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Specific SSD question

Dorkenstein

Dorkenstein

Diamond Member
What's the most inexpensive SSD that will, at the very least, reduce or eliminate texture pop-up in games for me? I'm using a normal samsung sata 2 drive right now and the texture pop in is grating on my nerves, even after tweaking the dickens out of the game. Thanks for any help.

I would normally just get an Intel one (eventually) but I want to know if there's anything cheaper that will suffice.
 
The indilinx based ones should do well for this purpose, like the Ultra Drive ME (I like the easy accessibility to firmware upgrades and low cost). They have amazing read and access times.
 
Thanks for your reply taltamir. Would the 64 gb one suffice for just games you think? I know it won't hold all of them. But the 128 is OOS at Newegg. Thanks.
 
Originally posted by: Dorkenstein
What's the most inexpensive SSD that will, at the very least, reduce or eliminate texture pop-up in games for me? I'm using a normal samsung sata 2 drive right now and the texture pop in is grating on my nerves, even after tweaking the dickens out of the game.
Click to expand...

Which game is this? I though texture pop-up is due to short drawing distance.
 
Originally posted by: Dorkenstein
Thanks for your reply taltamir. Would the 64 gb one suffice for just games you think? I know it won't hold all of them. But the 128 is OOS at Newegg. Thanks.
Click to expand...

how many games do you have installed at once?
 
Originally posted by: shabby
Originally posted by: Dorkenstein
What's the most inexpensive SSD that will, at the very least, reduce or eliminate texture pop-up in games for me? I'm using a normal samsung sata 2 drive right now and the texture pop in is grating on my nerves, even after tweaking the dickens out of the game.
Click to expand...

Which game is this? I though texture pop-up is due to short drawing distance.
Click to expand...
While in theory short drawing distance can cause texture popping, I think he is referring to the Unreal Engine 3 texture popping specifically which has nothing to do with drawing distance.

It is caused by the game letting you start playing before all the higher definition texture loaded into ram.

Instead of pausing the game with a "please wait while loading textures" every time you do a level transition (say, by taking an elevator in mass effect), it loads the essentials and low res textures, then lets you start playing, and loads higher quality textures as you are playing, so you will stand and look at a thing right next to the player, and suddenly it turns into a higher quality version of itself.

faster drive really helps. More ram would really help if and only if the game was programmed to aggressively cache into ram and utilize large amounts (many games limit their ram use unnecessarily... especially UE3 games since they tend to be multi platform and the shitbox 360 only has 512MB of ram).
 
Is the Super Talent drive the next best thing to the Intel ones? I am getting ready to make a purchase, but too much is happening with Intel drives and I don't know if I should wait or not. Thanks.
 
there is a lot of completely identical drives from different manufacturers. All the really matters is the combination of controller and chips.
The indlinx controller is the second best after intel.
Super talent ultra drive ME, gskill falcon, and OCZ vertex are all indilinx controller based and perform about the same.

Although, the new intel G2 is priced very well, even less $ per gig than indlinx at the moment if you can find it at suggested price. Indlinx drives are set to go down in price over the next few weeks due to it... so do a careful price comparison
 
Originally posted by: taltamir
[
It is caused by the game letting you start playing before all the higher definition texture loaded into ram.

Instead of pausing the game with a "please wait while loading textures" every time you do a level transition (say, by taking an elevator in mass effect), it loads the essentials and low res textures, then lets you start playing, and loads higher quality textures as you are playing, so you will stand and look at a thing right next to the player, and suddenly it turns into a higher quality version of itself.

faster drive really helps. More ram would really help if and only if the game was programmed to aggressively cache into ram and utilize large amounts (many games limit their ram use unnecessarily... especially UE3 games since they tend to be multi platform and the shitbox 360 only has 512MB of ram).
Click to expand...


The settings for the pop-in should be exposed in one of the UE3 engine ini files. I am playing The Last Remnant right now on PC, which is UE3-based, and found the settings to eliminate the pop-in on the TLR wiki:
http://lastremnant.wikia.com/wiki/PC_Tweaking

I'll take a look at Mass Effect when I get home and see if I can find the corresponding settings for it.
 
Originally posted by: aka1nas
Originally posted by: taltamir
[
It is caused by the game letting you start playing before all the higher definition texture loaded into ram.

Instead of pausing the game with a "please wait while loading textures" every time you do a level transition (say, by taking an elevator in mass effect), it loads the essentials and low res textures, then lets you start playing, and loads higher quality textures as you are playing, so you will stand and look at a thing right next to the player, and suddenly it turns into a higher quality version of itself.

faster drive really helps. More ram would really help if and only if the game was programmed to aggressively cache into ram and utilize large amounts (many games limit their ram use unnecessarily... especially UE3 games since they tend to be multi platform and the shitbox 360 only has 512MB of ram).
Click to expand...


The settings for the pop-in should be exposed in one of the UE3 engine ini files. I am playing The Last Remnant right now on PC, which is UE3-based, and found the settings to eliminate the pop-in on the TLR wiki:
http://lastremnant.wikia.com/wiki/PC_Tweaking

I'll take a look at Mass Effect when I get home and see if I can find the corresponding settings for it.
Click to expand...

yes, if the game lets you increase the texture pool size manually via INI file editing than that will really help as well.
 
Hmm, I don't know if an SSD would even work for me. My steam install alone is over 90 gigabytes, and a 160gb ssd costs 600 dollars.

As for the ini tweaking, I don't think the ini for Fallout 3 allows for that, but I can check the tweaks page again. Thanks.
 
you don't have to install EVERY SINGLE GAME YOU OWN on an SSD you know... just the one or two you are currently playing... one of the big drawbacks of steam is lack of control over install directory.
 
You can backup data on other drives for steam. I've got about 80GB of steam games too but I only keep L4D, TF2, and CSS installed. Once you beat a game you beat it, unless it's got high replayability (MP, or heavily modded SP games)
 
Good idea. I am inclined to wait until the price on the g2 comes down, but I don't know how long that will be. Would I benefit from using a separate sata mechanical drive for games in the mean time or would that not help? Right now I have my games on the second partition of a 3-platter samsung drive with my OS on the first partition. Is there a decent stop-gap for me?
 
I am inclined to wait until the price on the g2 comes down
Click to expand...
Why would that happen? the G1 kept the exact same price for their entire lifespan... the G2 lowered the price... don't expect intel to drop prices until G3
 
Even with 2 Vertexes in RAID it's still 8 memory channels vs 10 so the Intel is still going to win the IOPS war. OCZ probably knows this which is why the Colossus is simply replacing the Vertex at its current price points.
 
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