Defrag with quality defragger made a big difference

I've generally been pleased with how OMSI performs on my system (C2Q, Q9650 3.0Ghz, 4GB DDR2, 8800GTS G92, Win XP), with high frame rates and great visuals.

However, like most people I was getting micro-stutters of around a half a second now and again, especially around busy areas like Rathaus Spandau and the Altstadt roundabout.

I defragged my HDD using the standard Windows defrag tool and saw no difference.

However a friend recommended using 'Defraggler' (free) so I downloaded it and ran it. Whereas the windows defrag took about 15 minutes, the Defraggler defrag took 2 hours!

.....what a difference. OMSI is running like lightening and stutters have been reduced by about 90%.

So if you're getting a lot of stutters, try a defrag with a good defrag tool like Deffragler.

Cheers.

Thanks, I'll defrag as soon as I can, because I also experience those small freezes. I downloaded that tool months ago and it's really good, but only used it once.

Anyway, yesterday for the first time I had those "bounces" people talks about, when my FPS lowered to 5 for some seconds. Really annoying, specially because all the passengers start to shout things. I think it's because I updated my Windows 7 to SP1, at least I heard people complaining here about this when they updated too.

My average FPS used to be around 15-20, running at 5760*1080, but yesterday I was playing at around 9-12, and I don't know if it's that I have settings too high, or maybe that the engine could be tweaked here and there to improve this, because I don't have problems with other games that have much more graphical detail, texture bumping, etc...

YES! It really really helps. My stutters are nearly completely gone now - thank you davidrogers!

Thank you for your advice, I was running OMSI at 15-17 fps. Now I'm getting 19-21.

According to Defraggler drive C: is 9% fragmented, would this be enough to cause the freezing in OMSI?

@Ian84,

Mine was at 5% fragmented and causing quite a lot of stuttering. You're almost double that so yep that's a lot of fragmented files, and each fragmented file makes it harder for OMSI to draw data from the HDD as you drive along the map. So go for the defrag!

One word of advice; be patient. If your HDD is severely fragmented it may take hours to defag (it will often go quickly up to around 98% then the last 2% can take hours! .... this is just to do with the way Windows reads the registry). Don't stop the defrag at 98% as you may not get the benefit. Patience pays off

Cheers,

So should I defrag the whole drive?

Should be the best way. It will take some time, but it will help a lot, too

Is this only working for the Hard Disk where the game is installed or also for the Windows HD?

Working for both. I recommend to defrag all your partitions, it could improve your whole system performance, not just in OMSI!

@Ian84, like Benni says, yes just defrag your whole drive.

@Blackspider, I think for a lot of people the HD with OMSI on and the HD with Windows on are one in the same. Certainly, I only use the one (C:/) HDD in my PC. So in this case, just defrag the whole C:/ drive, which is done with about two button presses in Defraggler.

for anyone that is using a seperate drive for OMSI, then Defraggler let's you choose any HD to defrag. (Just choose the required drive at the top).

Cheers,

Right tried Defraggler & theres some OMSI files that are fragmented & won't defragment, but the occasional stutters are slightly better & Windows is loading much much quicker after the full defrag

Mine was 45%
Had to cancel the whole drive defrag as it had only done 1% after about 4 hours!

Defragged my Windows partition (C:) and the partition I installed OMSI on (E:) with Defraggler, and got absolutely no gain in performance whatsoever....

Back to square one

OMSI ran a bit smoother after I did the defrag, but when I rebooted my PC OMSI started stuttering again.

StoneC0ld1 schrieb:

Defragged my Windows partition (C:) and the partition I installed OMSI on (E:) with Defraggler, and got absolutely no gain in performance whatsoever....

Defragging is relative to whole disks, not partitions. How big is the partition? I'd suggest running OMSI on a HDD with no partitions, regularly de-fragged. OR, maybe your disk is not fragmented. There's no magic on offer here, this is no mystical 'tweak' .... you will only see an improvement to data draw (and thus OMSI performance) if your disk is fragmented (which most HDDs will be if they're not de-fragged regularly. )

evo schrieb:

Mine was 45%
Had to cancel the whole drive defrag as it had only done 1% after about 4 hours!

This is telling you that you have a hugely fragmented drive! The longer the de-frag takes, the more of a mess your HDD is in, and the better improvement you'll see after de-frag. Your choice if you want to invest the time on de-fragging or not. I've known drives take 24 hours to de-frag! Boy were they a mess, and completed un-fragged afterwards.

evo schrieb:

Mine was 45%
Had to cancel the whole drive defrag as it had only done 1% after about 4 hours!

Maybe you should try running the Windows defragmenter first, that goes through it quick and probably reduces it drastically. After that try the one mentioned maybe it will defrag faster.

davidrogers schrieb:

This is telling you that you have a hugely fragmented drive! The longer the de-frag takes, the more of a mess your HDD is in, and the better improvement you'll see after de-frag. Your choice if you want to invest the time on de-fragging or not. I've known drives take 24 hours to de-frag! Boy were they a mess, and completed un-fragged afterwards.

Exactly! I'd rather have your PC, knowing I have a LOT of performance improve coming my way, than having a 2% fragmented hdd, knowing I will not gain any improvement.

*edit
I use O&O defrag, I just ran a check (analysis) and both the berlin map and a file in the textures folder was fragmented to ~46 clusters and ~15 fragments. I hope defrag will improve performance