SSD Solid State Drive

Stormshaper · October 2016

No point in offering yet another opinion but I went to Maximum PC to find this. Helped me with the same decision at the time. Somewhere on the same site there's an article specific to SSD and gaming in general, but I can't find it. I remember it saying basically that it won't speed up the actual game, but will help with loading times both at start of game and in-game.

http://www.pcgamer.com/hard-drive-vs-ssd-performance/3/

Note: link is page 3 with the summary, click back to pg.1 if you want to read it entirely. Link averse? Just search for Maximum PC

Armitas · October 2016

It's worth it to get an SSD just for using your computer. Restart times are amazingly fast and it's about the same price as a HD. Get it. I have played this game on both types, it doesn't really help in any meaningful way because this game is broke as heck.

Just remember that your SSD will die after so many writes so back up your data.

Majic · October 2016

I wouldn't get an SSD just for ESO.

I'd get it for everything.

CossackHD · October 2016

SirAndy wrote: »

AzraelKrieg wrote: »

Not worth it. An SSD on a game such as ESO would not benefit you in anyway.

Did you even try? My loading times are decreased by 50-75% thanks to the SSD. The characters (such as traders) in crowded areas appear MUCH faster with SSD. The HDD was 7200 RPM, always kept it defragmented.
ESO has lots of assets spread thin in the game data, HDD has bad time reading the assets from different sectors.

I've 250 GB SSD, I keep Windows on it, Skyrim and ESO. Skyrim has less benefit from SSD since it doesn't have that large size and content variety as ESO, but SSD does improve frame pacing when the game streams in new objects. As I said, the difference in ESO is spectacular, especially in loading screens and crowded spaces such as Elden Tree.

kylewwefan · October 2016

I have thaught about switching my PS4 to SSD, but it looks like not really worth it especially for ESO.

Malakisidious · October 2016

get the SSD!!! much more enjoyable, HDD use for storage or play the game on it and it will cook your BACON!

Flak · October 2016

Well I upgraded to SSD just yesterday, have to say it was worth it, loading screens are cut in half. But most important, when porting to a crowded area like Mournhold I always had Black Puppets instead of People and it took 30s-2mins until everything was loaded. Takes 2s now.
But I guess it also depends on your system, on a highend PC you are probably not going to notice a huge difference. On a 5yrs old one like mine you will.

Lord_Wrath · October 2016

When I went SSD, eso booted up much faster but thats it. Games that arent reliant on online services benefit more.

nine9six · October 2016

You should have an SSD in your rig regardless.

Single best upgrade you can do for a machine, IMO.

Pangnirtung · October 2016

AzraelKrieg wrote: »

Not worth it. An SSD on a game such as ESO would not benefit you in anyway.

Wrong.

Having an SSD will mean that when you use a shrine or enter a dungeon the information on your hard drive, textures, etc. will load much quicker than a traditional hard drive.

reesenorman · October 2016

Bakkagami wrote: »

LegacyDM wrote: »

AzraelKrieg wrote: »

Not worth it. An SSD on a game such as ESO would not benefit you in anyway.

What are you smoking?!

I upgraded from a western digital 10k rpm raptor hard drive to an intel ssd years ago and the performance boost was staggering. Windows and games load significantly faster and game play is significantly smoother. No stuttering or sluggishness. Now I'm using a Samsung evo pro and couldn't even imagine going back to a 10k rpm drive.

From a technical perspective you will get better performance from an ssd because it uses flash memory where data can be recalled almost instantaneously. The traditional magnetic drive uses spinning platters and a needle like a record player to recall the data which can feel sluggish once you've seen the power of an ssd.

It does benefit greatly and there is a reduction in loading screens in eso.

Yeah, generally an ssd will help Windows processing a lot, but if we're just talking about in game significance it won't change much because not a lot is reading/writing from hard drive while playing. And what is reading is going to get read once in a while and afterward is handled by GPU mostly.

This is by far the stupidest comment ive seen.

jrgray93 · October 2016

I saw a clear improvement in ESO with an SSD over a hard drive. When you zone in to new areas with a lot of players, they appear blank until their textures and models are loaded. If you try to walk somewhere before this happens, you'll hit a loading screen. I've also noticed a clear improvement in loading times between VMA arenas between two solid state drives of different quality (USB 3.0 external drive vs Samsung 850 Pro). The loading times in VMA actually affect your score.

Do not listen to anyone who says an SSD isn't worth it or won't improve your ESO experience. They are misinformed or ignorant of the changing landscape of computer hardware. SSD pricing is already so low as to make it a no-brainer for the average consumer. Before long, the manufacturing costs of HDDs will be overtaken by the affordability of increasingly higher capacity SSDs due to the lack of physical complexity present in SSDs.

Although improvements in game loading times are minor with SSDs vs HDDs, they certainly exist. ESO is no exception.