ESO on HDD and on SSD

Finviuswe · January 2019

I take both bro. Believe me.

Oh wait, except. I ain't use a *** HD since 1992

mxxo · January 2019

Since the game has long loading times itself SSD wont bring much.

goldenarcher1 · January 2019

Have noticed slightly better load times with my new 1tb ssd drive compared to old hdd for ESO,but the ssd really shines when it comes to booting up windows and other programs and is a massive improvement.

Even better it is pretty much silent compared to the old hdd.

theyancey · January 2019

During beta I had everything on a velociraptor hdd. I later added a SSD for the OS and ESO and other games on the hdd. I later moved ESO to the SSD. I now have two 1Tb SSDs. ESO is on the main with my OS.

Ageless · January 2019

Before I bought my Samsung 1TB SSD, I had the ESO game directory on my SSHD (a HDD with 32GB of NAND cache, speeding up loading of much used programs). Moved over the ESO game directory to the SSD but haven't noticed any speed ups. If any they may even be slower at times, but that's mostly due to the loading of the server. I only notice speed ups when I load wayshrines on the same map, they go near instantaneous.

Thogard · January 2019

Huge difference

Jayman1000 · January 2019

Dexter51eb17_ESO wrote: »

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 SSD): 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 "wirth it" or "no difference". Thank you.

I have eso installed on a usb 3.0 ssd. These are my times. Only tried once so not a good dataset

From play to login screen: 8 seconds.
From login to char select: 51 seconds.
From char select to ingame (belkarth bank, craglorn): 1 minute 8 seconds

Jayman1000 · January 2019

SirAndy wrote: »

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

who says people think that? anyway, lag can arise from the fact that your disk is reading data slower, so with an ssd you will improve at least the disks ability to keep up with the games demand for loading assets. That doesn't help with server lag obviously.

Edwin · January 2019

SirAndy wrote: »

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

I don't think you understand how game loading works. Every time you start ESO, you aren't receiving GBs of textures from the ZOS servers, there is a reason ESO is about 92GB in total currently.

It works the exact same way as loading a singleplayer game, except there is small communication between the server and your PC about what textures need to be where which happens instantly.

The faster your PC can load textures, the shorter the loading times are.

Kurat · January 2019

NotEdwin wrote: »

SirAndy wrote: »

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

I don't think you understand how game loading works. Every time you start ESO, you aren't receiving GBs of textures from the ZOS servers, there is a reason ESO is about 92GB in total currently.

It works the exact same way as loading a singleplayer game, except there is small communication between the server and your PC about what textures need to be where which happens instantly.

The faster your PC can load textures, the shorter the loading times are.

You are correct about the textures but in reality there's no difference what drive you use in this game. My wife's PC is 3 years older than mine, alot weaker CPU, less and slower ram and HDD. My PC is next to hers, overclocked to 4.8 ghz, 2 SSDs in raid 0. My drive read speed is 10x faster but half the times she loads into zones and dungeons faster than me. My PC loads local data faster but then the server communications take most of the loading screen time and theres so many factors that can delay it.
SSD is definitely worth it in single player games and your boot times and OS is alot faster but dont expect any improvement in ESO.

idk · January 2019

The biggest benefit is faster loading. While long load screen scan occur for other reasons, those that regularly have long load screens have it due to their PC loading it slower. SSD is one thing that can speed it up.

But if this is an old PC the SSD will have little effect.

Red_Feather · January 2019

Merlin13KAGL wrote: »

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.

omg you are killing the magic. :'(

Elsonso · January 2019

Kurat wrote: »

You are correct about the textures but in reality there's no difference what drive you use in this game. My wife's PC is 3 years older than mine, alot weaker CPU, less and slower ram and HDD. My PC is next to hers, overclocked to 4.8 ghz, 2 SSDs in raid 0. My drive read speed is 10x faster but half the times she loads into zones and dungeons faster than me. My PC loads local data faster but then the server communications take most of the loading screen time and theres so many factors that can delay it.
SSD is definitely worth it in single player games and your boot times and OS is alot faster but dont expect any improvement in ESO.

Actually, it makes a difference, as far as I can tell. I have a similar situation to you and my faster system with an SSD loads the game and zones faster. There is a variable server load time, but that generally evens out between the two computers, leaving the system performance as the deciding factor. I will say that certain add-ons can slurp up that time advantage pretty easily.

SkillzMFG · January 2019

I've just been thinking about buying an SSD to shorten load times in ESO and PUBG and this thread has made the decision for me. Can't afford a M.2 one at the moment but a regular SATA3 240gb should do the trick, or am I wrong?

Also while we're at it, what CPU seems to handle this game the best? Mine's AMD FX-8350 and it doesn't seem to be doing that great of a job since I sometimes get major FPS drops and way too long load times.

SirAndy · January 2019

NotEdwin wrote: »

SirAndy wrote: »

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

I don't think you understand how game loading works.

I don't think you understand what i understand about game loading ...

Sylvermynx · January 2019

Jeez. Even on satellite my load screens are less than 20 seconds. I don't know what to tell y'all.... Yes I have ESO on my SSD. And my loading times are negligible at best.

Of course the downside is that a couple of times a day, for some unknown reason, the game thinks I don't have connection. However.... of course I have connection - as I can load web pages, grab email, etc.

*shrug*

Chili_Pepper · January 2019

SkillzMFG wrote: »

I've just been thinking about buying an SSD to shorten load times in ESO and PUBG and this thread has made the decision for me. Can't afford a M.2 one at the moment but a regular SATA3 240gb should do the trick, or am I wrong?

Also while we're at it, what CPU seems to handle this game the best? Mine's AMD FX-8350 and it doesn't seem to be doing that great of a job since I sometimes get major FPS drops and way too long load times.

none games use ssd more than 200 mbps,so usual sata ssd with 500 mbps read speed is enough for gaming,no problem that m.2 is unavailable.

use i5/i7 cpu 7th generation or higher,but not U (undervolting) series. no clue about amd.

FlyingSwan · January 2019

SkillzMFG wrote: »

I've just been thinking about buying an SSD to shorten load times in ESO and PUBG and this thread has made the decision for me. Can't afford a M.2 one at the moment but a regular SATA3 240gb should do the trick, or am I wrong?

Also while we're at it, what CPU seems to handle this game the best? Mine's AMD FX-8350 and it doesn't seem to be doing that great of a job since I sometimes get major FPS drops and way too long load times.

SATA SSD will be an improvement over normal HDD. I have M2 primary and SATA secondary in all my machines but use M2 for specific workloads, as games don't really seem to benefit.

As this game has a lot of single thread activity, Intel CPUs will perform better than AMD of that era, for various internal architecture reasons. So a high clock speed Intel Core i5/i7 will serve you better than the FX, for ESO.

SkillzMFG · January 2019

Thanks for you answers, It's a bit clearer to me now.

azurrei · January 2019

SSD will help a bit with various loading, no questions asked. However, loading screen times are due to the megaserver architecture not your HDD/SSD...you are still going to have long "load times" when zoning due to various reasons/server congestion.

Chili_Pepper · January 2019

ok lets resume.
having eso on SSD is definitely worth it. it won,t help with communication between server and PC,but boost loading times in zones,teleports and other things that depend on system perfomance and give you another,much more better experience in playing ESO. thank everyone for responses. hope this thread will help someone who had same question as mine.

RouDeR · January 2019

The load times in ESO are NOT related to your HDD/SSD speed.
They are related to 1# CPU speed, 2# Server responsiveness / business.

THE SSD/HDD Speeds are DIRECTLY related to the Texture rendering in the surroundings
Example: WITH HDD when teleporting to a new zone you will see a black character models or you wont see any at all and they will POP UP in time (depends on the userconfig settings).

Akino · January 2019

SSD is technically supposed to be faster than HDD. But others have mentioned other factors such as CPU also affects the loading greatly especially the loading from character selection.

I tested to run ESO (Steam version) on both SSD and HDD with a 3.1GHz 2nd generation i3 on custom high texture settings.
SSD: From play button to character load out in Wayrest was 2mins 46secs including the time spent on character load request (which took less than 5secs).
HDD: 3mins 48secs same procedure as above.

The game loaded faster on an SSD but compared to result of the others who have posted here it took way longer. For the processor has become a bottleneck for all the data that the SSD/HDD wants loaded that are waiting to be processed.

Chili_Pepper · January 2019

system must be balanced anyway. fast cpu for fast gpu and ssd. in my situation hdd was bottleneck

Mayrael · January 2019

I don't have exact times of loading, if will remember I'll measure them when at my PC. The only thing I can remember that from char select to be in game it took me something around 50s. There is noticeable difference between HDD and SSD especially if you place your game settings folder (with add-ons) on SSD (I did it via symbolic link), which will increase by a lot time needed to load add-ons like master merrchant. Like I said difference is noticeable but it's not game changer.

The biggest difference though is more fluent switching between running aps and in general in system performance, which leads as I noticed to better in game performance, mutch less FPS drops especially when playing longer.

Elsonso · January 2019

RouDeR wrote: »

The load times in ESO are NOT related to your HDD/SSD speed.

Hopefully, not. If that turns out to be the case, then an SSD will improve the situation. Something else will be the bottleneck.

Edwin · February 2019

RouDeR wrote: »

The load times in ESO are NOT related to your HDD/SSD speed.
They are related to 1# CPU speed, 2# Server responsiveness / business.

THE SSD/HDD Speeds are DIRECTLY related to the Texture rendering in the surroundings
Example: WITH HDD when teleporting to a new zone you will see a black character models or you wont see any at all and they will POP UP in time (depends on the userconfig settings).

Some of this is right but some of it is wrong.

Yes CPU speed matters, you won't see an improvement with an SSD if your CPU is a bottleneck, since it helps with loading the textures and such, same if you have a strong CPU but a slow HDD.

You can't tell me that loading screens are longer because the server is slow to respond, what does the server do exactly? It gives my computer instructions on what textures to load, and it moves/puts my character in to the game (loading wise).

My PC is not gonna load several gigabytes of textures faster because the server has 100ms faster responsiveness, people keep forgetting the loading screens are for loading the textures, same as any singleplayer games.

If you still think that's the case, explain to me how traveling to another zone has a longer loading screen, and traveling anywhere in a zone you're already in has an almost instant loading screen. (HINT: It's because the long loading screens load most of the zone textures).

Looking at it technically, whenever you change zones or travel around in the same zone, the same things happen during the loading screens, it moves your character and tells your computer which textures to pull.

ccfeeling · February 2019

HDD = blue quality
SSD = gold quality

SirAndy · February 2019

NotEdwin wrote: »

My PC is not gonna load several gigabytes of textures faster because the server has 100ms faster responsiveness, people keep forgetting the loading screens are for loading the textures, same as any singleplayer games.

Someone needs some edufication ...

Edwin · February 2019

SirAndy wrote: »

NotEdwin wrote: »

My PC is not gonna load several gigabytes of textures faster because the server has 100ms faster responsiveness, people keep forgetting the loading screens are for loading the textures, same as any singleplayer games.

Someone needs some edufication ...

Coming from the person who thinks the loading screens are for connecting to the server, lol.

If you have any technical points do tell, otherwise you're just being a troll.