External Drive Gaming?

[Lazy8s]

I searched the forums and it seems no one has either tried it or at least they didn't post about it. This fall I will be commuting every weekend to see my girlfriend and I don't want the hastle of bringing my whole rig to her new place. I could get a laptop but they are pretty expensive and she has my old vid card and memory and stuff in her comp anyways so it's a fine setup. Do you guys have any experience gaming off of an external hard drive? I'll probably be playing BF2 and Rome: Total War. USB2 would be a dream to work for gaming but I know it's highly doubtful and I could certainly spring for Firewire to get the job done. Thanks in advance.

 

[pkme2]

I could be wrong, but my question is wouldn't transfer rates be affected by the USB2 bottleneck? If so, why would one want to do so?

 

[DaRkLoRd666]

no, usb (usb2.0) is faster then the hdd read-write speed

but ms could be a factor so for gaming its a bad idea and internal hdd are cheaper anyways.

 

[0roo0roo]

games need to be installed anyways. might as well install to hd. laptop usb portable drives are slower definetly. doubtful you got a 7200rpm external drive. be easier to install on her drive and carry your cds

 

[acole1]

it would work... but it wouldnt be as good as internal.

as long as you have plenty of ram so as nothing is swapping back to the HD while you play, you would only really see the slowdown in load times, if anything.

 

[Bobthelost]

Originally posted by: DaRkLoRd666
no, usb (usb2.0) is faster then the hdd read-write speed

but ms could be a factor so for gaming its a bad idea and internal hdd are cheaper anyways.

Which means that there should be no performance difference between internal and external drives right?

You're so wrong it's painful, USB2 is slower than firewire for sustained read/write and that's best summarised as lethargic compared to ATA133 speeds.