Hi guys ! Strange problem. Toshiba 330CDT. dos 6.22. 2 games are stuttering when loading new area, only 2 games \ VOGONS

Hi guys ! Strange problem. Toshiba 330CDT. dos 6.22. 2 games are stuttering when loading new area, only 2 games

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First post, by renejr902

Posted on 2024-10-03, 01:31

renejr902 Offline

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Hi guys ! I have a Strange problem. Toshiba 330CDT. dos 6.22. yamaha sound card opl3-sa3 driver installed. 2 games are stuttering when loading new area in the game, only 2 games, i tried several games, even quake runs normally and smoothly. Jazz, keen 4.. runs smoothly

Spec: Laptop P1 233mhz or 266mhz mmx, 64mb, 10gb ide hdd, dos 6.22 only. videocard CT 65500. ( i have other laptop with gpu and no problem )

But

in Doom 1 and duke nukem 3d both games do exactly the same problem and in any resolution for duke nukem 3d. When the character go to a new area in the game the game froze ( completely stop moving ) for 1 to 2 seconds and after that continue normal and smootly. in general in happen in every 15 to 30 seconds. if i run around in the same area not too far the game wont freeze. While the game froze i saw the hdd light flashing and become a solid green for one second. I didnt try another ide hdd yet, but all others games work perfect. i removed a 32mb ram stick but its still happen. the 32mb left is integrated in the board. scandisk surface scan didnt detect any error in C: 2gb fat 16 dos partition. i installed 1.8gb of stuff in this hdd in C: The 10gb ide hdd is running with on track partition overlay.

I check bios option but nothing give me a idea, i didnt try disable or enable much stuff there.

Thanks a lot for help and advice.

Reply 1 of 5, by renejr902

Posted on 2024-10-03, 08:02

renejr902 Offline

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ok i have more information. More testing. In doom the stuttering happen when doom auto save or read in hdd and while this happen a floppy disk icon appear in the right of the screen. while the icon appear it froze for one second sometime 2 seconds and i heard the hdd make some sound and the light is solid green. in the first stage it happens 5-6 times. Maybe its hdd problem like its too much slower maybe too old. i tried in bios enhanced ide and standard ide same problem. i tried to disable cpu cache same problem. I didnt test duke nukem 3d further. If you have a idea let me know.

I just tested the hdd with speedsys. See the picture to see if the result are normal. Thanks for answer.

I just tested Doom 2. Same problem.

Reply 2 of 5, by jtchip

Posted on 2024-10-03, 22:51

jtchip Offline

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It's probably the hard drive power management, which can be quite aggressive on some laptops, spinning it down after a very short period, possibly less than a minute. Mute the audio for the game and listen for the hard drive spinning sound going away. When you go to a new area or the game autosaves, it has to spin up the hard drive again and that's what causes the delay. If it's not spinning down, it could be parking its head instead, which also saves power but only a tiny bit.

Check if the BIOS setup allows it to be disabled, otherwise you might have to use a hard drive utility to disable it in DOS, I'm not aware of any though.

Reply 3 of 5, by renejr902

Posted on 2024-10-04, 01:53

renejr902 Offline

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jtchip wrote on 2024-10-03, 22:51:

It's probably the hard drive power management, which can be quite aggressive on some laptops, spinning it down after a very short period, possibly less than a minute. Mute the audio for the game and listen for the hard drive spinning sound going away. When you go to a new area or the game autosaves, it has to spin up the hard drive again and that's what causes the delay. If it's not spinning down, it could be parking its head instead, which also saves power but only a tiny bit.

Check if the BIOS setup allows it to be disabled, otherwise you might have to use a hard drive utility to disable it in DOS, I'm not aware of any though.

thanks a lot for answer, i will look at that