Simviation Forum - XP64 Cluster Size Fix?

Nov 28^th, 2007 at 8:42pm

congo Offline
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I'd like to know if there is a fix for customising the cluster size on a RAID-0 partition for XP64bit/Vista

I currently use a fix for XP pro that includes the replacement of several files in the I386 folder on the XP install disk...

AUTOCHK.EXE
AUTOCONV.EX_
AUTOFMT.EXE
DMADMIN.EX_
SETUPDD.SY_
SPCMDCON.SYS
UNTFS.DL_

I'm assuming that XP64 and vista won't install to large formatted clusters and wondered if there is a similar fix for these OS's.

Mainboard: Asus P5K-Premium, CPU=Intel E6850 @ x8x450fsb 3.6ghz, RAM: 4gb PC8500 Team Dark, Video: NV8800GT, HDD: 2x1Tb Samsung F3 RAID-0 + 1Tb F3, PSU: Antec 550 Basiq, OS: Win7x64, Display: 24" WS LCD

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Reply #1 - Nov 29^th, 2007 at 12:12am

NickN Offline
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FSX runs fine... the problem
is you or your system

Posts: 6317

Not possible on X64, or Vista, especially with x64 SP2 because the HAL is completely rebuilt. Even before SP2 the NTFS system files were already restricted but if some hotshot had sat down and reworked the files it may have been possible. SP2 completely replacied the HAL and it is no longer possible, so don’t rack your brain any further

And you do want to be on x64 SP2. Make sure it is a clean install and not the upgrade. There were issues with Nvidia video cards and xpSP2 because the HAL is completely replaced during the SP2 upgrade and the video sub systems would crash after the drivers were installed with "The driver is mismanaging system PTEs"

You must do a clean disk wipe and install to avoid a bad hal upgrade during the process. I would make sure x64 SP2 slipstreamed into the install disk.

You can run a separate disk with 8, 16, 32, 64K clusters but not the OS partition.

In FS9 it was a so-so deal to install and run it outside the OS. In FSX I would NOT run it any other way. And if you are looking at RAID and FSX, if your RAID controller can not set a STRIPE of 256K, FORGET IT.... you will disk stutter to hell and back trying to run less than 256K on a 2 drive RAID. You can run a 4 drive RAID @ 128K but don’t even bother with 2. You could push 128K on 2 disks but expect the same or worse performance with a single SATA drive and since motherboard RAID uses CPU cycles, its reducing the resources FSX needs without compensating for the file chunks @ 128K so you are better off on the single drive.

For FSX a controller like this is required for RAID... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16816116042

bare minimum

That card has a 256MB DDR2 533MHz cache and completely unloads the CPU even on RAID 5-10 (1% or less use)

Format the FSX disk to 64K clusters, RAID or single drive. Either way the massive file sizes in FSX run much better on very high STRIPE and/or cluster

I run a 512K STRIPE/64K cluster on my mechanical drives for FSX

It hardly ever fragments because of the cluster format and the fact that it is not on the OS partition.

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Reply #2 - Nov 29^th, 2007 at 1:52am

congo Offline
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Thanks heaps for that NickN.

Now I feel inferior because I thought FSX was running ok on my raid under XP x86, but there are some stutters, didn't concern me a whole lot as it runs pretty good in general. (A lot of apprehensions about FSX for nothing Tongue

)

Raid on that OS is 128k stripe and 64k clusters, I'll try it on a single disk, perhaps on this XP64 install and see if it makes a difference.

Thanks for the tip on the raid controller.

I tried slipstreaming sp2 before the install (I have the x64 Network install for SP2 installed now), but nlite wouldn't let me do that from a 32bit OS, so, I'll need to re-install this once I've built a slipstream disk for XP x64 in this installation.

I attempted the install to 64k clusters, and it wouldn't boot into the OS after I'd gotten up to the first boot off the new x64 XP installed partition, as I already assumed.

Other than that, the install seemed pretty straightforward.

I cannot access the internet or ping out from my router, ................................ EDIT: NOW FIXED ( tried installing vista drivers in the end and that didn't work either, then I re-installed the latest ones from nvidia for the second time, and it came to life. )

I can't see my Gameport Sidewinder in Gaming options either, and task manager shows it normal, but it's labeled UNSUPPORTED.

I've got a good USB stick, so this isn't anything I guess. I just prefer the comfort of the old Sidewinder.

« Last Edit: Nov 29^th, 2007 at 5:11am by congo »

Mainboard: Asus P5K-Premium, CPU=Intel E6850 @ x8x450fsb 3.6ghz, RAM: 4gb PC8500 Team Dark, Video: NV8800GT, HDD: 2x1Tb Samsung F3 RAID-0 + 1Tb F3, PSU: Antec 550 Basiq, OS: Win7x64, Display: 24" WS LCD

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Reply #3 - Nov 29^th, 2007 at 9:49am

NickN Offline
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FSX runs fine... the problem
is you or your system

Posts: 6317

At 128K its 6 of one, half dozen of the other... yes on the right hard drives and correctly optimized by defrag, and, keeping the sliders in range of the hardware, RAID will help but it will also hinder under high loads so at 128K you are really pulling more CPU resources than are worth the loss. FSX is massively CPU bound and a 2-4+% loss of CPU to motherboard based RAID and the CPU cycles for each drive being accessed, 2+ drives may not be worth the CPU/bus deficit to FSX.

FS9 has an average file size of 128-256, FSX is 4+ times that so the STRIPE/cluster needs to increase to compensate.

The RAID card relieves the CPU cycles and the one I posted will do a 256K STRIPE. Usually you need to go to a 500+ dollar solution to get 512 and 1024 STRIPE ability.

128K STRIPE will work for 2 drives but as you increase the sliders and start demanding more be loaded, that’s when you really see the pinch and stutters

64K is complete suicide

Yes, FSX actually runs better than FS9 for the amount of scenery it is rendering in comparison. Too many people think its worse and most are those who have never tried it, or, installed it and expected 3 year old hardware to run it like FS9. If you are fairly up to date and do not push sliders and settings too high, and, keep up with patches for the OS, drivers, etc... it runs far superior to FS9.

As new professional add-ons start getting released for FSX, as they did for FS9, there will never be any comparison or anyone left to gripe that their FS9 looks better than FSX.

No, you can not use a 32bit OS to install a 64bit OS. It must be a clean install from scratch, or, an upgrade from a 64bit OS, which I would never do.

You need to do research on 64bit drivers for your hardware. That is really the only limit to x64. Always make sure any hardware you may purchase comes with x64 support. Most modern hardware does.

The problem is 16bit. x64 runs any 32bit application just fine (even a few but rare 32bit drivers work) through the WOW 64 system which emulates a 32 bit application environment. The problem with older hardware is the manufactures went CHEAP and never developed for 32bit

Silly huh?

Its not that your 64bit OS wont run 32bit, it’s that the manufacture never bothered to even update to 32bit!

A resource to try besides Googling x64 and the hardware name...

http://www.start64.com/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1

I think you may be screwed on the gameport version of the sidewinder. Sometimes the sticks will work without installing the calibration software that comes with it and manually install the device instead, or, researching and seeing if another driver will work and recognize the stick.

« Last Edit: Nov 29^th, 2007 at 12:51pm by NickN »

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Reply #4 - Nov 29^th, 2007 at 8:00pm

congo Offline
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Thanks again NickN for replying.

I should start a new thread perhaps, but this one's here so.....

I'm getting all the updates prepared and about to slipstream. ( I love doing this for some reason ..... perhaps anticipation of a sweet OS )

I tried realtec's latest driver for the sound/gameport support for my Sidewinder, and still no go, I have one more to try from the Asus site.

I've never had to install a driver for the stick, EVER. Windows has always simply shown it as installed and it always popped up in the gaming devices applet in control panel, pre-configured and perfectly set, (What a bonus!).

I'm thinking it's time to abandon it, at least on this PC, I could swap it with the Logitech on my backup/server game PC, it's a decent stick. ( I pulled the return spring out as soon as I got it, nice subtle control now )

As for the 2xWD320gb RAID-0 array, For some reason, my acces time is 19ms, and 17.8ms on another 320gb single drive, it's aweful. Transfer time is around 120 which is fine. CPU usage is showing as a whopping 9% on the raid and around 3% on a single similar drive. (system specs as per my signature)

Could the high cpu usage be due to using nvidia ide drivers included in the chipset package rather than the ones that load with XP ? I've seen several people report that the nvidia ide is not as good but never saw proof and I'm not sure how to rollback to the default windows drivers. I'll try not installing the nvidia ide drivers on this slipstreamed install I'm about to do and test it actually.

I do enjoy the high transfer rate the raid array provides, but I'm thinking of flicking it due to the cpu overhead, either that or I'll buy a dual core for this rig if you think that will help, I'm still very happy with this PC and I'm not in a rush to upgrade.

I just built an E6750/Abit IP35 (o/c 3.4ghz, stock volts 1:1 ram@425 cas5, timings sync and stable) based gamer for a friend and my old PC is smoother in just about all games when run side by side with his. I dunno what's up there. Perhaps I just haven't had enough time on dual core optimising, I really don't know a lot about that yet. It could be his 8600GTS, even though that card is supposed to be very close in performance to my 7900GS, I believe the 8600GTS has a 128bit memory interface and I suspect that is the difference, but not sure. I overclocked his card and it was better but it still stuttered intermittently.
I'm fairly positive the overclocks are not excessive, as "in game" performance is improved markedly.

I'm of the mind that AMD still make better gaming machines though I can't quantify this.
In fact, I was thinking about grabbing an AM2 6000+ on that basis alone, and then I just checked the AMD website and they have apparently just changed the architecture specs for the CZ model cpu's and added another model, the 5600+ to that lineup (CZ).

The caches listed are no longer shown as seperate on the new page, and I'm pretty sure they were 2 x 1mb L2 and 2 x 128 L1 (64+64 and 64+64? ).

http://products.amd.com/en-us/DesktopCPUSideBySide.aspx?id=33&id=34&id=35&id=38

To me this looks like a watering down of the spec, and if true, I was wondering if I should grab one now out of old stock, because the new phenoms will be very expensive here and their clocks are a lot lower, even though I realise they are 25% more powerful / clock or so. Any thoughts on this? Please be blunt if you think I'm offtrack here.

Mainboard: Asus P5K-Premium, CPU=Intel E6850 @ x8x450fsb 3.6ghz, RAM: 4gb PC8500 Team Dark, Video: NV8800GT, HDD: 2x1Tb Samsung F3 RAID-0 + 1Tb F3, PSU: Antec 550 Basiq, OS: Win7x64, Display: 24" WS LCD

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Reply #5 - Nov 29^th, 2007 at 11:35pm

NickN Offline
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FSX runs fine... the problem
is you or your system

Posts: 6317

its late and I need to get some rest. I do have some comments about what you posted but they will have to wait. I will post more tomorrow.

One thing I do recommend is to not slipstream anything into the OS other than SP2 and IE7. I do recall there were problems with x64SP2 and the use of nlite and other slipstream applications which were causing file corruption issues. I do not know if those were ever resolved.

I use the MS command line method to slipstream in order to make sure nothing gets corrupted. I never import any drivers or other 3rd party items, only original MS software, then install drivers/software as usuall.

Once I have a tested OS/software/driver install and I know for a fact it is all stable, defraged, has all my tweeks and custom settings in it, I perform a ASR backup of the entire installation, including my installed software which has all been configured and is ready to use with my personal setups for each program. From that point on I keep that ASR backup and use it to start fresh when ever I may wish to try something new or just dump the OS for a clean start. That means everything is restored including my software and settings in under 45 minutes.

Yes the IDE/RAID drivers will have a direct bearing on how efficient the RAID system runs. Some years back I used a combination of drivers for my NF2 rig which resolved poor NV raid issues. I remember I would use the NF4 IDE driver in combination with NV Raid on a NF2 motherboard if memory serves me correctly. Sometimes its a matter of doing some research and seeing what others are using to obtain results.

9% is way too high. That should be more like 3-4

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Reply #6 - Dec 2^nd, 2007 at 10:16am

NickN Offline
Colonel
FSX runs fine... the problem
is you or your system

Posts: 6317

I did not forget about you... I have not had very much time this weekend and on my way out again. I will post back as soon as I can.

In a nutshell, older AMD has nothing on modern Intel for gaming. The newer AMD products due out in Q1/Q2 of next year may break that cycle

Setting up a AMD or modern Intel dual core system requires you make sure you have the dual core patches installed into the OS for XP and in Vista, make sure the SP1 performance updates are installed, and, the video drivers set up correctly. Also, with FSX there are tweaks in affinity timning through the config file which help, and, the SP updates need to be installed correctly. DirectX must be updated on a regular basis now too

As for the CPU being slower GHz wise, its not about GHz, its about the CPU inners that deal with the memory controller and how efficient that area is. A 1.8gig Core2 is more efficient and faster than a AMD X2 4800+

As for upgrading to Phenom, that would depend on the motherboard. Even though a BIOS update may add support that does not mean the electronics on the board will allow the CPU to unleash its ability. The CPU must be correctly matched to a motherboard which fully supports it electronically, not just in a BIOS update.

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Reply #7 - Dec 8^th, 2007 at 5:25am

congo Offline
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NickN wrote on Nov 29^th, 2007 at 11:35pm:

One thing I do recommend is to not slipstream anything into the OS other than SP2 and IE7. I do recall there were problems with x64SP2 and the use of nlite and other slipstream applications which were causing file corruption issues. I do not know if those were ever resolved.

Thanks for the replies NickN,

Well, I've been running the nilte slipstream since I last posted with no issues as far as I can tell, everything seems to be working properly except my old sidewinder joystick.

I integrated SP2, IE7 and all the critical updates for XPx64 into that install disk, then I ran a vulnerability scan and the system came up with a green light, all patched and secure

Not sure if I'll bother installing another RAID-0 with XPx64, running it on a 320gb drive now.

I've only just returned home, sorry about the late reply.

Mainboard: Asus P5K-Premium, CPU=Intel E6850 @ x8x450fsb 3.6ghz, RAM: 4gb PC8500 Team Dark, Video: NV8800GT, HDD: 2x1Tb Samsung F3 RAID-0 + 1Tb F3, PSU: Antec 550 Basiq, OS: Win7x64, Display: 24" WS LCD

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Reply #8 - Dec 18^th, 2007 at 1:46am

congo Offline
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Ok,

I'm happy to report that I achieved my original goal of installing a 64bit Windows OS to a HDD formatted with 64k cluster size.

I pondered about the matter for a couple of weeks and the answer hit me like a bolt from the blue.

This meant that I needed to experiment with disk cloning software, which I only tried 2 or 3 times over a decade ago, and I abandoned the practice because it was so slow and I didn't do it properly anyway then.

Ok, so, I broke up my RAID array and formatted one of the 320gb Hdd's with 64k clusters, let's call that drive "64x64".

I used the other ex-array drive to install a temporary XP system that I could use the cloning software from, as that software was windows based (Ghost).

I booted from the temp windows drive and cloned my XPx64 install straight onto the 64x64 Hdd with it's 64k clusters. This operation took nearly three minutes. (My 64bit XP install was only 7gb)

I then shutdown, disconnected all but the 64x64 Hdd and booted from that, and Voila! I now have XPx64bit running on 64k clusters Cool

....... typing here only minutes later, I was so excited Shocked

Now all I need to do is find out how to do this outside of windows, so I don't need a temp windows install to use the cloning software from.

I downloaded xxClone, studied it etc and was going to use that, but I lost patience after not figuring out how it works. Yes, I know it must be incredibly easy, that's why I can't use it Tongue

So if anyone has a suggestion for a program that clones hdd's, is free, and preferably has a simple gui on a CDrom disk or similar, please enlighten me?

----------------------------

Edit: I may be able to save an XP x64 image on the second partition of that HDD. I can't see why not, as long as I do the operation from another Windows install, I should be able to capture a good image.

From there, I think I can use the recovery disk for Ghost to copy the image to a rebuilt RAID-0 array. If I have any trouble doing this, I'll update this thread.

Mainboard: Asus P5K-Premium, CPU=Intel E6850 @ x8x450fsb 3.6ghz, RAM: 4gb PC8500 Team Dark, Video: NV8800GT, HDD: 2x1Tb Samsung F3 RAID-0 + 1Tb F3, PSU: Antec 550 Basiq, OS: Win7x64, Display: 24" WS LCD

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Reply #9 - Dec 18^th, 2007 at 9:23am

NickN Offline
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FSX runs fine... the problem
is you or your system

Posts: 6317

Question

is this XP x64 or XP x64 SP2 install?

and have you verified the current cluster format for the disk is indeed 64K by using a 3rd party disk software to see the low level properties?

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Reply #10 - Dec 18^th, 2007 at 10:59pm

congo Offline
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It's XPx64 SP2, and I did confirm it with a HDD bench utility as well as windows defrag report, but I'm having some trouble reproducing this now, so I'll report back in a day or so, I'm out of town for a day now.

Mainboard: Asus P5K-Premium, CPU=Intel E6850 @ x8x450fsb 3.6ghz, RAM: 4gb PC8500 Team Dark, Video: NV8800GT, HDD: 2x1Tb Samsung F3 RAID-0 + 1Tb F3, PSU: Antec 550 Basiq, OS: Win7x64, Display: 24" WS LCD

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Reply #11 - Dec 20^th, 2007 at 11:10pm

NickN Offline
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FSX runs fine... the problem
is you or your system

Posts: 6317

Let me know what you find out. It does not make sense the x64 OS would run on 64K, and if by some fluke it did, I would also have to question for how long before data corruption may appear because the base NTFS files are designed to refuse to write on anything other than 4k.

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Reply #12 - Dec 21^st, 2007 at 8:36am

congo Offline
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NickN wrote on Dec 20^th, 2007 at 11:10pm:

Let me know what you find out. It does not make sense the x64 OS would run on 64K, and if by some fluke it did, I would also have to question for how long before data corruption may appear because the base NTFS files are designed to refuse to write on anything other than 4k.

I cannot seem to reproduce my previous finding, despite it seemingly working on two different drives, so I'm nearly convinced I had an error in software reading the clusters as 64k Cry

Sorry for a false alarm. I have only one configuration left to try, but it may have to wait, it's holiday time now, I'm off to the Great Barrier Reef for a week or so, Have a great Christmas

Mainboard: Asus P5K-Premium, CPU=Intel E6850 @ x8x450fsb 3.6ghz, RAM: 4gb PC8500 Team Dark, Video: NV8800GT, HDD: 2x1Tb Samsung F3 RAID-0 + 1Tb F3, PSU: Antec 550 Basiq, OS: Win7x64, Display: 24" WS LCD

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Reply #13 - Dec 22^nd, 2007 at 9:43am

NickN Offline
Colonel
FSX runs fine... the problem
is you or your system

Posts: 6317

Ahhhhh Man.... Now THAT'S more intersting than a 64K xp install

Enjoy the trip my friend and Merry Christmas to you as well.

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