PAINFULLY slow save/load times in OGR+patches

[kretzj 0]

Hey all,

Okay, I'm perplexed and need some of your rockin' assistance.

I've owned/played/loved [GR] since the "way back times"... and every time I re-image my primary game machine [GR]+patches+expansion packs+MINIMAL mods gets reloaded. Cool so far.... my [GR] config hasn't changed much in at least 18 months (meaning no new mystery mods, etc).

SOO... I decided to put SATA hard drives in the new rig. Same hardware otherwise AMD Venice core 3800+, DFI LanParty NF4 DL mb, 2gb RAM, Nvidia 6800GT, and now 2 200gb SATA drives non-RAID, Win XP Pro SP1 and 2 (meaning my problem occurred under SP1 and again since installing SP2)

The only thing I changed was the hard drives.

Nowdays, every "now and then", when I go to load a saved game or to save a new game, the wait time for the dialog box to appear is between 3 and 4 MINUTES.

For example... in game trying to save, I click "New Game Save"... and you know how you get a momentary blurb of in-game music before the dialog box appears? That "blurb" can last up to 4 minutes for me (can you say "wreck the flow of your Firefight game"?)

But the problem is NOT consistent. I can reboot the machine and it's a 50/50 chance that this problem occurs when I boot [GR]. The Load/Save function either works GREAT, or it takes 4 minutes... there's no "in between".

I've checked all my drivers (especially the SATA ones) and I am up to date. I'm wondering if there might be something weird with the way [GR] reads/writes to the hardware... I suppose it could be just the SATA controller/driver I'm using, which is the onboard SATA with the DFI motherboard. I've analyzed the running processes and there is nothing I'm not familiar with... and again, this is running on a Win XP Acronis reimage so this is as close to a "virgin" Win XP + [GR] machine you could probably get.

Anyone else have a similar setup with no issues? Anyone have suggestions?

Thanks a million, ya'all!

-JK

Callsign 3Point