Author: James T. Walker
Date: 08:47:34 11/29/02
Go up one level in this thread
On November 29, 2002 at 03:05:19, m.d.hurd wrote: >On November 29, 2002 at 02:05:16, James T. Walker wrote: > >>On November 28, 2002 at 19:27:19, Jeremiah Penery wrote: >> >>>On November 28, 2002 at 17:11:08, James T. Walker wrote: >>> >>>>On November 28, 2002 at 16:54:25, mike schoonover wrote: >>>> >>>>>could it be that the master drive determines the access speed? >>>>>or,the system gives the master priority,hoging resources? >>>>>regards >>>>>mike >>>> >>>>Hello Mike, >>>>The only problem with that theory is the computer where the TB's are on the >>>>"Master" drive is the slow one. The fastest one uses the 8G/5400rpm as drive C >>>>(Master) and the 40G/7200rpm as drive D (Slave). The chess programs are on the >>>>"C" drive in both cases. >>>>Jim >>> >>>I would guess that the reason for the slowdown is because the virtual memory >>>(pagefile) is on the same drive as the tablebases. So, when it caches >>>information, it's copying on the same disk, while also trying to access other >>>tablebases. On the other machine, it copies to a different disk, which will be >>>much faster. >>> >>>Other things that can affect the access speed of tablebases are disk >>>fragmentation and the physical position of the tablebase files on the disk. If >>>the files are heavily fragmented on one system, and are contiguous on the other, >>>the fragmented ones should be quite a bit slower. Files near the beginning of >>>the disk have faster access times and faster transfer rates than files near the >>>end of the disk, as well. >> >>Thanks for trying to help. I did de-frag the drive on the slow computer and it >>seemed to help some. It now starts out at almost the same speed but slowly lags >>behind. For instance, both computers will reach 14 ply in 15 seconds on one >>computer and 16 seconds on the other. But when getting to say 16 ply at 2:15 on >>one computer it takes like 3:10 on the other. Also as you might guess, the NPS >>on the computers gets further apart with time. >>Jim > >Hello Jim > >One thing worth checking is the EGTB cache size, which is set in Options. Mine >was set at 1 mb. It might be worth experimenting with different sizes to see >what difference each size increase makes. The help file says to use a value of 1 >to 8 mbs. However I seem to recall someone mentioned 16 mb was a good size to >use. I suppose the bigger the cache, up to the optimum figure, the less disk >access. > >Regards > >Mike. Hello Mike, I'm using 16M I think. Anyway it's the same for both computers. I have gone through all Bios settings, all ".ini" files and everything I can think of to make sure the two computers are set up the same. The only difference is the video cards plus the hard drives are backwards from each other. It's a lot of work but I'm thinking of swapping the drives around in the slow machine to see if it helps. I don't think the difference is critical since it only shows up in late endgames when the tablebases are being hit hard. Jim
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