I found out what was freezing Watch Dogs: Legion (can see it in task manager)

I don't understand. You're arguing with us - why?

sata SSDs have access times broadly identical to NVMe SSDs. I've SHOWN you this with my 9 year old samsung 830. Infact, my 850 evo has a better write access time than the NVMe example you gave, and on old hardware too, so you're barking up the wrong tree. Again:

james.miller said:
if you are seeing ~200ms access time in the task manager directly after Watch Dogs goes sideways then that's a result of the drive being bottlenecked. 200ms access time is not normal for any SSD. As for what's causing it, as i said it could be because the SSD has no cache. Write performance is way more reliant on cache than read, so maybe something is writing a lot of data too it when Watch Dogs tanks? You need to look at everything else your PC is doing when this happens.
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g67575 said:
It's obvious that a NVME SSD (might as well get one with a DRAM cache too) would be the best bet though, to run the game without stuttering, why waste time on a sata drive? NVME drives have approx 5-10x faster read access times, and noticeably higher 4K read and write performance, compared to a Sata SSD with DRAM cache, example here:

https://www.elinfor.com/article/S/S/SSD (2).png
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If the price is right, absolutely. but it 100% HAS to have a cache. SATA isn't problem, lack of cache is.

g67575 said:
I haven't seen any evidence that suggests that there would be this kind of performance deficit with a DRAMless SSD (there seem to be a lot of assumptions about real world performance for some reason, even though most SSDs have an option to use system RAM as a cache for the SSD).
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Crucial BX500 2TB SATA SSD Review | TweakTown
On paper, the BX series has made all the right moves to be a solid budget drive, and it's not that it isn't, competition in the market has almost spoiled Crucial plans to have a two-tiered approach in its SATA lineup. The build quality of the BX500 is on par with any other SATA solution I have used, and the TBW at 720TB for the 2TB is higher than both the 850 EVO, WD Blue, and its MX500 counterpart.

Performance of the BX500 certainly lacks in any scenario that requires heavy write activity. Read activity, on the other hand, is handled without issue and in our testing was able to reach the intended 550 MB/s. ATTO showed just how one-sided this drive's performance can be with intermittent dropouts during writes and steady read performance start to finish.

The pricing of this solution is both good and bad. It is the lowest priced 2TB SATA SSD on the market at $199.99. But, as mentioned in the opening remarks, the market has pushed the cost for all SATA drives down regardless of performance. The highest-performing drives like the MX500, WD Blue, and Seagate Barracuda are all within an extra $20. That said, the BX500 is a useful data drive for scenarios that don't require heavy write workloads, like a game drive or console drive replacement.
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:shrug:
 
The game is struggling to read files, not write them. NVME drives have better read access times, google it. I think we are arguing about nothing really, you say it's because of no cache I say it's slow access times, it could be either, we don't know.
 
Might be a different issue causing it. I played it off of a WD Blue 500 GB (sata) ssd, so very low end & dram-less, and I had no freezes of the sort, this was tested with an RX 480, Vega 64, and RX 6800. Textures always maxed out, generally around 1440p(ish, used res scale & their solution reconstructed to 4K).
 
Interesting. It does seem to be something to do with the SSD though, as the active time always reaches 100% on the SSD when it happens.
 
Cyber-Mav said:
Yikes i find it hard to believe that a modern dram less ssd is slower than a mechanical drive in anything.
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I recorded a quick video cause it's so hard to believe but this was what I experienced in pretty much any game that had a massive install size.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7z3hT9SjQ8
(not embedded cause of non forum friendly music on the GTA radio)

Here is the exact same game but on an HDD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IshtKOGn3Xc

In both instances, I was recording to the HDD.

Now I use a Crucial MX500 for games storage and it's flawless, not noticeably slower than a 1,000,000 IOPS, 7GB/s WD SN850.
 
Right, I think I've found a solution. I had to defragment all the game's files using a trial program called Cobra file defrag (I tried Defraggler with only partial success). Link to download here:
https://www.cobraapps.com/products/filedefrag.php#:~:text=Cobra File Defrag employs an,free space on the drive.

I had to make sure there were no fragments in any of the game's files. I drove around the city for approx. 30 mins with no freezing, areas where the freezing usually triggered (like near bridges) were problem free. You might not believe that this can make any difference on an SSD, but some files it seems can be very fragmented (thousands of fragments spread across the drive). In the case of WD: Legions, it's files hard more fragmentation than any others on my PC.

I noticed that the game files were in a contiguous single block in Defraggler, after using Cobra to defrag the files.

So, it appears the old advice about not defragging SSDs just isn't true, sometimes it makes a large difference (but you need to do it selectively, not much point doing a 'normal' defrag). I wonder if this would help other games that suffer from similar problems?

Definitely the hardest game to get working, that I've played in many years.
 
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g67575 said:
The game is struggling to read files, not write them. NVME drives have better read access times, google it. I think we are arguing about nothing really, you say it's because of no cache I say it's slow access times, it could be either, we don't know.
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And look at the read access time of my old SSD - 0.119ms, or roughly 2000x better than the 200ms you seem to think (without any proof) your bx500 should have? What does that suggest to you?

g67575 said:
Right, I think I've found a solution. I had to defragment all the game's files using a trial program called Cobra file defrag (I tried Defraggler with only partial success). Link to download here:
https://www.cobraapps.com/products/filedefrag.php#:~:text=Cobra File Defrag employs an,free space on the drive.

I had to make sure there were no fragments in any of the game's files. I drove around the city for approx. 30 mins with no freezing, areas where the freezing usually triggered (like near bridges) were problem free. You might not believe that this can make any difference on an SSD, but some files it seems can be very fragmented (thousands of fragments spread across the drive). In the case of WD: Legions, it's files hard more fragmentation than any others on my PC.

I noticed that the game files were in a contiguous single block in Defraggler, after using Cobra to defrag the files.

So, it appears the old advice about not defragging SSDs just isn't true, sometimes it makes a large difference (but you need to do it selectively, not much point doing a 'normal' defrag). I wonder if this would help other games that suffer from similar problems?

Definitely the hardest game to get working, that I've played in many years.
Click to expand...

Oh no. No. This at best is a temporary fix, if it even fixes it. I dont understand, you said you saw no evidence that dramless SSDs have real world performance issues despite a review for your exact drive suggesting otherwise, then you go and defrag your SSD despite hundreds of websites and articles out there telling you the only thing this will do is prematurely age your SSD.

I don't think you wanted to kow what the cause was. I think you already made your mind up, decided what you were going to do about it and then posted here looking for validation. Well, if that's what you want then as i suggested go buy an NVMe drive. Just make sure it has a cache. (it's fine, i know you'll ignore that advise).
 
james.miller said:
Just make sure it has a cache. (it's fine, i know you'll ignore that advise).
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I have a 2TB SSD, I'm using what I've got and it works now, chill dude.

andybird123 said:
Why is there a massive argument about data drives in the GPU section?
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Friendly place, ain't it?

This guy explains the theory behind how file fragmentation can affect SSD performance, contrary to popular opinion. Each fragment of a file takes time for the operating system to access. Link here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfYkJoqfG-k

I disagree with him that all files should be stored contiguously (he was trying to sell defrag s/w though), as technologies like wear levelling help to improve SSD lifespan.
 
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I fixed the problem I was having with the game, I'm sorry if that bothers you for some reason, or you cannot accept or believe it.

So, I may have written a few more GBs to the SSD, so what? The drive has an estimated TBW of 720.
 
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I dont have a problem with you thinking it's fixed. I'm sure it is, but i question for how long. I have no problem with you at all. You posted this thread, g67575, we tried to help you. But when asking you to clarify points (200ms? where? when how?) you wouldnt answer. You then made weird claims about not seeing any evidence of cacheless disks performing poorly against their counterparts despite a review of your exact drive saying it does, then went against advice from every corner of the internet and defragged an SSD. I'm not going to tell you why believing that is a fix, is a stretch, because you simply wont accept it.

Mate honestly, we're all fine but like i said...i'm certain now you didnt post this thread looking for help.
 
g67575 said:
I noticed that the game files were in a contiguous single block in Defraggler, after using Cobra to defrag the files.
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With SSDs what file system sees is entirely meaningless to actual physical location of data on NAND chips.

Unlike in HDDs with file system level address matching to exact single physical location on disk, SSDs have controller deciding actual write location of the data.
(storing actual location corresponding to file system address into kind of address translation table)

Also to improve performance controllers split at least writes above certain size into smaller pieces written in parallel to different NAND chips.
Which is why smallest drives of model serie with fewer NAND chips have lower performance especially in writes.

And next write to address of file system can go to entirely different physical location to even wear of cells.
Also controller erasing pieces of old deleted files can cause need to move also other data, because of the way Flash memory works.


Though not sure if file system itself can fragment its logical level "book keeping" causing bottleneck.
At least if drive is too full, file allocation table itself can get fragmented.
 
g67575 said:
The game is struggling to read files, not write them. NVME drives have better read access times, google it.
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NVMe protocol itself has lower overhead.
But time for single access isn't automatically that much better, because of being limited by NAND Flash itself.
Those high queue depth/thread count numbers don't have really any meaning for normal home use.

For example here's top SATA SSD and NVMe SSD of the time tested on same hardware.
SATA SSD has 30 microsecond access time and NVMe SSD 26 microsecond access time.
Also take note of Q1T1 4K random read performance.
https://www.thessdreview.com/our-reviews/crucial-mx500-ssd-review-1tb-the-best-value-in-sata/3/
https://www.thessdreview.com/our-reviews/samsung-960-pro-m-2-nvme-ssd-review-2tb/3/
 
g67575 said:
WD Legions is a very odd game, I tried to load the page file onto a RAM disk, but the page file climbs to 10GB then crashes lol. Probably needs 11-12GB page file with the settings I'm using.
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g67575 said:
The game loads all the game assets and textures onto the system's committed memory. Some of this committed memory will be the page file (virtual memory). I know this because if the page file is disabled, committed memory (now just 16GB on my system), is entirely allocated as the game loads into a level, then the game crashes.
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Windows needs page file if there isn't enough RAM, because it's designed around having it.
That's why you shouldn't disable page file completely even if you have lots of RAM.
And pretty certain inability to expand page file size to match need causes also serious issues.
 
Cyber-Mav said:
Yikes i find it hard to believe that a modern dram less ssd is slower than a mechanical drive in anything.
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QLC drives are slower in sequential writing than 10 years old HDD after running out of SLC cache!
https://www.techpowerup.com/review/samsung-870-qvo-1-tb/6.html
https://www.techpowerup.com/review/crucial-p1-nvme-m-2-ssd-1-tb/6.html

And basing on collapse of write speed BX500 smells awfully lots of QLC.
https://www.techpowerup.com/review/crucial-bx500-480-gb/8.html
Or if that's TLC, it's some garbage bin quality chips.
MX500 hardly slows down after running out of SLC cache:
https://www.techpowerup.com/review/crucial-mx500-500-gb/6.html
 
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