Could my current issues be caused by a fragmented hard drive?

[DudE132]

I am getting really bad texture pop in when playing Crysis 2 that I've never experienced before. I've reinstalled, tried with different in game settings, reverted back to older drivers, done virus scans, and nothing has solved my problems with this game. Could my Hard Drive be fragmented and causing these issues? I've never defragged my Hard Drive before and if it is needed will require some assistance.

So do you guys think I should defragment my HDD and do you think this could fix my problems? If so how do I go about doing this? Thanks in advance

 

[dudewitbow]

disk defragging just bundles up data in your computer that are related closer together rather than in spread parts. its usually affects loading times but i wouldnt think it would cause the problem you're having.

 

[smorizio]

try a gpu burn in program to see if it the gpu...memtest to see if it a stick of bad ram. also check your gpu temps..if the gpu cooks..you could get artifacts.

 

[Deleted member 217926]

Just to answer your defrag question yes it does help overall system performance. Do not ever defrag an SSD. As long as you have a mechanical hard drive then it's necessary.

I use Auslogics excellent free defrag program. Get it here:

http://download.cnet.com/Auslogics-Disk-Defrag/3000-2094_4-10567503.html?part=dl-6267754&subj=dl&tag=button

In the pulldown menu select Defrag and Optimize. It will take a while the first time but you can have the program shut down your computer when it's done. I do this once a month or so on my desktop storage drives ( since I have an SSD for my C: drive ) and once every two weeks or so on my laptop ( no SSD ).


List your system specs. No way to even guess what might be wrong without knowing what the hardware is.

 

[DudE132]

Sorry I forgot about my specs.

GTX560 TI, Phenom 2 x4 Black Edition, 8 GB RAM, SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 1TB HDD, 750W PSU. I did install 2 extra sticks of RAM maybe about 3 to 4 weeks ago btw. Same as my previous sticks too.

The thing is, I just beat Crysis 2 less than a week ago with no visual problems at all. One time I did boot the game up and had 2 fps which forced me to restart the game, but thats the only issue I ever had. Doesn't matter if its on high or low, with or without the DX11 and texture pack, I am getting horrendous texture pop in all of a sudden.

When I zoom in, it's as if the textures reload, then when I zoom out, they reload again. It doesn't happen with the entire environment but a good chunk of it.

 

[Deleted member 217926]

So you have 4 x 2GB sticks of RAM? Is this the only error you have noticed? No blue screens or anything?

Try running memtest overnight. You should get no errors at all if your RAM is good.

http://www.memtest.org/

You will have to make a bootable CD to run memtest.

You overclocking anything?

 

[DudE132]

Haven't had any other problems since installing the extra RAM. And yeah each stick is 2GB.

I have not once overclocked any hardware in my system either.

Which version should I download? And what do you mean I have to make a bootable CD? I've never done something like this before.

 

[DudE132]

Ok I found out that it is DX11 that is causing the issue. Which is bad because I have issues with Metro 2033 in both DX10 and DX11. I get horrible stuttering when moving my mouse around. What could this mean? As far as I know DX11 and such can't be uninstalled due to the fact that it comes with Windows and I have Windows 7. So in order to fix this, would I have to reinstall Windows to reinstall DirectX? If so will I have to back up my hard drive before the reinstall? ANd how exactly do I perform a reinstall of Windows 7?

 

[Deleted member 217926]

Have you montored your temps while playing? HW Monitor will do it.

http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html

Metro 2033 is about the hardest game there is on hardware. Even with a GTX 560 Ti it will not run great.

I really doubt DX 11 is corrupt or you would be having other Windows errors. What makes you think it's broken?

Starting to sound like maybe you have a video card going bad.

 

[DudE132]

I can't see how it's my card. The temps are almost always around 70c in game and yeah Metro is demanding, but the issues I get are not issues I would get from a game I dont have enough power to run. Whether it's on high or low in Metro, as long as I have DX 10 or 11 on I get horrible microstuttering despite consistent FPS. With Crysis 2, I have that horrible texture loading pop up issue that only occurs in DX11 when my gun covers anything on the screen. High or low, doesn't matter it still happens only with DX11. The FPS is never dropping when these happen.

I've done nearly everything to fix this and at this point it must be DX11 issues. These are my only 2 games which have DX11 and they happen to be the only games I have trouble with. They run perfect in DX9 though.

And I don't think my entire Direct X install is broken. Just some files that didn't install properly is what I'm thinking.

Since this isn't an HDD issue, I think I might make a new thread in another sub forum

 

[Deleted member 217926]

That is strange.

You try to enable vsnyc? Try running DXDiag and see if it reports any problems. Start > run > dxdiag

If you really want to try reinstalling Windows then back up all the data you don't want to lose to an external drive or a thumb drive or even burn it to a DVD/CD.

In BIOS change the first boot device to your DVD/CD drive and follow the directions on the Windows 7 DVD. Use quick format when it asks ( format the whole drive ) or it will take forever.

 

[DudE132]

Vsync doesn't help at all.

I opened DXDiag and clicked "run 64-bit DXDiag". It then did some loading and nothing happened after. What does this mean?

So if I do reinstall Windows I will lose everything on my hardrive? I need to get an external then.

Also, another reason why I think this could be a Direct X issue, is because I've had this PC for about a year and Metro 2033 was one of my first games. Even back then I had these DX10/11 issues. I just ignored it and played on DX9 though. So it's not like this issue just now started happening. It seems it's been there since the beginning which is why I would assume it didn't install right when I first installed Windows 7..

I'd assume the only reason I didn't experience these issues in my first playthrough of Crysis 2 is because the DX 11 features glitched and didn't turn on. When I beat the game a week ago, it said DX 11 was enabled. I had my doubts though after beating it so I disabled then enabled them, restarted the game, and then the issues began.