ESO on HDD and on SSD

Chili_Pepper

have seen a lot of same threads but there no comparisons in load times,and no videos in internet. so i want to know your ESO load times on SSD from cold start. here mine (OS on SSD,ESO on crappy 5400 HDD): from play button on clent till login/password screen-14 sec. from login till char select-51 sec. from char select till playing-1m40sec in rawl'ka/1min4sec in wilderness. (i7 4600hq 2,5ghz,8gb,gt 750m 4gb ddr3). so i'm interesting in your timings with ESO on SSD to understand worth it or not. will repeat-want to see here only timings,not just answers like "worth it" or "no difference". Thank you.

Chili_Pepper

eso on 5400 hdd for sure

Edwin

I have my OS on my main SSD, then a secondary SSD for ESO.

From play button to login screen - 5 secs

After login to character select (loading screen) - 27 secs

I clicked play on character select, waited until it was done requesting my character load (loading screen, Rawl'kha) - 28 secs

I did not include the time it took to actually log in and the time it took to request my character load because that varies based on server and network speed, the load screens are what matter between HDD and SSD.

I've noticed big improvements switching from a 7200 RPM HDD to an SSD.

But just to finish this off, I did one last test where I had a timer on from where I clicked play on the launcher until I loaded in to the game (the login was automatic since I'm on steam and I clicked the log in to character button as soon as I could), this includes the time it takes on a network level which can vary depending on the time of day and server load - 1m 19secs

I'll also throw in my specs: i5 4670K @ 4Ghz, GTX 980 Ti 6GB, 16GB DDR3, Samsung 850 PRO 128gb (OS), Samsung 850 EVO 250gb (ESO)

Hope this helps!

Merlin13KAGL

Most of your "Load screens" aren't about your drive. They're about the processor placing and making ready the 10,000 items that make up your current view of the game world at any given time. (the Load screen art is there to hide this pick and place process.) It also has to do with any Addons processing new data and updating in sequence.

While you'll see a gain from a good SSD vs an average mechanical, it is highly unlikely that is where your bottleneck lays.

Elsonso

SSD here.


I run ESO directly, not from the launcher.

Time to login screen: 8 seconds
Login screen to character select: 50 seconds (6:30am ET, fresh boot, first time in game, about 80 addons)
Character select to Elden Root: 50 seconds (including too many MB of saved variables)

Chili_Pepper

thanks for replies. anyone esle with eso load times from ssd?

Ilithyania

i have SSD and my friends have HDD

i spend 15-20 sec waiting for them to spawn in anywhere. Fast travel, group dungs etc etc

Liofa

Big difference for me. I was playing on HDD about 2 years ago. I had this weird problem. The adds that spawn during fight wouldn't be visible to me but everyone else for few seconds. I noticed that my PC had some rendering issues. Maybe it had something to do with something else but I simply swapped to SSD and it was solved, did nothing else. So in my experience, it helped with rendering as well as faster loads screens.

Perwulf

ESO is connection dependent to ping ms & server stability and this happens often hence why you don't see people bother with this issue.

That said, a slow pc is still a slow pc but sometimes high end pcs experiences slow pc symptoms because of the issue said above.

Turelus

I've always run it on an SSD. Recently moved it over to a PCIe SSD, didn't make any difference though. I would say if you have the option choose and SSD over a HDD though.

Nestor

SSDs are cheap enough now that this should not even be a question. Also, the cloning software makes upgrading to a larger SSD just a couple button clicks and about 5 minutes, no need to reinstall anything.

Yes, an SSD will make your gaming better. Will it solve all your lag issues in an online game? No.

ZonasArch

I'm running my game from and external 5400 HDD on a usb2.0 port, and my fiance is on her main drive Samsung Evo 850 500gb sata SSD, and both our loading times are similar. Sometimes I wait for her, sometimes she waits for me, but never by much. I don't think there's much of a difference if your surrounding hardware isn't super fast.

On my case, I'm running i5 7200u, 12gb, on igpu.
Hers, it's i7 7500u, 16gb, on 940mx.

I'm guessing here that our bottleneck isn't the drive speed, but the processor, since our drives are basically opposite ends of performance but our processors aren't that different, considering I undervolt mine to run on highest boost speed at all times and she doesn't.

As for how long it takes, I have no idea, never measured but I can if you want. Since you wanted a comparison between them both, that's what I tried to give.

DaveMoeDee

SSD, i7 2600k, 16GB mem

Probably should have tried with a fresh reboot and browser windows closed (incl Netflix, but that was paused).

Play to login. 6 sec
Login to character select: 31 sec
Character select to zone: 57 sec

The character was located in Eastmarch where the new life festival quest-giver was located.

Just did it right now (10:50am EST). I have a lot of addons.

twystedbrown

I played ESO on Xbox One (standard, not an X) for almost a year with ESO installed on the internal HDD that came with the Xbox. About 2 months ago, after reading about how an SSD greatly improves load times, I decided to give it a try. I bought the Samsung T5 Portable SSD from Amazon and installed ESO on it. I didn't record load times before and after, so I don't have the exact numbers.

Everything seems to load faster, but the biggest differences are in loading into new zones and just running around towns. It used to take FOREVER to teleport to another zone. Now I zone all over the place in a fraction of the time it used to take.

A big problem I had before installing the SSD was just running around populated areas like towns. All player characters were blacked out, objects were slow to load, and NPCs usually loaded last. I'd stand there several seconds before they finally loaded and I could interact with them. Running too quickly through town without letting everything load ended up throwing me to a loading screen that I stayed stuck at the same period of time it usually took for me to zone into a new area. I had to tiptoe from one part of town to the other so I wouldn't get the loading screen.

With the SSD, the NPCs are ALWAYS loaded in long before I can get to them. There are no black silhouettes as player characters. I can run through the most populated towns as fast as I want (maxed speed mount + rapid maneuver) and have yet to encounter a load screen.

I hope that helps someone make a decision on whether or not get an SSD. It was well worth it for me.

kypranb14_ESO

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjWUGsQNSvE

Hope this helps. A had a friend who has never owned a SSD. She is buying one after watching this. lol

Dreyloch

kypranb14_ESO wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjWUGsQNSvE

Hope this helps. A had a friend who has never owned a SSD. She is buying one after watching this. lol

This should say it all for the OP. If you have the MB for it, M.2 is the fastest drive you can get. I recently got a 1TB Evo 970 myself. I wanted a 970Pro, but the price just wasn't worth the miniscule upgrade in speed. Personally, I didn't see a huge difference in any loading from the WD Raptor I had the game on. A 10k rpm disc drive. (I don't even know if they make HDD's like that anymore, but I digrest).

As mentioned by others you will see a difference going from HDD to SSD. There is no doubt. Depending on the game and the resources it's loading, like ESO, there could be other factors. If your thinking this will get rid of loadscreens in say...Cyrodiil? Nope, I still get those. It's pretty rare now, but I don't think that's because of my system's ability to load things. It's the game's coding.

If I'm reading your spec's right OP? You could also use a memory upgrade. Looks like you have 8GB listed? Most any gaming system is going to have 16gb these days. That's bare minimum. I run 32gb, and memory really isn't that expensive anymore. I would check your motherboard manf. to see how much it can handle and at what speed. For instance 32gb DDR4 at 3200 speed. You don't need the top speed on it, middle of the road is plenty fine. I think you just need more in general. That along with going to an SSD or M.2 drive will surely make a difference. Might not be astronomical with ESO, but everything you run should be faster.

Gythral

M.2 - as long as it is the right version (NVMe SSD), is the fastest but check the SSD/Motherboard, as it can be no faster than a SATA III one

M.2 supports many different thing in it's various guises, so check yours supports NVMe SSDs, & not just SATA III, USB3 etc...

having said that generally a SATAIII or USB3.0 SSD is still faster that most HD...


PS my poor SATAIII SSD still loads in about 20s ahead of most of the groups even on my ancient (but overclocked) I5-2500K

Hotdog_23

Interesting read but when I read one guy using 80 add-ons I thought holy Jesus are we even playing the same game compared to consoles, lol.

idk

SSD will always be superior to an HHD. While CPUs, GPUs and ram increased their speed significantly over the past couple decades the HHD fell significantly behind.

I have seen some in the forums suggest the game does not benefit from an HHD but that is totally false. Load times are affected by drive speed since all graphics are already on our PC.

It is SSD hands down.

ErinGoBrag520

I was playing ESO on a laptop before I got a PC to play on. Changing to an SSD made a huge difference in how fast the game loaded and how quickly NPCs and textures loaded in the game. I don't have any times for you but I definitely had positive results with that change.

AlienatedGoat

Hotdog_23 wrote: »

Interesting read but when I read one guy using 80 add-ons I thought holy Jesus are we even playing the same game compared to consoles, lol.

PC with add-ons is completely different and vastly superior.

I don't think I'd even play if I had to play vanilla. The base UI is so bad.

For OP: SSD for the game will likely be a worthwhile upgrade. You can get a decent size SSD for a good price these days, and it'd be much better than your 5400 RPM HDD. 5400 RPM is very slow for today's games - even 7200 RPM is getting to be a bit slow for new titles. It's so much more pronounced in an MMO which has to fetch large portions of data at regular intervals during load screens. Make sure you get an SSD with a good read/write ratio - there are a lot of trash SSDs out there that aren't worth the money, so you should probably do your research.

My SSD times:

To login screen - 6s.

To character screen - 37s.

To game - 38s.

In-game load screens - 12s.

MLGProPlayer

I have an SSD. Still takes a day and a half to login. It's a slight improvement over HDD, but not much.

But thankfully I didn't get it for ESO. Never upgrade your hardware for this game because you'll be disappointed. It's just such a poorly optimised game that hardware is largely irrelevant when it comes to performance.

Striken7

Times with OS & ESO on same SSD:

To login screen: 7s
From login to character select: 30s
From selecting character to playing: 38s
Wayshrine from Eastmarch into Rawl'Kha: 19s

Then I did a fresh PC boot just for data.
From power button push to playing (including typing password): 1min34s

AlienatedGoat

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

I have an SSD. Still takes a day and a half to login. It's a slight improvement over HDD, but not much.

But thankfully I didn't get it for ESO. Never upgrade your hardware for this game because you'll be disappointed. It's just such a poorly optimised game that hardware is largely irrelevant when it comes to performance.

If OP had a good 7200 RPM drive I'd agree it would be marginal, but 5400 RPM is abysmal and a good SSD would be a notable improvement. That's without even touching read/write tolerances on OPs current drive, which I'll feel safe in assuming are terribad.

Finviuswe

I would say go with the SSD.

If you've ever compared the two there is a night and day difference

Chili_Pepper

got new laptop with i7 7700hq 2.8 ghz and gtx 1060. OS on m.2 ssd, ESO on second SSD samsung 860 pro.
here are timings
till login screen 6 secs (was 15 secs on old laptop with ESO on 5400 HDD) ---> x2.5 faster
from login to char select 5 secs (was 50 secs) ---> x10 faster
from char select to game 19 secs (was 1min40sec rawlka/1min4 sec outside)---> x5.2/x3.3 faster

requesting login and requesting character load times not included.

i understand that new laptop is a beast vs old one but anyway imo SSD value is bigger than new configuration.

Chili_Pepper

oh forgot to notice that ESO on old laptop was with 1366x768 with medium settings with shadows turned off without antialiasing and other visual effects

on new one all graphics on max available for sure

clocksstoppe

SSD does not help with loading screen time.
SSD helps when swapping characters.

coletas

Im on a raid 0 ssds... 2gb/s on benchmarks (16 cores, a gtx980 and 64gb ram) and I can be up to 20 minutes in a loading screen....

Kikke

ESO on a M.2.1 SSD - Best decision I've ever made.

SirAndy

Why do people think their local computer setup (SSD vs HDD) has any effect on server lag?