Network file transfer slower with games

[WattoDaToydarian]

Since the RC version I have noticed that when a PC copies files from mine it goes slower while a game is running on mine then when I am at the desktop.

I want other PCs to be able to load games from mine while I am playing and transfer files at full speed like I have been able to do using previous OSs.

For example I can copy a disc image from my PC to another over GigE at about 120MB/s but while I am playing a game on my PC the same transfer only goes ~30MB/s.

I have a C2D@3.8 and dual 640GB drives in software RAID0.

Has anyone noticed this before or have a solution?

[ripken204]

well my only guess is kind of obvious, while gaming you are reading from the hdd for the game, so when someone wants to read a disk image, the max transfer speed will be lower because your hdd needs to read the game and the disk image at the same time instead of just the disk image.

the only solution i can see is having a separate hdd for storage of this data that someone else can transfer from while you game on the raid array.

now while gaming your cpu may also be running very high, this can also cause slow file transfer speeds.

[WattoDaToydarian]

Yeah those are things that I thought about. The load on my HDDs is not the issue because after the game has loaded it rarely reads from the HDD anymore. For example, when hosting a LAN game my PC naturally has to load first and then the client PCs load after words. My HDD activity light seems to agree as well.

However the CPU load could be the culprit. Perhaps 7 has a higher priority for games then it does for file sharing. Does anyone know how to change that? I might try giving the game a low priority and see if that effects it but I would rather only have to change the file sharing priority...

[ripken204]

your cpu is running at a nice speed though.

try this, minimize your game, and look at the task manager.

have someone transfer a file to their computer.

if their transfer speeds are low, see what your cpu usage is like.

[WattoDaToydarian]

I tested transferring a file without running a game and it used ~10-15% cpu.

The game pauses when I alt+tab so I can't measure it while the game is running so I tried setting the games cpu priority to low and it worked. However this is not my ideal solution. I don't suppose anyone knows how to change the file sharing priority? It runs in the system process which can't be changed...