SSD Gaming Difference

Rob Turbo

Rob Turbo

Rob Turbo

Associate
Joined
28 Aug 2012
Posts
354
Location
Durham
How much, if any, difference will I see gaming with games installed on an SSD?

At the minute I'm playing GTA4 and dirt3, dirt3 I have no problems with, GTA4 on the other hand could do with a bit more performance as always!

I'm also downloading Tomb Raider and Bioshock Infinite that came with my 7850, I'm not sure what the performance will be like with those yet though.

An SSD is on my wanted list, first up is a quality PSU though, another few weeks and I should be in a position to buy an SSD.
 
just slightly quicker loading times but tbh I cant tell much difference,currently have farcry3/crisis andtombraider on my ssd and its not mch different from having them on my 2tb Samsung hdd
 
i find the loading times in farcry 3 are reduced by about 40% on an ssd from hdd but thats still only a matter of like 1-2 seconds more and apart from that it makes no difference in performance.
 
ArmA 2 editors textures seem to load quicker on ssd's than a mechanical hdd, i don't think there is much in it for performance really, well, i havn't seen a massive increase in framerate that's for sure. Cool and quiet and i like nano technology but not the price of ssd's.
 
I don't think you'll see much, it's pretty small and not worth 'buying'.

I'm buying 2 2TB HD's, moving STEAM over to one of those, and keeping my SSD just or programs.

It will save time d/ling STEAM games onto a limited SSD of 124GB.

Funnily enough, that time saved on D/L'ing older games you might wish to play will far exceed any performance gains you would make from having any games on an SSD...

128GB or even 256GB SSD just isn't big enough for a serious gamer, especially if you like to add mods, my SKYRIM mod folder is close to 18GB.

I'd put your OS and programs on SSD, game off HD's.
 
I think I'll get a 120-128gb SSD for windows and re-arrange my 1tb HDD with everything else, I'm going to need another HDD sometime soon, I'm fast running out of space as it is!

Is there an easy way to move games onto a different HDD without having to reinstall everything? Once I've moved the OS onto a SSD my games won't be on C: anymore and I'm sure they won't like that!
 
the only way you notice a sdd is boot times and if it's big enough for all your games etc, then you can tell the difference between hdd and sdd's etc
 
I noticed a difference in GTA4 - I have highly modified the game, and have lots of very high resolution textures (the road textures alone are about 4GB)

With my "old" mechanical HDD, I was getting some points where the textures weren't loading quickly enough, giving patches of low detail until it caught up enough to load the full texture.

When switching to an SSD, the loading of these textures was massively improved, and my in-game experience in GTA4 improved.


However - the best difference that an SSD makes is not to gaming, but to the general response of your computer - applications open almost instantly, it starts up a lot quicker - so much so now that I don't leave it on quite as much as I used to, because it's actually booted up and at a Windows desktop quicker than I can turn my monitors on.
 
Rob Turbo said:
I think I'll get a 120-128gb SSD for windows and re-arrange my 1tb HDD with everything else, I'm going to need another HDD sometime soon, I'm fast running out of space as it is!

Is there an easy way to move games onto a different HDD without having to reinstall everything? Once I've moved the OS onto a SSD my games won't be on C: anymore and I'm sure they won't like that!
Click to expand...

No idea if this is the best way to do it but i use steam library manager as steam doesn't support using a seperate drive :/
I've not had a game fail to run with it yet.

http://www.stefanjones.ca/steam/
 
Depends entirely on the game, some don't see an improvement, others its night and day.

I.E In World of Warcraft back when I first got an SSD I managed to open the gate of Karazhan for my DK alt then log over and walk in (example only works if you know what I'm talking about but meh :P)
 
Anything with loading screens a lot youll see a big difference, WoW is the game i notice the most in, its also nice to have a PC that boots up in a few seconds to check a web site if sumone has hid ya ipad again......the main difference i notice though is silence, i luv it when the storage drives turn off and ya sat playing wow without any clicking or whizing noises.
 
I have my steam library on a separate partition anyway, I didn't start actually using steam (and origin *shudders*) until after I decided I was getting a SSD so I prepared myself for that, but I have GTA4 + EFLC and Dirt3 on the main partition, as well as a few other bits and bobs that don't need to be on a SSD.

We'll be getting a bank holiday bonus tomorrow, plus it's the work lottery tomorrow, not really a lottery, last Friday of every month, but early this month because of the bank holiday, everyone's name gets put in a hat and the winner from the month before picks a name out, winner gets £50, if I get it I'll be straight out to buy a Samsung 840, hopefully pro.
 
Well I didn't win the work lottery, but I did get a decent bank holliday bonus, so I've been out and bought a Samsung 840 pro 128gb SSD.

I'm currently resizing my windows partition to fit onto the SSD, should all be up and running tomorrow!
 
The partition copying didn't go well, I gave up and went for a fresh install, everything went well apart from origin forcing me to re download crysis 3 (only game I've got on there), which is at least a couple of days wait, the internet around here is slow! I just hope I don't have to start over with the game, I don't know where it keeps it's save games, I'll have to google that!

Steam on the other hand was easy, install it, tell it where my games are and it's ready to go!

I'll reinstall GTA4, I already have my save game backed up for that.

As for speed, I'm well impressed with the speed it loads windows and is ready to use as soon as you see the desktop, even with a few things starting with windows! Just need to sort out what I need and what I don't from the old HDD then merge all the partitions into one.
 
I moved my Steam games folder from the SSD to my 1TB mechanical drive a while back to save space - didn't notice any difference TBH.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom