Long load times for some games...

My issue is that with some games, such as Bad Company 2, my FPS completely drops to 5-15 FPS and the loading is extremely slow for 20 seconds. After that, the FPS goes back up and for another 10 seconds it loads. Sometimes these times vary and it could be over 50 seconds until the map is finally loaded.

Playing the DIRT 2 demo, I experienced the same thing, at a greater degree. Rendering the game is no problem, but moving through the trailer is extremely slow with very low FPS. I have no FPS issues with the games when playing, but I do for loading. Does anyone know what I can do to minimise this? By the time I join a new game of BC2, outpost A and possibly B are already caught.

EDIT: I've been looking around and this apparently seems to be an issue with ATi cards running DirectX 10. Anyone else experiencing this issue also?

 

Have you ever used Defragmentation tools? Like O&O defrag or Defraggler?
If you didn't - do it now. Also you can defrag not all Drive but only folder with game or some files. I prefer Piriform Defraggler (free).

 

I actually used to do it quite regularly back when I tested the Dirt 2 demo, and I still had the slowdown. I haven't done it in 2 months, but considering I just got Bad Company 2, I doubt the files would be fragmented so quickly, also, after doing some reading, it seems to be ATi's drivers at fault. I don't know what I can do though since last time I upgraded ATi drivers, I found myself incapable of changing the brightness on my laptop so I had to revert to the Dell drivers.

 

When's the last time you updated your video drivers? Both Nvidia and ATI had BF:BC2 long load time issues but fixed them many months ago with their newer drivers. If you haven't updated, then you will load into the game about 1 minute after everyone else.

 

If you can afford and SSD upgrade (OCZ Vertex 2 or Corsaid F120) they will drop gaming load times a lot. Also be sure to keep up to date with your GPUs drivers as other have stated.

 

I just use a third-party defragger cause it's quicker, not that I ever was an advocate for defragging anyways. Doesn't seem to make much different on Windows 7 x64.

On topic, notebook harddrives are a lot slower than their desktop counterparts. I have a WD Caviar Black 640GB in my desktop and it fast as heck compared to the Samsung in my laptop or even the Seagate I had in my desktop before.

However, hard drive performance really shouldn't impair gaming ability after the load times are complete unless you are running out of RAM and Windows is digging into the pagefile.

I'm running an ATI card and DX10 and have none such issues are you describe, this could be a notebook specific problem. You should try using newer and/or older sets of drivers to see if the problem is resolved.

 

Did you forget spindle speeds? I'm sure a 7200 rpm desktop drive will smoke a 5200 rpm laptop drive as well.

 

I cleaned up this thread; no need to start any more arguments. PM a moderator if you need help with someone -- don't post insults in public.