Has anyone owning an SSD ever seen a benefit in gaming?

[BoozeHobo]

Depends on the game. The poster child is BF1 which exhibits ultra smooth frame times on BF1. Discussed and argued extensively in the Ryzen threads.

What about other than BF1?

 

[CuriousMike]

I had > 150 hours playing Dirt Rally on my i5-4590.

After upgrading to a Ryzen 7 1700, I can say, for me, the game somehow feels smoother.

My overall framerates didn't go up appreciably... but there is a noticeable smoothness.

I don't really care if it's "new machine placebo" or not - it works for me.

 

[cmdrdredd]

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.

You forget that every time you enter a ruin, cave, dungeon, town, castle etc it gives you a loading screen. It also gives you a loading screen when you fast travel. I have a 10k RPM Raptor drive and it's slower than molasses in winter compared to even my Crucial M4 which isn't even a very fast SSD. The loading screen barely has time to pop in. You know there is a reason they have statues of various game characters while loading that you can pan around while waiting. Just admit you're wrong about the benefits of SSD and move along.

 

[cmdrdredd]

I noticed absolutely ZERO difference in those games whether it was with or without mods. In fact the open world stutter of Fallout 3 was the sole reason I bought the SSD. I loved that game to hell but I became extremely frustrated with the open world stutter, so I dished out the money for a 256 GB SSD. And to my disappointment there was absolutely Zero difference between it and my 7200 rpm hard drive. I actually measured the frametimes at every point where the stutters occurred, and they were exactly the same. If it was 50 ms on the HDD, it was 50 ms on the SSD. I checked with others on forums, and it was always the same: people who didn't own an SSD claimed "It will make the game butter smooth cause game streams assets" etc, while the people with an actual SSD posted their experience that it provided zero improvement for the stutters.
The only explanation I have for you noticing an improvement was that you were using a very old 5400 rpm hard drive, maybe in IDE mode, or maybe it was faulty, or fragmented, or maybe you installed it on a drive on the outer track of the disk.

I don't think you understand what you're talking about. The game engine stuttering is the game engine and that has nothing to do with data loading in, mods or not. The load screens when you enter new areas is what is improved greatly.

 

[Chiropteran]

SSD is a tremendous help for steam games that have constant updates, like DOTA 2. Those updates take ages with an HDD.

Windows updates too, for that matter. Your game performance will suffer while your computer is slowly downloaded and installing updates with an HDD.

Besides, SSD are king for some of the best games ever: benchmarks.

 

[CZroe]

I don't think you understand what you're talking about. The game engine stuttering is the game engine and that has nothing to do with data loading in, mods or not. The load screens when you enter new areas is what is improved greatly.

For games that "stream assets," like more open-World games, data loading in actually can cause stutter during gameplay. It's very clear that this is what he's talking about, though he may be wrong about it causing these particular stutters. Remember all the GTA IV issues on XBOX 360 as a result of it needing to decompress as it streamed off the disc? When it wasn't causing stutters and the like, cars and trees and obstacles were appearing right in front of you when you're going full speed.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

I had > 150 hours playing Dirt Rally on my i5-4590.

After upgrading to a Ryzen 7 1700, I can say, for me, the game somehow feels smoother.

My overall framerates didn't go up appreciably... but there is a noticeable smoothness.

I don't really care if it's "new machine placebo" or not - it works for me.

This guy has the right attitude!
Play the game & enjoy it. Don't get bogged down in is it 30,40,50,65,80,100,120 fps????
Just play and enjoy if it feels better that means it isetter.

 

[shortylickens]

SSD is a tremendous help for steam games that have constant updates, like DOTA 2. Those updates take ages with an HDD.

Windows updates too, for that matter. Your game performance will suffer while your computer is slowly downloaded and installing updates with an HDD.

Besides, SSD are king for some of the best games ever: benchmarks.

OK, this post said nothing.


GOOD JOB BUDDY!

 

[you2]

Depends if you are talking about raid 0 or raid 1 and the software. Some raid 1 will strip the reads across the two drives for improve read performance. Most raid 0 will double the write performance (read some of the laptop/tablet reviews). The problem is that games frequently have to process the data they read and some of this processing is extremely inefficient. I've been playing xcom 2 which has miserable load times on ssd - and i'm undecided if it is simply sleeping, processing or whatever but it certainly isn't hanging on the disk.

would it be worth it to put two ssd's in a raid? read that it really doesn't help

 

[Chiropteran]

OK, this post said nothing.


GOOD JOB BUDDY!

Your game performance is zero if you are waiting for an update to finish before you can play your game.

Sorry, I didn't realize I had to spell it out barney style.

 

[mikeymikec]

Most raid 0 will double the write performance.

I recommend downgrading this statement to "may improve the write performance by up to double", because seriously there are tonnes of scenarios where RAID0 isn't going to make much difference.

Also, RAID0 with what? A decent SATA SSD can make about 90% use of SATA 6Gbps, many desktop chipsets/software have issues with TRIM and RAID or say the driver wasn't well-written so is inefficient, and like your problem with xcom2, is it guaranteed that the game will make use of the theoretical increased bandwidth (assuming that appropriate buses and storage devices are used, and assuming the rest of the system can keep up the requests and process the data in an appropriate time frame, and assuming that the software issuing those requests is actually asking for something that an ideal RAID0 setup can really flex its muscles in doing).

Here's one review saying that RAID0 with SSDs is a pointless waste of time:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-raid-benchmark,3485-10.html

If all one wants to do is to get their jollies by watching RAID0 I/O benchmarks and that's worth the investment in their opinion, then that person should feel free. For everyone else at the end of the day, synthetic benchmarks do not equal real world workloads, and about twenty minutes of googling didn't show me a single review with a real-world workload that showed it to make a difference.

I'm sure there are real world applications for an ideal configuration of SSD RAID0 just like there are some real world applications for HDD RAID0, but for the latter the applications are few and far between, as it's usually the case that the data involved is worth something and so therefore long-term data integrity must be factored in. Sometimes I hear of scenarios where the data only has a very short term value and so either the data is processed with a result that also only has a short-term value, or it's not and that's that, but I can't remember even one of those scenarios.

As for gaming, with a HDD a big 3D level might have taken say 45 seconds to download. With a decent SSD it's normally knocked down to 10 seconds or less. Is it really worth the extra $$$ to know that down to 2 seconds? What's the benefit here? IMO it's like me going from ~70mbit broadband to 700mbps. It might save me 10 seconds once a month. Whoopee.

 

[you2]

Ok Ok. I was talking about theoretical as it depends heavily on the controller, the drives and the amount of data being read/written. I personally never use raid 0 since i prefer fault tolerance to improve performance. Also i'm not overly concern about write performance. However, many high end laptops/2 in 1 do use raid 0 for increase speeds and that speed shows up very readily on artificial benchmarks various sites run (and often approach 1.5x to 2x faster than linear rate). You quoted sata aboe but would be amusing to see nvm (or pcie) drives in this configuration.
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Anyway for gaming I use single ssd (non-raided) and that is fast enough for myself though next time i build a computer i'll probably get an nvm since they are the rage and are dropping in price - my guess is my next game computer will be built around 2019/2020 since my current system is haswell refresh - but i diverge from the topic with useless chatter.
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If you do run raid dump windows and use linux.

 

[TeknoBug]

Load times definitely, but in some game it benefits FPS due to constant chugging the HDD for loading textures as you play through (like open world or MMO games).

I remember when I first got my SSD, it cut map loads in Battlfeild: Bad Company 2 from ~1 minute to ~6-10 seconds. I don't put all my Steam games on SSD but ones I play online most frequently I do put on SSD for the map/zone loading benefits. Also games like rFactor 2 where it takes for freaking ever to load a track gets a boost on SSD.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

RAID depends on the mode used. 0 is striped which puts 1/nth of the data on each drive with n drives. This means theoretically n x faster read and write times.

That won't be bottle necked by SATA6 because each drive maintains its own cable back to the chip set and only deals with 1/nth of the data, however the speed and ability of chipset will decide maximum data rates, cheap onboard SATA ones typically aren't very good, but dedicated RAID controllers will be rated for very high performance. RAID0 increases risk of losing your data however, if one drive fails you lose the entire array.

In reality there's diminishing returns for increased data rate with things like games, SSDs are such a massive jump over mechanical drives in terms of data rate that adding a 2nd one in RAID0 isn't likely to result in any perceptible difference, it's still the case that only handful of games gives seriously notable load time benefits with even 1 SSD.

As for loading times in open world games, or games in general. Keep in mind that you see loading screens which tend to load in only the assets you can see as you spawn into the new location. Many games have dynamic asset loading so as you progress through the world, assets are taken off disk and put into vRAM or system RAM, when this happens you can get stuttering because the rendering has to be paused while the asset is loaded, usually there's some form of buffering so that assets are requested ideally before they're needed on screen but with slow drives or rapid change in scenery you can easily spill over that buffer and notice the stuttering. SSDs do help with that, you're less likely to see the stuttering and it may be more brief when it does occur.

 

[GaiaHunter]

Improved immensely loading times in GW2 in areas where you have loads of players.

 

[TeknoBug]

Improved immensely loading times in GW2 in areas where you have loads of players.

Yes yes yes, zone loading was significantly faster when I moved GW2 to SSD.

 

[werepossum]

I noticed absolutely ZERO difference in those games whether it was with or without mods. In fact the open world stutter of Fallout 3 was the sole reason I bought the SSD. I loved that game to hell but I became extremely frustrated with the open world stutter, so I dished out the money for a 256 GB SSD. And to my disappointment there was absolutely Zero difference between it and my 7200 rpm hard drive. I actually measured the frametimes at every point where the stutters occurred, and they were exactly the same. If it was 50 ms on the HDD, it was 50 ms on the SSD. I checked with others on forums, and it was always the same: people who didn't own an SSD claimed "It will make the game butter smooth cause game streams assets" etc, while the people with an actual SSD posted their experience that it provided zero improvement for the stutters.
The only explanation I have for you noticing an improvement was that you were using a very old 5400 rpm hard drive, maybe in IDE mode, or maybe it was faulty, or fragmented, or maybe you installed it on a drive on the outer track of the disk.

Nope, I came from a Western Digital Black 7200 rpm drive, neither faulty nor fragmented nor near full. Three factors which may be pertinent:
1. I'm running OS on one SSD and games on a second, with files and non-critical programs on Winchester drives.
2. I was running a LOT of mods, so my end files sizes were huge.
3. I had previously used mods to fix stutter and microstutter.

 

[ibex333]

I think SSDs are overrated. My game loading times are always a few seconds faster than my friends when we play online. Things like Starcraft, and Company of Heroes. But the time difference is not worth the much higher cost. We are talking like 3-10 seconds faster. He has a regular 7200rpm HDD.

Where the SSD does make a difference is how fast regular software opens, such as word, photoshop, etc, etc. It's pretty much instant vs. 10-20 sec on a regular HDD. But is that worth hundreds of dollars?

 

[mikeymikec]

I think SSDs are overrated. My game loading times are always a few seconds faster than my friends when we play online. Things like Starcraft, and Company of Heroes. But the time difference is not worth the much higher cost. We are talking like 3-10 seconds faster. He has a regular 7200rpm HDD.

Where the SSD does make a difference is how fast regular software opens, such as word, photoshop, etc, etc. It's pretty much instant vs. 10-20 sec on a regular HDD. But is that worth hundreds of dollars?

Have you considered that if you're playing online, your client should start the loaded map at the same time as the other players (some of whom do not have SSDs)?

 

[ibex333]

Have you considered that if you're playing online, your client should start the loaded map at the same time as the other players (some of whom do not have SSDs)?

Yeah, I know that. But I can see that my loading bar gets to the end faster than his. Not that it matters because I cannot start before him anyway.

 

[el-Capitan]

EU IV is a great example how an SSD can benefit

 

[Trsskatert63]

Has no one heard about hybrid drives? I really wonder why no one talks about them or recommends them over SSDs specially for budge oriented builds. I have an 256gb M.2 PCIe 2.0 plextor ssd (back when it was the best avilable) and a 4TB segate hybrid drive. The speed of games between the 2 are aren't too far off and that's with me having an ssd that is faster than people with a samsung evo. I build a friend a computer with a 1TB firecuda hybrid drive and the start up speed is exactly the same time as my computer, and the load time of Skyrim is the same. The best part is for a 1TB hybrid drive it cost $60. Why get an SSD that costs tons more.

 

[you2]

I don't like hybrid drives and they generally help writes not reads. The cache can't predict random read and disks have ram for read-ahead logic. What the hybrid allow is for small writes to be buffered; this is esp valuable for sync writes.

 

[Trsskatert63]

I don't like hybrid drives and they generally help writes not reads. The cache can't predict random read and disks have ram for read-ahead logic. What the hybrid allow is for small writes to be buffered; this is esp valuable for sync writes.

That's only half true. The new hybrid drives work a lot faster with reads now. Granted the first time you access something it's not as fast but the average person uses the same programs every time they go on their computer so after 4 times of accessing stuff it is near SSD speeds and a lot of people have tested that with benchmarks to show that. And honestly an M.2 SSD which is faster than normal SSDs I can't say I noticed really any difference in any game vs a hybrid drive. Even with using a stop watch to time it there was no difference. If you are a PC enthusis for sure get an SSD. But for the average guy that spams the next button when install a program or doesn't want to assign everything to a 2nd drive that has storage space.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Has no one heard about hybrid drives? I really wonder why no one talks about them or recommends them over SSDs specially for budge oriented builds. I have an 256gb M.2 PCIe 2.0 plextor ssd (back when it was the best avilable) and a 4TB segate hybrid drive. The speed of games between the 2 are aren't too far off and that's with me having an ssd that is faster than people with a samsung evo. I build a friend a computer with a 1TB firecuda hybrid drive and the start up speed is exactly the same time as my computer, and the load time of Skyrim is the same. The best part is for a 1TB hybrid drive it cost $60. Why get an SSD that costs tons more.

Generally speaking, Hybrids had a rough start in the market and as such they've kinda been scarlet-lettered by most system builders. They might be better at this point (I might look at one for my next large-disk purchase) but the advantages were slim, and disadvantages large, when they released 2-4 years ago.

I'd like to see an Anandtech review on the current state of hybrid disks, cost/perf ratios, ideal usage scenarios, etc.