Hmm, improved loading times is a huge performance benefit in games with constantly loading levels.
A lot of modern games have seemless level transitions now. Fallout 4 has almost no loading screens.
KMFJD
Lifer
- Aug 11, 2005
- 31,505
- 49,319
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I know that stuff about open world games streaming assets on the go, and they have a stutter whenever that happens (moving into a new area). The thing is, my SSD has NEVER improved those stutters, not by a bit. And I've asked other people using SSDs and they all said the same thing. There is absolutely no difference between an SSD and a 7200 rpm HDD. Those stutters are baked into the game engine by incompetent programmers.
sweenish
Diamond Member
- May 21, 2013
- 3,656
- 60
- 91
Diablo 3 is a great example of an SSD making a big difference for builds using the Taeguk gem. Sure it's "just" improved loading times, but when the difference is maintaining a buff for the entire duration of a g/rift as opposed to having to rebuild it on every floor, it's quite significant. Especially for the more competitive players.
I'm not sure what the point of this thread is. We use our computers for more than gaming, and not having an SSD for your OS is just not that smart of a thing to do these days. Unless you are on a super budget, in which case something like a Chromebook might be the better choice anyway.
And beside that, simply dismissing the improved loading times like it isn't a huge QoL improvement is willfully ignorant.
I'm not sure what the point of this thread is. We use our computers for more than gaming, and not having an SSD for your OS is just not that smart of a thing to do these days. Unless you are on a super budget, in which case something like a Chromebook might be the better choice anyway.
And beside that, simply dismissing the improved loading times like it isn't a huge QoL improvement is willfully ignorant.
cytg111
Lifer
- Mar 17, 2008
- 25,207
- 14,702
- 136
norseamd
Lifer
- Dec 13, 2013
- 13,990
- 180
- 106
Skyrim runs butter smooth on my 7200 rpm HDD. No hitches. No hiccups. No stutters. Skyrim was one of Bethesda's most well optimized games ever.
Loading stutter in open world games has nothing to do with the type of storage you have and everything to do with how well the programmers decided to optimize.
norseamd
Lifer
- Dec 13, 2013
- 13,990
- 180
- 106
shortylickens
No Lifer
- Jul 15, 2003
- 80,287
- 17,080
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No.
Because your frame rates come from processing power and how fast your CPU/GPU can access data from your RAM/VRAM.
HOWEVER, some horribly optimized games that rely too much on hard drive caching might actually cause hiccups in your gameplay.
BUT, the problem with that is if a game constantly thrashes your drive then you damn sure do NOT wanna install it on an SSD. You will kill that thing quicker than you can possibly imagine.
Because your frame rates come from processing power and how fast your CPU/GPU can access data from your RAM/VRAM.
HOWEVER, some horribly optimized games that rely too much on hard drive caching might actually cause hiccups in your gameplay.
BUT, the problem with that is if a game constantly thrashes your drive then you damn sure do NOT wanna install it on an SSD. You will kill that thing quicker than you can possibly imagine.
sweenish
Diamond Member
- May 21, 2013
- 3,656
- 60
- 91
I've come to the conclusion that OP is trying to justify a poor decision in a public forum.
Par for the Internet course, I guess.
Fardringle
Diamond Member
- Oct 23, 2000
- 9,200
- 765
- 126
I was actively playing World of Warships at the time I upgraded from a standard WD Black 7200rpm drive running in AHCI mode to a Samsung EVO 850. Load times on levels dropped from 30-90 seconds (or more) to 5-10 seconds (at most). I'd say that's a pretty huge improvement.
Considering that modern SSDs will last far longer than most people would ever want to keep them no matter how heavily they are used, this is just wrong. It applied to early generation SSDs, but not any more.
If a game has no loading screens, there is no real benefit in that game, though booting up to get started can be a big difference with an SSD. It's not just the time to get into Windows, but how much more responsive the PC is once inside, while an HDD takes a minute before it's fully responsive. Then games like the Dragon Age series, have a lot of pretty long load screens which are much faster with an SSD. Same for the Metro games, and quite a lot of games, even today. Many games do have smoother transitions, where they load most stuff on the fly, but many don't. Even Skyrim has plenty of load screens while you transition into many cities and buildings. They are near instant with an SSD.
Fanatical Meat
Lifer
- Feb 4, 2009
- 35,778
- 17,319
- 136
Yes, my aging Q9650 starts in about 30 seconds & games definitely load faster. These are benefits.
On games with many small files or large database there is a huge benefit. On games with large blobs that are read linear off the disk there is very little benefit. This comment might help you identify games which do and do not benefit from ssd; it does not tell you which games benefit. All of my computers now use ssd; so I can't commetn on how slow things might be with a hd 
Total War series has tons of loading... Load the game, load before a battle, load after a battle. It's excruciating.
The increased data rate is really just good for loading times in certain games where the size of the data is very large, I'm talking about games that typically have very large textures, so for example the HD texture pack for Rainbow 6 Siege which is about 50gb IIRC, that loads much faster in game off a SSD, even with a super fast CPU you'll be last to load for a round if you've got that texture pack on a HDD.
With a lot of older/smaller games you wont notice an appreciable difference.
With a lot of older/smaller games you wont notice an appreciable difference.
werepossum
Elite Member
- Jul 10, 2006
- 29,873
- 463
- 126
I noticed an immediate benefit when I went to an SSD playing Fallout 3 and New Vegas, though each was with nearly a hundred mods. I now run one SSD for my OS and another for games, CAD and lighting calculation programs. However, I still have a Steam partition on a Western Digital Black drive as well. Games I expect to be less demanding, I load there. If there is an unignorable issue, and so far I can't remember one, then I can easily delete and reinstall on SSD. I suspect there is some benefit for all games, but only a major benefit on very large games, heavily modded games, and/or games which use outdated or poorly written engines.
That said, SSDs are extremely reasonable today and except for the very lowest budgets or lightest uses, I don't see why anyone would choose to run apps from a Winchester-type spindle drive of any speed, which will be the choke point of virtually any system.
That said, SSDs are extremely reasonable today and except for the very lowest budgets or lightest uses, I don't see why anyone would choose to run apps from a Winchester-type spindle drive of any speed, which will be the choke point of virtually any system.
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