Testing ESO on my M.2 drive

user0666 · August 2019

My computer has a 500gb m.2 drive. The only thing i've stored on that drive is the operating system and Doom 2016. I have a 5TB HDD that I have ESO and a couple games installed. My loading time on Doom 2016 is almost instant while the loading times on ESO(such as loggin in) just take too long in my opinion for a gaming pc that I built this year. I got 8GB of ram, my CPU is an i78700k 6 core proccessor, my cpu is also liquid cooled, and I have a 1080ti video card. Doom 2016 runs great on all max settings and never have fps issues but ESO i will sometimes randomly have FPS issues.

Anyway, I was told at a computer store that the reason my loading times for Doom is dramatically different than ESO(and this came from a guy who plays both games) is because Doom is on my m.2 drive.

So as an experiment I was thinking of getting ESO on my M.2 drive to see if it would make it load faster.

So here's my question: can i somehow transfer ESO from my HDD to my M.2 drive or am I going to have to uninstall the game and re download and re install all over again but this time directly to my C drive?(my m.2 drive) ...if I can simply transfer, how do i do that? My OS is Windows 10 pro 64 bit.

Unstable.Pixel · August 2019

You can copy over the directory. Have to update any shortcuts you had set up, but I'm pretty sure you don't have to re-install. However, it likely won't matter as ESO is a flaming trashcan when it comes to optimization. You'd really only bottleneck at a CPU level, but even then the latest and greatest won't make ESO run superbly.

daemonios · August 2019

In my experience any SSD will have a noticeable impact on ESO performance, especially if your machine isn't top notch. I now play mostly on a NVMe m.2 SSD on my desktop, which uses a x4 PCIe interface, so good performance is to be expected. But previously I played on a laptop and moved the game from an HDD to a SATA SSD, which has much lower bandwidth than PCIe, and still could easily notice the improvement in loading screens.

Bear in mind that where you put the game folder only affects how fast the game loads from storage into memory. It probably will cut loading screen times, fix any issues with black textures that haven't finished loading, etc. Don't expect higher frame rates or lower latency.

MisterBigglesworth · August 2019

Ever since I moved ESO from HDD to SSD it loads twice as fast and I no longer encounter blank/blurry textures for 1-2 minutes after logging in. I only have a GTX 770 though, not a 1080ti, so the problem I was having I'm sure was worse than your situation to begin with.

stephrk398 · August 2019

daemonios wrote: »

In my experience any SSD will have a noticeable impact on ESO performance, especially if your machine isn't top notch. I now play mostly on a NVMe m.2 SSD on my desktop, which uses a x4 PCIe interface, so good performance is to be expected. But previously I played on a laptop and moved the game from an HDD to a SATA SSD, which has much lower bandwidth than PCIe, and still could easily notice the improvement in loading screens.

Bear in mind that where you put the game folder only affects how fast the game loads from storage into memory. It probably will cut loading screen times, fix any issues with black textures that haven't finished loading, etc. Don't expect higher frame rates or lower latency.

Good to know. Running an NVMe as well and contemplating putting the game on it. Might just have to.

Nestor · August 2019

I just jettisoned my old OS and installed a new SSD with Windows 10. I just copied the files over to the new drive, installed the 2010 version of C++ and DirectX. Everything works. I think it even patched just fine.

An M.2 drive will be faster than an SSD, but I dont know if it will be all that noticeable. And Solid State is going to spank a platter drive, especially multi TB which are relatively slow compared to a smaller platter.

UrbanMonk · August 2019

I've currently game on both my laptop and Desktop. On laptop it's on a standard HDD and in Desktop on nvme M.2. I have compared both of them next to each other for loading screen times with same internet connection, and there is no telling which one will load faster. Sometimes it the Laptop and sometimes the desktop. I think, it all depends on the server, how they handle your request to load your character considering everything is server based and not client.