[sldev] Re: Reformatting Textures for the cache

Laurent Laborde kerdezixe at gmail.com
Mon Mar 26 17:12:16 PDT 2007


On 3/27/07, David Baker <david_baker at iinet.net.au> wrote:
> I couldn't disagree more.  In redesigning the cache system we must presume
> that the user we are writing for is running a hugely fragmented FAT32 drive
> and a file open in a 10,000 file directory will take 10,000 times longer
> than a file open in a 1 file directory (so maybe I exaggerate).
>
> Sorry to burst your bubble, but MacOS, Linux, BSD and all the rest are tiny
> minority operating systems compared to Windows XP.  And will NTFS might be
> better than FAT32 for performance, Windows XP doesn't even encourage users
> to use it - FAT32 and NTFS are presented as equal options - so we have to
> presume that maybe 40-50% of SL users will be running FAT32.  Consequently
> any option that is non-optimal for FAT32 should be seen as a non-starter -
> which I suspect includes most direct file system options.
>
> If we want to rely on file system functionality we are going to have to look
> at file-system-in-a-file solutions - perhaps using something third party
> rather than dusting off the VFS - but not relying on direct file system
> storage unless we can prove that that is the best option _on FAT32_.

So your suggestion is to optimize for old system, knowing that this
optimization will probably slowdown any decent computer ?
And using a big file won't help fragmentation at all (it's not
uncommon, even on NTFS, to see a big file fragmented in thousands
parts).

I'm not sure what the best :
1) lot of small file everywhere on the disk.
vs
2) a huge fragmented file.

For me, the option 2 look obviously better than 1.


> Windows XP doesn't even encourage users
> to use it - FAT32 and NTFS are presented as equal options - so we have to
> presume that maybe 40-50% of SL users will be running FAT32.

I don't think so !
All preinstalled XP (OEM) are NTFS.
The default option IS NTFS.
Microsoft encourage NTFS ! Even on the good(hum) old(sure) Win2k !

-- 
kerunix Flan
:wq


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