Always the first to spawn on games... must be SSD

_Jimlad_ · 11 Feb 2011 at 15:26

i have noticed in the last few months of having a SSD i tend to spawn first on maps, or one of the first few. i have a modest pc and a poor internet connection (max speed 3mb) I can only assume its the SSD loading the map quicker?

I always get the chopper on Battfield Nam, which is what everyone charges for... any thoughts of experiences on this?

Overslop · 11 Feb 2011 at 15:30

Yep, SSD helps massively in loading levels.

_Jimlad_ · 11 Feb 2011 at 15:41

strange as i just figured it would be down to netspeed

PhillyDee · 11 Feb 2011 at 15:42

Access times for loading and chaching of the level is also very important. Theres not much info shared on a level load tbh!

HAz · 11 Feb 2011 at 15:43

all about hdd load times, always has

wakayoda · 11 Feb 2011 at 15:45

Are there many players left on BF Vietnam?

ThomasTheTankEngine · 11 Feb 2011 at 15:55

HAz said:
all about hdd load times, always has

It depends on the game. Battlefield games have always been about HDD load time, but l4d isn't at all.... that's completely reliant on your connection speed to the server.

_Jimlad_ · 11 Feb 2011 at 15:59

wakayoda said:
Are there many players left on BF Vietnam?

yeah loads, i prefer it x

FrenchTart · 11 Feb 2011 at 16:18

Sadly the differences between an SSD and a half-decent HDD are minimal when it comes to game loading times. I've compared similar spec'd PCs side by side and it changed my mind from wanting an SSD asap to being happy to wait for a good while until prices improve.

gronf · 11 Feb 2011 at 16:21

*off to buy SSD*

ACE01 · 11 Feb 2011 at 16:24

For BC2 especially I've seen a massive improvement, and similarly am almost always first into the fray, despite my 1.5mb dsl.

Previously I had 2 WD blacks in RAID0.

Datamonkey · 11 Feb 2011 at 16:29

FrenchTart said:
Sadly the differences between an SSD and a half-decent HDD are minimal when it comes to game loading times. I've compared similar spec'd PCs side by side and it changed my mind from wanting an SSD asap to being happy to wait for a good while until prices improve.

What did you compare it with? :confused:

I have done the same and was blown away by the difference. Its like night and day!!

BC2
Wow
Dirt2
Black Opps
Medal of Honor

Plus many more games, all have seen a massive improvement on loading times.

An SSD is one of the best upgrades you can do to a modern PC. The mechanical HDD was one of the remaining Achilles' heels of a modern PC along with the ODD.

mrk · 11 Feb 2011 at 16:35

Overslop said:
Yep, SSD helps massively in loading levels.

Not really, I have a WD black edition 500GB SATAII drive and I am always first or one of the first on BC2 to load in and in L4D2.

FrenchTart · 11 Feb 2011 at 16:36

Datamonkey said:
What did you compare it with?

I have done the same and was blown away by the difference. Its like night and day!!

BC2
Wow
Dirt2
Black Opps
Medal of Honor

Plus many more games, all have seen a massive improvement on loading times.

An SSD is one of the best upgrades you can do to a modern PC. The mechanical HDD was one of the remaining Achilles' heels of a modern PC along with the ODD.

It was a fairly decent one - whatever uv is running in his PC. I'll ask him next time I speak to him.

PhillyDee · 11 Feb 2011 at 16:38

Except it really does. I noticed a big difference between a normal and velociraptor, and again to an SSD. Plus, an SSD is much faster at EVERYTHING it does! Its painful to go back to a mechanical.

FrenchTart · 11 Feb 2011 at 16:44

I'll happily re-examine it sometime and would love for the speed improvements to be apparent. Just so far from what I've seen they haven't been (main game I was comparing was BFBC2, in case there's some issue with that and SSDs that would have made the comparison unfair?).

bhavv · 11 Feb 2011 at 16:53

Wouldnt Raid 0 Sammy F3s suffice?

uv · 11 Feb 2011 at 16:54

FrenchTart said:
It was a fairly decent one - whatever uv is running in his PC. I'll ask him next time I speak to him.

My Steam folder is ~500GB, so I symlink whatever game I'm playing loads onto the SSD (an OCZ Vertex2 iirc) - I may not have had BC2 symlinked onto the SSD?

In all fairness, whilst game load speeds are definately improved (especially noticable in The Witcher, C&C3 and Crysis), the biggest improvement is in day-to-day apps like MS Office, Firefox, Photoshop and the like.

Obviously, apps with smaller files will have massively improved load times on an SSD, whereas larger files (often found in game installs) won't load as fast - as the initial low seek time that SSDs provide is irellevant when you're loading a 500MB file into ram, upon which only the sustainable transfer rate is important.

In this aspect, decent HDDs in raid0 can often beat SSDs in price/performance when it comes to gaming! Still, I couldn't ever go back to mechanical drives for my OS

bhavv said:
Wouldnt Raid 0 Sammy F3s suffice?

Sure, if you hate your data and want all of it to die a horrible, clicky death.

If you're going to raid0, choose decent drives

bhavv · 11 Feb 2011 at 16:57

My Raid 0 F3s are doing fine, and there arent any other drives that are as fast in Raid 0 as those.

FrenchTart · 11 Feb 2011 at 16:58

bhavv said:
My Raid 0 F3s are doing fine, and there arent any other drives that are as fast in Raid 0 as those.

For game loading you want decent seek times as well as transfer rates- this is where raid 0 falls down.

@uv. Sounds quite possible. I'll have to compare again next LAN