SSD vs HDD, Open World Games, Texture/Object Pop In

[Aminados]

Alright, I know SSD makes Windows faster, boot faster, loading time in games decreases etc.. etc...

But how much will it actually help texture/objects loading?? Does it help against pop in's in open world games?

What kind of speed matters the most in open world games, where textures and objects are constantly being loaded? Is it Random 4k read?

Thanks

 

[xXx orange]

I don't think it would make a difference except when loading new areas/cells. Textures and Objects would be loaded by VRAM and RAM.

 

[Aminados]

Textures and Objects would be loaded by VRAM and RAM.

I think this is only the case in a closed world game or if in that open world game you enter a closed space, a loading screen would appear where stuff goes from your hdd/ssd to RAM/VRAM.

But in the actual open world, stuff need's to get from your hdd/ssd as you go. There's no way every object/texture in a game gets loaded onto the RAM at once, the faster you go the the more pop in's your likely to see, so by following this theory an SSD should help.

At least that's my experience with games like Skyrim and GTA. Specially Skyrim with a bunch of high resolution textures.

However I can be totally wrong.

 

[Skott]

You may be right Aminados but I think RAM/VRAM has more to do with it than just the ssd speed. I always thought it was like Orange said. I could be wrong though too.

 

[Aminados]

Yes, RAM/VRAM has to do with it, but the culprit could be the one supplying them the data. If the HDD/SSD can't give data fast enough there's nothing the RAM/VRAM can do. Right?

Check this out, Skyrim on PS3 HDD vs SSD.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbuKRH0aHRM

Now, the PS3 has 512mb of ram to share with GPU and CPU, witch makes me believe that the game relies more on the HDD/SSD on the PS3 then on PC as the RAM is very small making me think that it has to be supplied more often, thus making a bigger difference like shown on video.

Again I could be totally wrong and that's why I'm asking here before I go out and get me an SSD.

 

[xXx orange]

Yes, RAM/VRAM has to do with it, but the culprit could be the one supplying them the data. If the HDD/SSD cant give data fast enough there's nothing the RAM/VRAM can do. Right?

I suppose so but the idea is that you only have to feed the RAM the data once. I might be wrong.

 

[Aminados]

Ok, let me give you an example my "HEAVILY" modded Skyrim installation has a total size of 36GB, the majority of this is due to High res textures, the game uses 3.2 GB RAM max, how can you feed the RAM only once if the game is open world?

 

[0roo0roo]

I think this is only the case in a closed world game or if in that open world game you enter a closed space, a loading screen would appear where stuff goes from your hdd/ssd to RAM/VRAM.

But in the actual open world, stuff need's to get from your hdd/ssd as you go. There's no way every object/texture in a game gets loaded onto the RAM at once, the faster you go the the more pop in's your likely to see, so by following this theory an SSD should help.

At least that's my experience with games like Skyrim and GTA. Specially Skyrim with a bunch of high resolution textures.

However I can be totally wrong.

Hell even in games like borderlands 2 the textures stream in noticeably, its the price for being able to load into levels quickly....

 

[Aminados]

Another video from the PS3, but I think it applies to the PC too just not as drastically.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gosf3YUgdqM

 

[Cerb]

Not much. Initial loading, mostly. Texture pop-in/out is a matter of managing your VRAM. The game will typically have the textures in its own memory, to put into VRAM. Then, when it spills out of its memory--with a 32-bit game that's sure to happen--the texture files will still be in the OS' file cache. Only if not there, will it have to go back out to disk.

But, if you can afford it, get an SSD. Even if it doesn't make your games much faster, once loaded, it'll make everything else much faster.

Another video from the PS3, but I think it applies to the PC too just not as drastically.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gosf3YUgdqM

No.
PS3: 0.25GB RAM, 0.25GB VRAM.
Typical gaming PC: 8-16GB RAM, 1-3GB VRAM.

The PS3 offers game devs no other choices, if they want better texture quality than you were used to in 2003-2004 on a PC.

If the game engine goes and does all that, you'll still have that pop-out/pop-in, but you can safely blame the developers, not your PC. Rage, FI, would typically work much better after doing some config modding.

Ok, let me give you an example my "HEAVILY" modded Skyrim installation has a total size of 36GB, the majority of this is due to High res textures, the game uses 3.2 GB RAM max, how can you feed the RAM only once if the game is open world?

A 4GB Geforce card, and 48-64GB system RAM (but if you have a lot of VRAM, you can deal with textures being loaded in). Skyrim tries to preload textures before you need them, and if you have enough VRAM, you will not notice, because it will be ale to discard old textures you don't need, and load in textures you'll need for nearby cells, before they need to be used to draw a frame.

 

[KentState]

Even with my SSD RAID 0 set, I rarely see any streaming that pushes > 20MB/sec.

 

[BrightCandle]

I know of two games where there is clearly an advantage to having an SSD where it directly translates to eliminating popin of objects and textures:
1) Arma 2 (presumably Arma 3 as well) - Objects such as trees would pop in on the terrain when flying helicopters or as a passanger in a helicopter. Doesn't happen at infantry movement speeds but in the air its very clear and it causes the games frame rate to differ wildly. An SSD fixes this problem completely.

2) World of Warcraft - The players in a heavily populated area on a HDD take a while to load in. You can typically see their shadow moving around but many of them will take 10-15 seconds to load in when you first arrive and as people move in and out they will pop up quite close to you. An SSD dramatically decreases the effect and players appear much further away.

There are some other games that show dramatic reductions in load times as well - HL2 is one and the Total war games (Shogun 2, Rome 2) also show significant reductions due to an SSD.

There was also a review site, I think it was alienbabeltech about 6-12 months ago that tested SSDs alongside HDDs to see if it was affecting their frame time graphs. The end result of which is that some drops to very low FPS were caused by HDD access in a variety of games. So while the average wasn't typically impacted, nor the minimum the number of low frame rate drops increased on the HDD and they vowed to always test on SSDs from that point on.

So SSDs make a difference to gaming to an extent. Its mostly faster loading in a few games and slightly smoother gameplay but in a few games it really makes things a lot better.

 

[Carfax83]

If the game engine goes and does all that, you'll still have that pop-out/pop-in, but you can safely blame the developers, not your PC. Rage, FI, would typically work much better after doing some config modding.

Sorry to necro this thread, but I was doing a search on SSD vs HDD specifying texture pop in due to my issues with Assassin's Creed IV and it popped up in my google search.

At first I thought that getting an SSD would eliminate, or greatly reduce the texture and LOD pop in that I am getting in AC IV, but after doing some research, I agree with Cerb that it really comes down to the game developers.

I've found that despite being a massive open World game, AC IV uses LESS THAN 700MB OF RAM!

Can you believe that? How the hell does a game like this use less than 1GB of memory? So basically, the engine relies heavily on streaming data directly from the HDD/SSD regardless of how much RAM you have.

This I'm certain, is the cause of my difficulties. Despite still using mechanical HDDs (two 600GB Raptors) for primary storage, I very seldom ever have texture or LOD pop in issues.

In games with robust DX11 implementations that have a greater affinity for hardware like Crysis 3, BF3, BF4, Tomb Raider, and even Batman Arkham Origins pop in is very difficult to detect. You have to look for it.

But Ubisoft's AnvilNext engine is something else entirely. Same thing with their Far Cry 3 engine. Pop in was very noticeable. For whatever reason, both engines seem to rely on streaming data directly from the HDD/SSD, rather than using a greater amount of system memory as a MUCH faster buffer for the VRAM.

 

[Carfax83]

Yes, RAM/VRAM has to do with it, but the culprit could be the one supplying them the data. If the HDD/SSD can't give data fast enough there's nothing the RAM/VRAM can do. Right?

Any game that relies on the HDD/SSD to be the primary supplier of data to the GPU to render is consolized.

Why use the HDD/SSD to deliver data when the RAM is many orders of magnitude faster? I've found that when there is an inordinate amount of pop in, it usually due to:

1) Game doesn't preload textures, shaders etcetera in VRAM.

2) Game doesn't store enough data in system memory for quick and easy access.

Ubisoft's Dunia 2 and AnvilNext engine are prime examples of number 2, in that they don't store enough data in system memory, and instead overly rely on the much slower HDD/SSD to stream data to the GPU.