Xbox 360 Fall Update Question - Installed Game Performance and Noise

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xSnowmaNx

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I've tried looking around for answers on this, but I've been finding a lot of irrelevant information on it.

I sold my Xbox 360 two weeks after I bought (about a year ago) it for one reason and one reason only:

It was so fucking loud. The DVD drive drove me absolutely insane. With all the disc reading that goes on while playing a game, I'd be hard pressed to find anyone able to play a game where the disc wasn't being read for at least 80% of the time playing.

But with the Xbox 360 fall update coming up and the ability to install games to the hard drive, I'm seriously considering buying another Xbox 360. Does anyone out there know how much of a performance increase we'll be seeing along with how much noise reduction this would contribute?
 
I would imagine there would be very little dvd drive access. I don't know though.

I don't understand the sound complaint, my TVs volume is usually pretty low but it still masks the 360 noise. :confused:
 
Well, when I had my Xbox 360 I would be within 5 feet of it because I played it on my computer monitor, but even with some of my friends who play from 10 feet away or more, it's still unbearably loud.

Even without a DVD spinning in the drive, with the Xbox just sitting in the dashboard, it is nearly loud enough to annoy me, but once a disc starts spinning, I'd rather turn off the console than actually play the game. It is THAT irritating for me.
 
Dude I feel sorry for you then. Millions upon millions of other people have Xbox 360's and it doesnt bother them enough to sell it. Chances are that if bothered you then, its gonna bother you now as well.
 
Noise reduction will be equivalent to playing an XBLA game or downloaded demo. Drive will spin to check the disc and then turn off. For most people that means no noise at all, but there are some old 360s out there which are loud even without the drive spinning.

Allegedly load times should be improved by up to 30%.
 
I would try picking up another console...

My dad's 360 sounds like a freaking airplane is landing...but mine sounds about as quiet as my PC's PSU. It's fairly soft.
 
God, I wish I had one of those quiet Xboxes. It's 5 feet away from me and under a table, yet I can still hear mine through headphones......

Now to invest in an Elite version or a new harddrive........ :(
 
Microsoft has stated an average of 30% performance increase. The biggest increase will be on older titles, and smallest performance increase is on newer titles, as they are already optimized.

As for DVD noise, this will dispose of all your DVD spinning noise (other than the second it takes to verify the game).

I bought a new Elite last month, and other than the DVD making noise during COD4, it is very quiet. It will be be even quieter with this update.
 
So no journalists or anyone has had the chance to get a preview of the gaming experience with an installed game yet? I'm hearing a lot about what it "should" do and what it "should" be like, but I haven't really seen anything where a gaming website said "we tried it out and we found out...".
 
xSnowmaNx said:
So no journalists or anyone has had the chance to get a preview of the gaming experience with an installed game yet? I'm hearing a lot about what it "should" do and what it "should" be like, but I haven't really seen anything where a gaming website said "we tried it out and we found out...".
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Most journalists got shown Devil May Cry being installed and played. It's where the install time / load time improvement information came from initially.
 
The drive noise is one of those things that varied by console. So the people saying theirs was too loud are correct. It was loud. And the people saying theirs was quiet are correct. Not all of them were loud.
 
The cooling fans will still be loud even with the DVD drive spinning at a low speed. I am not sure when the new 45nm processors start coming out, by Christmas maybe sometime early in 2009, but those version should be the quietest.

If you are worried about the noise, wait till 2009. Even then, the design is basically flawed and the 360 is a hot box. I doubt it will ever be as quiet as a PS3. But at least there are great games for.

I say buy one, put on your headphones, and crank the volume.

You could always put it in another room. Just need some long cables.;)
 
Just going by the fact that I have a 360 as well as a PS3 that has harddrive install for many games....I see little or no performance increase or decrease in load times. If there is any difference then it's too small to notice. It should make a difference with noise though...a hd spinning up is not as loud as the average dvd drive thrashing.
 
pigpen said:
The drive noise is one of those things that varied by console. So the people saying theirs was too loud are correct. It was loud. And the people saying theirs was quiet are correct. Not all of them were loud.
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Very true, however some people (like me) get lucky and end up with one of the "Turn up the TV this motherfucker is >>>LOUD<<<" 360s :p

Its the fan in mine btw, can barely hear the DVD drive.
 
heavyfeul said:
The cooling fans will still be loud even with the DVD drive spinning at a low speed
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If your cooling fans are loud you have a screwed 360. Some of the models were like that, it didn't matter if you playing a drive based game or not, they were just insanely loud.
 
Psychotext said:
If your cooling fans are loud you have a screwed 360.
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Not much to do about this though, other than sit around and see if it RRoDs. The 360 I use was purchased shortly after launch and been loudly humming along fine the whole time.
 
MatDef said:
And then get permabanned from xbl, what an excellent tradeoff.
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I actually flashed my DVD and slowed it down to 8x and it made a noticeable difference...and then the fans started to spin up as the console got hot. The fans, while not as loud as the DVD was, produce a noise loud enough to be heard and at just the right tone to drive you absolutely nuts. Well, at least mine does; I can't speak for other people. So if you get a console that is quiet during XBLA gaming on games that actually tax the system you should be good.

Also, I've been playing Too Human on XBL, and I haven't gotten banned.
 
ocellaris said:
Not much to do about this though, other than sit around and see if it RRoDs. The 360 I use was purchased shortly after launch and been loudly humming along fine the whole time.
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Sadly true. Some of the early ones were horrible... I didn't really understand the complaints (my elite is very quiet when playing demos / xbla games) until I got my hands on one of them. :eek:
 
Ignoring the rest of the posts and answering your very simple question:

The NEWEST drives are quiet. And I mean Quiet, not comparatively to launch drives (I had one, I hated it 0_0 ) and this new one is fantastically quiet and reads even the most scratched of disks.
 
I got one of the newer BenQ/Lite-On drives in mine, and its LOUD when it spins.
 
0mega said:
Ignoring the rest of the posts and answering your very simple question:

The NEWEST drives are quiet. And I mean Quiet, not comparatively to launch drives (I had one, I hated it 0_0 ) and this new one is fantastically quiet and reads even the most scratched of disks.
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My new Elite has a Benq drive and when the console actually works (this is very rare), the drive is very loud. Thank god for 5.1 loudness.
 
I have an Elite with the new DVD drive, the Lite-On. I'm going to have to agree with the two posters above me. The drive is very noisy when it spins up (very apparent when playing Lost Odyssey). I sit about 8-9 feet away and I can definitely hear the spinning and laser movements. Thankfully I can drown out some of the noise by turning the volume up.

It is indeed a lot more quieter than the older drives, but it is still loud (non-comparatively speaking).
 
I have a lite-on drive and it's very quiet. The Fans aren't that loud in it and the DVD drive is about as loud as they are. I love it. Now if I have the volume down real low on a game (very rare) I can hear the system and it's a lil annoying, but that is only when the sound is almost off.
 
Angelus897 said:
My new Elite has a Benq drive and when the console actually works (this is very rare), the drive is very loud. Thank god for 5.1 loudness.
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I'm not saying you CANT hear it, but it's VERY quiet comparatively (The new unmoddable Lite On, not the BenQ it looks identical to. ) It sounds like a low hum to me, from not even 2 feet away (VGA cable FTW. ) and is quieter than my computer to my right.
 
Yeah... I've heard MANY people say that this type of Xbox 360 drive was quiet, or that one was, but in my experience, they're all equally, horrifically loud. Maybe I'm just expecting too much? I don't really understand what the deal is with the Xbox 360 DVD drive. When I run CD's on my computer DVD drive, yeah, its loud as crap, but when I run DVD's, it's nearly silent (aka installing games from DVD, not watching DVD movies).
 
xSnowmaNx said:
Yeah... I've heard MANY people say that this type of Xbox 360 drive was quiet, or that one was, but in my experience, they're all equally, horrifically loud.
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Not in my experience. Though I have heard a fair few different types.
 
Other than COD4, my new Elite DVD drive is quiet as can be. In fact, you can't really even hear it spin. Snowman is incorrect in his assumptions.
 
xSnowmaNx said:
I've tried looking around for answers on this, but I've been finding a lot of irrelevant information on it.

I sold my Xbox 360 two weeks after I bought (about a year ago) it for one reason and one reason only:

It was so fucking loud. The DVD drive drove me absolutely insane. With all the disc reading that goes on while playing a game, I'd be hard pressed to find anyone able to play a game where the disc wasn't being read for at least 80% of the time playing.

But with the Xbox 360 fall update coming up and the ability to install games to the hard drive, I'm seriously considering buying another Xbox 360. Does anyone out there know how much of a performance increase we'll be seeing along with how much noise reduction this would contribute?
Click to expand...

Microsoft quoted an average 35% increase in game loading times.

You'll also be pleased to know that the DVD drives they put in the 360 now are a lot quieter than the originals. The third Xbox I received after my 2nd broke was far quieter during normal operation.

By the way, why do you want a 360? Beyond Gears of War and Halo Wars, the system wont' have any major exclusive titles...
 
noobman said:
Microsoft quoted an average 35% increase in game loading times.

...

By the way, why do you want a 360? Beyond Gears of War and Halo Wars, the system wont' have any major exclusive titles...
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That would be a "decrease" in loading times... and the 360 has far more exclusives than just Gears and Halo Wars.
 
noobman said:
By the way, why do you want a 360? Beyond Gears of War and Halo Wars, the system wont' have any major exclusive titles...
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Halo and Gears of War suck.

I have a 360 and love it for the exclusive RPGs. Dead Rising was great too. The Wii version does not count as this game losing exclusivity.
 
0mega said:
I'm not saying you CANT hear it, but it's VERY quiet comparatively (The new unmoddable Lite On, not the BenQ it looks identical to. ) It sounds like a low hum to me, from not even 2 feet away (VGA cable FTW. ) and is quieter than my computer to my right.
Click to expand...

Yea, I wish my Elite was that quiet. Maybe it's just my luck, because it's been a terrible experience. My previous Pro wasn't this bad (not to mention the tank that was the original Xbox, now that was quality), but this is brand new and already being replaced by MS (they should have done it the first time I sent it in).
 
I just hope they learn their lesson and build a high quality low noise machine for the next gen. MS has the games and online community, which are the most important, but the PS3 is a superior piece of hardware. They really did a beautiful job designing/building it.

I hope the "Xbox 720" raises the bar on design, functionality, and compatibility. I really want them to knock that one out of the park. Don't let us down again MS!
 
Meh, my 360 sits right beside my monitor and I don't find it noisy. IMO if you can hear your 360 you don't have the volume up high enough.
 
heavyfeul said:
I just hope they learn their lesson and build a high quality low noise machine for the next gen. MS has the games and online community, which are the most important, but the PS3 is a superior piece of hardware. They really did a beautiful job designing/building it.

I hope the "Xbox 720" raises the bar on design, functionality, and compatibility. I really want them to knock that one out of the park. Don't let us down again MS!
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They better raise the bar because Sony has almost caught up to them (in terms of games and online). I love competition.
 
Angelus897 said:
They better raise the bar because Sony has almost caught up to them (in terms of games and online). I love competition.
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I would disagree. The MS hardware is junk, but the game content and online experience are head and shoulders above the PS3 and the Wii. The PS3 could come out ahead in the long run, but by then the next Xbox will be launching (2010?).

Sony should be ahead, but they did almost nothing to support software developers and publishers. MS did the opposite and it is paying off in an unmatched current gen library.

How Sony went from the stratospheric success of the PS2 to bringing up the rear is beyond me.
 
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