF on front end of a 2nd hd. I had a couple of hits on 2nd hd, one that took me back into '04 archives and guess what, XP_1_hd and XP_1_2hd has been done. It has something to do with the way XP recovery works and a .ini line entry that's made to _hd when _2hd is recognized and it even setups up a dual boot entry screen at startup....THAT IS REALLY COOL. It looks like it's time to do some online education; and "they" did it back in 2004! Interesting! so, do you think it would work? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
almccoyjr 7 Posted March 22, 2009 Interesting! so, do you think it would work? On the surface, I don't see why not. There wasn't any problems with authentication or the like. It doesn't look like using a different make/size hd will cause any problems either. Shoot, they did it! Just need to go back into archives to check how-to's. Need to see if sata, ide, eide or combo(?) was used. Need to look at and eliminate the variables. I didn't see what type of XP was used, only that XP was the stated OS. Are you running 32 or 64? I'm going to be reinstalling a copy of 64 I've had but took off my sys because of all the early problems. I've order 2gb x 4 ram so I can regain some of the performance I lost when I down-clocked and I've got an old 80gb hd that I used to use for iso b/u's. Just maybe.... Have you looked into the reg. batch file to close whatever services you don't need automatically? It's on blackviper.com's site with complete lists from mild to tweaked to bare bones. I use the tweaked my self, but used bare bones when I started running into VRD tests. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rabu 9 Posted March 22, 2009 On the surface, I don't see why not. There wasn't any problems with authentication or the like. It doesn't look like using a different make/size hd will cause any problems either. Shoot, they did it! Just need to go back into archives to check how-to's. Need to see if sata, ide, eide or combo(?) was used. Need to look at and eliminate the variables. I didn't see what type of XP was used, only that XP was the stated OS. Are you running 32 or 64? I'm going to be reinstalling a copy of 64 I've had but took off my sys because of all the early problems. I've order 2gb x 4 ram so I can regain some of the performance I lost when I down-clocked and I've got an old 80gb hd that I used to use for iso b/u's. Just maybe.... Have you looked into the reg. batch file to close whatever services you don't need automatically? It's on blackviper.com's site with complete lists from mild to tweaked to bare bones. I use the tweaked my self, but used bare bones when I started running into VRD tests. I've got XP Pro 32x I have an excellent program, Ultimate Troubleshooter (click) that has enabled me to weed out all the un necessary stuff and it's made a big difference in game play.. also in hi res reception of digital Channels on my WinTv card. I used to use a program that closed down back ground programs, but don't need it anymore. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
almccoyjr 7 Posted March 24, 2009 Been doing some reading on the topic and I think we're going down a dead end like I did on my VRD tests. The problem is going to boil down to bandwidth and busrt speeds between SATA vs ATA (EIDE, Ultra or whatever)*. Current hds with S or S-I have "sustained" mb/s of about 150 mb/s where as the ATA (*)is rated at 133 mb/s. The burst speeds are very close between the two. The newer breed of S-II hds have effectively doubled that. We'll still have to kill services even if the only program running is OFF P3 in trying to maintain performance. The older drive will introduce more heat if that's an issuse. Performance increases are going to be tied to amount of ram which brings in type of OS, absolute minimum number of services to have OS/board functional, no apps open and where the swap file is located on the hd. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
