Idea #9633: A new partition type for games

-58

Written by kd7tck@msn.com the 7 Jun 08 at 19:16. Category: Gaming.
Related to: Nothing/Others. Status: New

Description

There are beginning to be enough games available for the linux platform, that having a separate partition for all of them might be a good idea. This new type of partition would be designed with speed in mind. Maybe a journaling system that can defragment and only do so when nothing else is going on in the system. Another simpler method might just be to use a ext4 file system for the game partition.

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Ssdg wrote on the 7 Jun 08 at 20:27

linux + fragmentation = non-sens

neon wrote on the 7 Jun 08 at 21:38

Ssdg, Linux does get fragmentation, just not as much as Windows.

kd7tck@msn.com wrote on the 7 Jun 08 at 21:38

you are aware that every file system in existence has some degree of fragmentation. The idea that linux never has fragmentation is really nothing more than a myth. EXT4 is going to implement a defragmentation system, this is obviously proof that the myth is false.

kazagistar wrote on the 8 Jun 08 at 08:01

More importantly, you can already chose what partition to mount to which folder... for example, you could mount a ext4 partition the the C_Drive in wine, if you so please.

Doing something like this by default, however, is ridiculous.

Auzy wrote on the 8 Jun 08 at 13:25

I doubt a new partition type is needed, so gamers speed is in many cases limited by their CPU/GPU (because games should be not only caching files in RAM properly, but they should load them in time too.

And yes, we really do need to break down the prevalence of these myths, because they don't do good in the long run. If we have a group of people screaming praise that linux partitions don't fragment, people will use that against us successfully. All fragment.

Either way, keep in mind, that this idea will be obsolete in 1 or 2 years regardless. 256GB solid state HDD's will be out by the end of the year, and next year, they should be affordable.

Since solid state doesn't have the same random access penalties as Mechanical/magnetic drives, fragmentation really wont have any real impact on performance.

So I vote -1. SSD's will make this idea mostly obsolete. And good games shouldn't have any noticeable slow down due to the minimal amounts of fragmentation currently incurred anyway.

Finally, EXT4 is still under development.

zooounds wrote on the 8 Jun 08 at 16:01

Stupid

kd7tck@msn.com wrote on the 10 Jun 08 at 16:54

How dare you have the audacity zooounds to call me stupid. At least the others here where polite about it. I will repeat this so others who lack politically correct knowledge of how to post comments. If you find you do not like an idea vote it down and maybe give a polite comment about your opinion on the matter. Never I repeat never insult the person who posted the idea.

All this idea supported was a faster progression to ext4 or a moded version of ext3 with defrag capabilities. Sure that might be a waste of time to most users and developers but it isn't stupid. Even I have to admit I forgot about solid state devices when writing this. I also did not state to make this idea by default, to clarify I said make a new type of filesystem to use as a partition for games. When installing any linux os you have the option to have only one partition or any others you wish. This game partition would simply be another option to have.

Now I suppose I could have taken this out of context and the stupid really was not targeted at me. However there was no sign in the statement that it wasn't about me directly.

neon wrote on the 10 Jun 08 at 18:37

I believe he was referring to the idea and not you, kd7tck. (; But indeed, either way it was rather rude zooounds.

syberjj wrote on the 21 Jun 08 at 16:36

as i am aware of defragmentation comes from fragmenting a file and spreading it into free spaces over the HD instead of moving the other files to create one big free space chunk where the file can be copied to.
I am not sure, but I thought only windows would do that (fragment the files) and not linux! isnt that just a hack to make file transfer faster? why would we even bother to implement that into linux??
for gods sake keep my linux working! no to defrag programs!

Sukarn wrote on the 26 Jun 08 at 19:51

syberjj: You've got no idea what you're talking about.

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