<1% read hit rate with Diablo 3 Topic is solved

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taihd
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Re: <1% read hit rate with Diablo 3

Post by taihd »

Now I'm confused, if:
1. FC cannot intercept all read calls from Diablo 3 because of Windows cache
OR
2. FC's caching algorithm does not work well with Diablo 3 access pattern (answers why < 1% read hit rate)
OR
3. Performance Monitor dialog does not show actually data read and cached
support wrote:Er... I am sorry that I made a mistake. Process Monitor is a file-level monitor that intercepts the data at the file system level, earlier than FancyCache. I think the discrepancy of read bytes actually indicates that most of read data was provided by Windows cache itself.
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Re: <1% read hit rate with Diablo 3

Post by Support »

When you run Diablo 3 for the first time since the computer boot up, the D3 data will read from the disk and come to FC cache, as well as Windows cache. Next time D3 requests some data, if they are already in Windows cache, then the read requests will completed by Windows cache and won't go through to FC. So Processor Monitor can see these read requests, but FC not. Only when the data are not in Windows cache, Windows will then issue the read requests to the disk to read from the disk. At that time, such requests will be intercepted by FC.

Hope this helps.
taihd
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Re: <1% read hit rate with Diablo 3

Post by taihd »

You meant FC cannot help much in my case and it is working by design?
support wrote:When you run Diablo 3 for the first time since the computer boot up, the D3 data will read from the disk and come to FC cache, as well as Windows cache. Next time D3 requests some data, if they are already in Windows cache, then the read requests will completed by Windows cache and won't go through to FC. So Processor Monitor can see these read requests, but FC not. Only when the data are not in Windows cache, Windows will then issue the read requests to the disk to read from the disk. At that time, such requests will be intercepted by FC.

Hope this helps.
Mradr
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Re: <1% read hit rate with Diablo 3

Post by Mradr »

taihd wrote:You meant FC cannot help much in my case and it is working by design?
support wrote:When you run Diablo 3 for the first time since the computer boot up, the D3 data will read from the disk and come to FC cache, as well as Windows cache. Next time D3 requests some data, if they are already in Windows cache, then the read requests will completed by Windows cache and won't go through to FC. So Processor Monitor can see these read requests, but FC not. Only when the data are not in Windows cache, Windows will then issue the read requests to the disk to read from the disk. At that time, such requests will be intercepted by FC.

Hope this helps.

Window OS cach is ram speed cach as window does something like FC does already. FC does a better job in terms of caching what needs to be cach and gives you access to another storage area (L2).

All their saying is that it takes 2 runs to see the speed of the cach. D3 isn't always limit to read speed either... it could be your GPU or your CPU that also could be your issue.
taihd
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Re: <1% read hit rate with Diablo 3

Post by taihd »

My system is i7 3770 + 8GB RAM + GTX 560 VGA so it should not be the bottleneck.

I had my problem solved already: using RAM disk, no stutter any more except the need to init RAM disk with D3 files every time I start the game.

Honestly, I had never expected such a quick and helpful support like you did here. Good work. FancyCache will be at the top of my list the next time I consider RAM caching as a solution.
Mradr wrote:
taihd wrote:You meant FC cannot help much in my case and it is working by design?
support wrote:When you run Diablo 3 for the first time since the computer boot up, the D3 data will read from the disk and come to FC cache, as well as Windows cache. Next time D3 requests some data, if they are already in Windows cache, then the read requests will completed by Windows cache and won't go through to FC. So Processor Monitor can see these read requests, but FC not. Only when the data are not in Windows cache, Windows will then issue the read requests to the disk to read from the disk. At that time, such requests will be intercepted by FC.

Hope this helps.

Window OS cach is ram speed cach as window does something like FC does already. FC does a better job in terms of caching what needs to be cach and gives you access to another storage area (L2).

All their saying is that it takes 2 runs to see the speed of the cach. D3 isn't always limit to read speed either... it could be your GPU or your CPU that also could be your issue.
grkstyla
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Re: <1% read hit rate with Diablo 3

Post by grkstyla »

love the ramdisk solution and was about to suggest it, but windows would use alot of that 8gb and then D3 running will take another chunk how is the ramdisk fitting d3, and if you only have some files in it how did you determine which ones, and how to trick pc to look at ramdisk instead on game directory
Kurama
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Re: <1% read hit rate with Diablo 3

Post by Kurama »

"QUOTE" My system is i7 3770 + 8GB RAM + GTX 560 VGA so it should not be the bottleneck.

I had my problem solved already: using RAM disk, no stutter any more except the need to init RAM disk with D3 files every time I start the game.
"QUOTE"


is there a way to manually Force perticular files or a game into the cache ?




im also pised at the studdering in diablo, btw,

im running an i5-2500k at 4.4ghz with 32gb ram and dual gtx670's


im moving my install of diablo 3 from my 6gb/s hdd (seagate2tb5400rpm64mbcache) to my 6gb/s ssd (intel 520 240gb)
just to see if that helps, i have 120 gb free on the ssd and i tend to never use it at all (best i can as a boot disk)

i wanted fancycache to try to defer write and keep as much wear as humanly possible OFF my C: ssd
but since i overclock and play with the settings so much the defer write has caused me to loose a bunch of settings and temp files lol.
but i tend to use settings of defer for upto an hour, so that is all my fault.
it works perfect when my system is stable, so no complaints.

my ram runs at 1866mhz or 1600mhz depending on what voltage i run it at, supposedly its 9-9-9-24 at 1600


also on an unrelated note,
IF say i went and had a pc with saaay 128GB of ram,
would there be a way to cache the entire boot disk, if it was like 60gb or 120 whatever, (not the point)

the idea,
take all the C: (whatever size it was)
and make a ramdisk, give it a partition,
and move all data to it
like xcopy or somehting

and then switch the real boot disk over to the cache,
so then in theory you could yank out the c: and have the whole pc running off the ram-C:
Last edited by Kurama on Thu May 23, 2013 2:58 am, edited 2 times in total.
dustyny
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Re: <1% read hit rate with Diablo 3

Post by dustyny »

Kurama,
My system is i7 3770 + 8GB RAM + GTX 560 VGA so it should not be the bottleneck.
This is a bad assumption, just because you have a powerful system doesn't mean that your hardware isn't a problem. For instance, I have 2 machine both with Core i7 3970K's (monster chips), 64GB 1600 ram, each with different motherboards. On one I couldn't get my drives to transfer faster then 900MBs (with 8 SSDs drives in a strip set), it turns out that the 2 SATA controllers were sharing one 1xPCIe 2.0 lane. Though the manufacturer had provided 10 SATA ports they didn't actually give it the bandwidth it needed to utilize those ports with SSDs (8 HDDs wouldn't be an issue). The other MB wouldn't accept 3 high bandwidth PCI cards (2xSAS RAID controllers & 40Gbs network card) because they played similar shannanigans with the PCIe bus lanes (splitting lanes). There is a very big difference between what is put on the package (3-4xSLI support is lie) and the compromises they make in design to save $$.

With the price of SSDs falling like a rock you're not doing yourself any great favors by avoiding writing to your SSD. If you wear it out, by the time it is dead, SSDs will be bigger and even less $$. The current line of Vertex 4's are rated for 2,000,000 hours, that would take you 9.5 years of 24/7 usage to failure. The logic that people have towards their SSDs is outdated and comes from the first generation drives which had no proper garbage collection and wear routines. Current generation drives have technology which will extend the dives life considerably (garbage collection, wear leveling, additional memory which is used to replace bad cells). So stop babying your SSD it's a Ferrari, don't drive it like it's your momma's 30 year old station wagon. :lol:

You're 5400 RPM drive is the bottleneck (anything below 7200RPM is a waste IMHO) and really is best used for infrequently accessed or slow data (Mp3s, pics, videos,etc). You can mask it's slowness with caching but you'll still experience it's it fairly often just by the nature of how caching works (all caching). My advice is clear off any garbage you don't need (especially any junkware installed by Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc) of your SSD, install nonessential slow programs to your 5400 drive (say your CDburning software, Skype, MAME, Virtual DJ and run fancy cache to smooth out the experience) then put the stuff that has to run fast on the SSD, (Web Browser, MS Office, current fav game). Just be mindful to keep the drive less then 3/4 full as it needs space to move things around during maintenance.

To answer your question about the C drive, it wouldn't do you any good. People think that drive access is the bottleneck for slow machines and sometimes it is but most of the time it isn't. Software and especially H/W drivers are your biggest culprits and mostly it comes down to data processing and timeouts. On my fancycache setup I have 26 active virtual machines (26 C drives, 12 data drives) and when I monitor drive transfer rates and ques, you'd be shocked how little your C drive is actually accessed. Most of the time I'm seeing about 10-25MB R/W transfer rates (on all 26 machines at once) on a drive that can do 3,500MBs. So caching the C drive while possible (I'm doing it with virtualization) doesn't really make that much of a difference.
Kurama
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Re: <1% read hit rate with Diablo 3

Post by Kurama »

i diddn't write that btw...
Kurama
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Re: <1% read hit rate with Diablo 3

Post by Kurama »

and even my sata 3 5400rpm hdd still reads at about 130MB/s sequential
trust me, the diablo studdering issue wasnt because of the hdd "bottlenecking" data
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