Will an SSD make a huge difference to performance ?

Jhogo

Hey adventurers! My question is whether it is worth to use an SSD in order to run TESO. Will it make any difference to performance? I think it will decrease loading times. What else will be benefited by using an SSD?

Lazarus_Long

How old is your system and what are it's specs?

Decreased load times is about the most an SSD can do for you unless your system is old and has little RAM. My core i5 2500 with 8gb of RAM loads everything much faster since I got my SSD. Windows 7 goes from a cold boot to ready to use in less than 15 seconds.

universe555

I initially installed the game on a 7200 rpm drive then switched it to a 10000 rpm raptor... was more fluid on the raptor

Kangas

Impact will be that loading screens become noticably short. If you go with an ssd hybrid they wont be as shortened but you will not have to fuss later when you want to install more games and would otherwise have had to shuffle files manually off your ssd.

Personally i have ssd and will upgrade to sshd when I can find one with a very large cache.

Then ill probably put my ssd in my ps3 or ps4

Hawke

A SSD wont have a serious impact on your game. Even if you just had a 7200rpm hard drive.. it won't impact TESO.

Mishoniko

As noted, how much RAM you have is the hinge point. If you can cache the game files in RAM then storage speed is irrelevant after the first time you go somewhere. If the game is constantly going back to disk for files you are effectively getting memory for the speed of disk and performance will be horrible.

I have 12GB RAM in my PC and only notice disk activity in game just after a reboot or if I go somewhere new. I put my machine to sleep at night instead of shutting down so that cache stays alive for days. I also only install games on my system so it isn't loaded down with junkware that sucks up RAM.

In my opinion -- only go for the SSD if you've maxed out the RAM in your system since it is papering over not having enough RAM for the task.

/Designs servers for a living.

GorstyUK

I have an ssd but I installed the game on my normal hard drive due to the large game file I didn't feel it was worth taking up on my ssd. The only increase in performance you will see i quicker loading time on going into new areas. And when you first load the game up.

Lazarus_Long

If you just want to test the waters and are running windows 7 or 8 then you could look into getting a "small" caching SSD. The are anywhere from 8-64GB in size and typically have third party software that makes sure the data you use most stays in the cache.

Hawke

My "old" computer I built five years ago had two 1tb raptors in raid 0 , and 24 GB of RAM. I have a SSD with 32gb (expandable to 64gb) and the only difference I notice is that I boot windows 4 seconds faster hehe.

wrlifeboil

Mishoniko wrote: »

As noted, how much RAM you have is the hinge point. If you can cache the game files in RAM then storage speed is irrelevant after the first time you go somewhere. If the game is constantly going back to disk for files you are effectively getting memory for the speed of disk and performance will be horrible.

I have 12GB RAM in my PC and only notice disk activity in game just after a reboot or if I go somewhere new. I put my machine to sleep at night instead of shutting down so that cache stays alive for days. I also only install games on my system so it isn't loaded down with junkware that sucks up RAM.

In my opinion -- only go for the SSD if you've maxed out the RAM in your system since it is papering over not having enough RAM for the task.

/Designs servers for a living.

With ESO being a 32-bit client, the maximum dram the game will use is 4gb, right?

Mishoniko

Disk cache is managed by the OS and doesn't count against the game's memory size limit. The application has no idea the caching is going on -- it just asks for a file and the OS provides the bits. If the app is measuring it, it might notice that reading certain things might be faster than others, but typically it doesn't care.

You can have 64GB RAM, have the entire game data cached, and ESO would gain benefit from it.

wrlifeboil

Mishoniko wrote: »

Disk cache is managed by the OS and doesn't count against the game's memory size limit. The application has no idea the caching is going on -- it just asks for a file and the OS provides the bits. If the app is measuring it, it might notice that reading certain things might be faster than others, but typically it doesn't care.

You can have 64GB RAM, have the entire game data cached, and ESO would gain benefit from it.

Excellent. But then if you had 64gb of dram and if the entire game was in the system cache, you wouldn't benefit from an ssd, right?

Cudda

So i am a bit surprised by the answers. No one seemed to ask any questions that matters.

If I put a SSD in a 10 year old system does it increase performance? Not really, is booting up a computer a "performance upgrade"??

A lot depends on different factors.

Are you using true 6Gbps SATA 3 links? or are they emulated through the chipset, like old X58's. If its emulated, no, your not gonna see much as far as performance enhancements.

Just buying a SSD doesnt gain a performance boost, unless you have the supporting infrastructure. You MOBO has to play nice just as well. Your processor has to keep up with everything.

If your adding a SSD to a old single core AMD set up, your not gonna see a difference. If your using a prebuilt Walmart cheapy that you upgraded small things like PSU/Graphics card, your not gonna see much of a difference.

If you have a budget build that has decent equipment with in the last 5 years, you probably will see an increase.

I only say this because it may be more cost effective to upgrade something else.

wrlifeboil

Cudda wrote: »

So i am a bit surprised by the answers. No one seemed to ask any questions that matters.

If I put a SSD in a 10 year old system does it increase performance? Not really, is booting up a computer a "performance upgrade"??

A lot depends on different factors.

Are you using true 6Gbps SATA 3 links? or are they emulated through the chipset, like old X58's. If its emulated, no, your not gonna see much as far as performance enhancements.

Just buying a SSD doesnt gain a performance boost, unless you have the supporting infrastructure. You MOBO has to play nice just as well. Your processor has to keep up with everything.

If your adding a SSD to a old single core AMD set up, your not gonna see a difference. If your using a prebuilt Walmart cheapy that you upgraded small things like PSU/Graphics card, your not gonna see much of a difference.

If you have a budget build that has decent equipment with in the last 5 years, you probably will see an increase.

I only say this because it may be more cost effective to upgrade something else.

I helped put an ssd in a celeron laptop and the boot time was around 6 times faster than booting from the laptop's hard drive. So an ssd will help load times even on slow computers but yes, for this game specifically, the game will still hit bottlenecks from a slow cpu or video card.

Mishoniko

wrlifeboil wrote: »

Excellent. But then if you had 64gb of dram and if the entire game was in the system cache, you wouldn't benefit from an ssd, right?

Once everything was cached, no, you would not, since RAM is faster than SSD. You wouldn't be getting any disk activity at all while changing zones. It would be sublime.

Mishoniko

Cudda wrote: »

I only say this because it may be more cost effective to upgrade something else.

That always has to be part of the equation when evaluating whether to upgrade or replace. While you can put a supercharger on a Geo Metro and get more performance, the money may be better spent on a newer vehicle better suited to your needs.

From a practical standpoint, at least.

That said, a supercharged Metro would be a sight to see and worth the price just for the lulz.

Moobs

i can give you a real world comparison . I recently built a new computer and installed Win 7 and ESO on a 7200 rpm drive. Then decided to buy a SSD and mirror the old C drive across to it. Windows now starts in seconds and the ESO client loads much faster. Loading screens when changing zones also go a bit quicker, but other than that there's no difference.

The only reason I bought it was I have a SSD on my laptop and I was getting impatient, it's nonessential for gaming. Video card, cpu and ram will make bigger differences.

Strontium-Dog

I dont use spinners at all now and when i have to use one elsewhere the difference it very noticeable. All ssd or not. Mixing didnt show much change