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SSD for loading games worth it yet?

H

hdgamer

Gawd
Joined
Sep 28, 2009
Messages
816
I know a few games that load quicker off SSD... BF3 and SWTOR. Does Skyrim load textures faster? Is there any other benifits for games? Was thinking of getting a 256 SSD dedicated just for games.
 
If you are getting a 256gb you should use it as your boot drive + selected games, put the rest on a hd.
 
hdgamer said:
I know a few games that load quicker off SSD... BF3 and SWTOR. Does Skyrim load textures faster? Is there any other benifits for games? Was thinking of getting a 256 SSD dedicated just for games.
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All games take time to load textures. All games would see load time benifits. Games like TOR, or MMO's to be specific, see a huge benefit, as content is loaded mid actions. TOR is probably the worst offender and should have an SSD listed as a requirement. On my laptop pre-ssd, it was taking 30-40s longer then my quest mates to load up mission conversations. That means in a given area, between getting and turning in a quest I might have cost my friends somewhere near 10 minutes of play time. That adds up quick.
 
Yes, very much so. Even a "Slow" SSD is much faster than just about any reasonable RAID configuration, from what I can tell.
 
Let's be realistic about SWTOR. SSDs do make a difference somewhat; at least, they used to. As it stands now, they make about a 2-3 second difference in entering an operation (the difference in me loading against my guildmates). When landing on planets, it has been gradually taking longer and longer to do so, so it seems to be a server issue that an SSD wouldn't make a difference with. Belsavis with 20 people on it takes about 10-15x longer to load than the Fleet with 200 people in it. Other planets are similar. They used to not take so long.
 
Topweasel said:
TOR is probably the worst offender and should have an SSD listed as a requirement. On my laptop pre-ssd, it was taking 30-40s longer then my quest mates to load up mission conversations. That means in a given area, between getting and turning in a quest I might have cost my friends somewhere near 10 minutes of play time. That adds up quick.
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I tease a few guildmates on that, saying "slow hard drive is slow". I see their delay in conversations and I thought at first that they were just reading it all.
 
You actually had to ask this question? Seriously though, hell yeah it's worth it. Spinning disks only serve to hold large or infrequently accessed data in my house, otherwise SSD everything, all day every day!

My HTPC runs a 60GB SSD for boot, a 60GB for games, and a M4 128GB for Steam and Origin game installs. My main rig has an assortment of SSDs and velociraptors for newsgroup and bitorrent downloading. Both systems were pure spinning disks of the 7.2k and 10k variety, one with a raid config and SSD at the lowest end blew all that away be it at the desktop or while gaming. When it comes to acheiving a smooth computing experience low latency > all, except for the graphics hardware of course.

Every game I've played using and SSD exhibited decreased loading times, some of the better coded games load levels damn near instantly. Mass Effect 3 for example was fast on a hard drive (they really improved things in that dept), but it was damn near instantaneous with the M4 SSD. I've been playing a lot of Alan Wake and that game is super fast on an SSD. Games that load data while you're playing are much smoother with an SSD.
 
I am a firm believer in ssd. I have 3 Patriot Torqx 256's, one in my desktop, one in laptop, one in wife's computer. Heck when I bought my laptop before I even turned it on I took the hd out and put my spare ssd in then ordered the sata cable to use the second bay for the original spinner.

On my desktop I have the ssd as C, a vrap 150 as D (for games I don't play as often and mydocs), and a 2tb usb3 for backing up and media.
 
I love SSDs, but the answer to this question can vary wildly depending on the game, and only you can decide if it's worth it for your wallet. Personally I wouldn't run a dedicated SSD just for games but I also don't play more than 3-4 games at a time.

It also doesn't bother me in the least to open Steam Mover and click three times to move games to and fro when my habits change, if that bothers you or you have the disposable income then go for it...

Not every single game out there will necessarily see an equally large improvement in load time tho, sometimes unpacking textures before/after loading them is the actual bottleneck, sometimes a sever connection's the bottleneck, it depends.
 
This question is completely subjective. For some people it's worth it and for others it's not. I've been running my games off an SSD since 07. It was worth it way back then and it's still worth it now.
 
hotcrandel said:
Yes, very much so. Even a "Slow" SSD is much faster than just about any reasonable RAID configuration, from what I can tell.
Click to expand...

My personal experience is actually in line with this too. I used to run 2x M4s in Raid 0 but actually had faster load times with just a single M4.
 
Topweasel said:
All games take time to load textures. All games would see load time benifits. Games like TOR, or MMO's to be specific, see a huge benefit, as content is loaded mid actions. TOR is probably the worst offender and should have an SSD listed as a requirement. On my laptop pre-ssd, it was taking 30-40s longer then my quest mates to load up mission conversations. That means in a given area, between getting and turning in a quest I might have cost my friends somewhere near 10 minutes of play time. That adds up quick.
Click to expand...

Agreed. any game using 10GB+ space, should have amazing disk IO..

I just ordered a vertex4 256.. (my intel G2 is finally seeming like its on its last legs.. nearly 12TB written since its release. random reads/writes and seq writes are sluggish (and space is cramped too..)
 
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