SSD for a MMO game...

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Hi chaps.

Right I'm gonna buy my ma an SSD for xmas. She's a huge MMO fan, and wants an SSD purely for the game she plays.

She's running XP (and I am not buying her W7 as well!), so I am thinking simply get a 64gb drive for the game drive only...no windows install or progs on it etc.

Sound sensible? Absence of TRIM be an issue if used only in this way?

oh and recommendations for a suitable drive would be great guys!

Cheers in advance
 
sounds like a good idea although I would check the system has at least SATA2 ports otherwise you won't really be making the most of the SSD speed.
 
Sounds a bit overkill to me tbh, I'd definitely want to shift the OS over as well.

If you're sure you only want it for running a single game you don't need much space, and write performance isn't relevant. I'd say go for http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-011-KS&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=910 - Cheap £57 30GB Kingston.

The F40 or Intel 40GB Drives are good alternatives too, for around £20 more. They are better performers for an OS/apps perspective but I don't think you'd see any difference between them and the Kingston 30GB drive for the kind of workload an MMO demands.
 
i used aa crucial m225 for wow and win7 together and wow loads 3 times as fast i'm always the first to spawn in groups.
 
trim / win7

I think you can get TRIM like applications for WinXP so dont let that stop you.

As for the purpose, depending if the MMO makes a lot of use of the hard disk (constantly loading small files etc) whilst playing, you may see a huge leap in performance, to no visible benefit at all.

Load times of anything is going to be quicker. If its browser based then install your browser to the SSD as well for lightning responses. Just always bear in mind the slowest part of the MMO is always going to be server lag.

If your budget stretches, the sandforce 1200 series based SSD (vertex 2e / Patriot Inferno) gives excellent read and write performance. The small file handling is not as good as the Intels, but is far above 99% of hard disks.

The X25 Intel series give above average read/write on large, but are superb on small (4k) files.

Hope my rambling helps you.
 
Thanks for the tips so far guys. Agree, if it were me, I would use for OS too...but all she ever uses the 'puter for is that game. Seriously!

Couple of the Q's stand out:
1- Good point on file sizes etc...I actually don't know what sort of file sizes MMOs tend to load??? Anyone help out on that one? Does it have lots of small files or larger ones? How could I find that out?
2 - @Orcvader - Didn't realise an OS could speed up a game that much actually.

She mainly plays Vanguard SOH (very little in the way of zoning...most textures need to load on the fly) and still a bit of Everquest 2 too now and again. So the Sony game folder is rather large...about 45-50g iirc. Hence the need for a 60 gig drive.

Now to answer Q's yes her rig has Sata2.
 
I was going to suggest an Intel for the on demand use of toolbox software, to make up for no Trim by XP (someone can confirm if thats true). But the 80GB costs so much more than 60GB models of other brands it mightn't be worth it. At least the extra storage space and being able to maintain performance using toolbox you could have OS on there too.
 
I'm not sure I get how having W7 installed on an SSD will help her experience of the loading times in an MMO (not WoW by the way)?

Maybe I am missing something though.
 
Intel tool box to do a weekly clean if its an intel drive or sandforce drives left to idle in log off mode does the same, so would be fine on XP.

Its just you would have to tweak settings in XP to make sure defrag and the like are turned off.
 
She would notice a much bigger difference in sticking the OS and all her apps on the SSD rather than the MMOs. With the folder being 40-50GB just now, it's very possible that with patches and expansions it could exceed 60GB.
 
So much misinformation in this thread.

1) xp overall is faster than windows7 especially for gaming, more so on older hardware - (win7 is however a better OS overall for useability). It's entirely misleading to suggest windows 7 will improve the gaming performance as its most likely to be marginally the opposite.


2) Trim (windows7 only) allthough usefull in the long run isnt 100% essential (allthough advised). Without Trim SSD optimisation/performance does indeed degrade over time if the drive is repeatedly written over with new data, however it doesnt get to a point where it ever gets remotely close to the slower speed at which mechanical HDDs perform.
- Most newer SSD's do background/idle time optimisation keeping the drive in a pretty good shape. (some manufacturers perform better than others in this respect)

Also - as suggested by others here, intel drives (maybe others too) have a manual tool which can be scheduled to effectively trim the drive on XP automatically.

I have 2 identical systems running XP one with a older Samsung SSD which has no trim, just some internal garbage collection routine. It performs so much better than the 7200rpm mechanical drive in the other system well over a year after it was installed. It has been used daily for standard tasks. I notice no noticeable slowdown from when first installed. However no doubt it has done so, windows inevitably allways gets slower over time due to apps installed etc. The point is, when a app is clicked it loads in a second or 2.. thats what counts. I bet for benchmarking etc it makes a difference.. my expereince in real world useage.. trim is not essential but will makes things better.

I also have windows7 and thoroughly reccomend it. however for the reasons the op has stated.. imo money would be wasted on windows7 alone as it would make no improvements at all to mmo gaming.
 
That's encouraging to know as I really don't want to have to buy W7 as well.

As it won't be used for the OS speed (literally the only thing she uses the PC for is that game...not even web browsing...no joke!).

Was hoping an SSD would do the trick and give her the boost she is looking for in her game.

If it means a bit of tweaking the OS then so be it, I can probably do that for her.

Thanks guys!
 
On XP you'll have to do all the manual setup of the drive too, it won't just be plug in and off you go (alignment etc).
 
Since you need 50GB, pick up a Crucial C300 64GB. They are less than £90 delivered if you shop around. Or you could wait for a 60GB Sandforce offer for a similar price (Seems to be one every other week on OCUK recently). Both of those drives are very fast and you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between them.

As it isn't your OS drive, setting up an aligned partition is easy. follow this guide
Essentially all you'll be doing is downloading a tool from microsoft and running a couple of commands to create the partition on your SSD.
 
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