Spending serious dollars for high performance gaming systems is a way of life for the serious gamer. Overclocked processor, liquid cooling system, high end video cards, surround sound and a load of memory is what gaming is all about. But, no matter how much money is spent, no matter how powerful the system, no matter how many lights and fans, it ain’t gonna matter if you don’t defrag your high powered system.
There’s a hard fact that many gamers aren’t even aware of: All systems have fragmentation issues to one degree or another.
Another fact: Fragmentation is inescapable. You can’t stop it, and if you don’t do something about it, it will inevitably slow the system to a crawl, cause latency and major issues such as systems hangs and freeze ups.
Why? Because fragmentation is a byproduct of all file systems. In other words, it’s unavoidable, and there isn’t a Window’s-based pc in the world that doesn’t have fragmentation to one degree or another. When data is written to the hard drive, the information is put where there is room to put it. In most cases, this means that files have to be split up and scattered to different places on the disk. The more data written, the more scattered the bits and pieces become. Over time, it becomes a hidden menace that is the true cause of a host of computer problems. .
Whether you chose a serial ATA, parallel ATA, SCSI drive; 5,400, 7,200 or 10,000 RPM, a hard drive is limited by its ability to retrieve a file from the disk. It’s true a disk that spins at 10,000 RPM can retrieve a file much faster than a 5,400 RPM drive because it can scan the disk almost twice as fast but if the file is a large heavily fragmented file the retrieval time is limited. Theoretically a 5,400 drive would be able to pull a large contiguous file faster than a 7,200 RPM drive could pull that same file if it was fragmented.
Modern games require the computer to load large texture maps, load many rendering engines, load large sound files and handle real time multi-player game play simultaneously. Many of the resources games require reside on the hard drive and if those files are fragmented the games will have to pause till the file is completely loaded, a.k.a. lag — you’re fragged (no pun intended).
Companies like Diskeeper (www.diskeeper.com) for instance, make ultra-fast, high performance defrag software that is virtually custom made for the serious game player. .
Even better, you don’t even have to lay down any bucks to see if these programs work or not. Most defrag companies such as Diskeeper have free downloads that you can test out for yourself.
All gamers will see serious benefits and increased frags from using high powered defrag software. It’s the serious gamer’s secret weapon.
Contact: Colleen Toumayan
Email: ctoumayan@diskeeper.com
