Installing games on SSD

[lemony_fresh]

Hi all,

I'm gong to be getting a 120/128 Gb SSD soon and I was wondering what your experiences have been with installing your games on your SSD drive? Is there much of a noticeable performance difference in terms of loading times before/during games? Or should I just keep the SSD for windows and other programs?

[Hoonigan]

I've got BF3 installed on my Corsair Force GT and the difference in loading times is unbelievable when I'm playing online. I'm pretty much always the first person into the next game..

[lemony_fresh]

I've got BF3 installed on my Corsair Force GT and the difference in loading times is unbelievable when I'm playing online. I'm pretty much always the first person into the next game..

Fair play. But then I guess you wouldn't have much room to install many games on it with games being so huge these days! Suppose you'd have to be selective

[Hoonigan]

Fair play. But then I guess you wouldn't have much room to install many games on it with games being so huge these days! Suppose you'd have to be selective

Yeah, you can't go filling up your drive with games, otherwise you'll very quickly fill it up. I've got Windows 7, BF3 and some other small programs installed and I've used 45GB.

Just put the more demanding games on your SSD and put the rest on a HDD, that's what I'd do, although I have another Intel SSD to install my lesser used games on..

[lemony_fresh]

Cool, thanks for your input. Now to pick an SSD...

[MadduckUK]

The difference between the last gen drives like my SATA2 X25-M 80GB and SATA3 drives like M4's and Force3's is getting really noticeable. As far as BF3 goes i can start joining a room, send invites and while im sitting in the battlelog the invitees are in, have chosen a squad and are running around.

[lemony_fresh]

The difference between the last gen drives like my SATA2 X25-M 80GB and SATA3 drives like M4's and Force3's is getting really noticeable. As far as BF3 goes i can start joining a room, send invites and while im sitting in the battlelog the invitees are in, have chosen a squad and are running around.

Considering I'm a fan of BF3, this is appealing information. Can't wait to grab an SSD now! (hopes Scan have a today only 120/128GB SATA 3 SSD...)

[Hoonigan]

(hopes Scan have a today only 120/128GB SATA 3 SSD...)

Keep your eyes on HUKD, they often post pretty good deals on SSDs.

There was a Corsair Force Series 3 120GB for £119.99 with free delivery only a few weeks back, which is a tremendous deal, especially considering it comes with a 2.5" -> 3.5" adapter.

[Transport3r]

I've got BF3 installed on my Corsair Force GT and the difference in loading times is unbelievable when I'm playing online. I'm pretty much always the first person into the next game..

I was in the exact same situation as you Hoonigan. With a normal 7200rpm HD I would join the game with about 10 seconds left on the countdown.

Now just like you I am 95% of the time the first person into the game waiting the full 30seconds for others.

I got the 120gb Corsair Force 3.

[LaneyEFC]

I've got the 120GB corsair force 3 and its superb I use it for online games and me windows, The difference is very noticeable as I can boot me pc up run steam and be on mw3 in under 1 minute

[ShadowKnight]

sweet plus it eliminates the good old grinding HDD noise

I hope that the cost and storage will improve to allow SSDs to be used for mass storage rather than selective setups.

But hey, they announced the next gen of NAND for end of 2012, so there is hope

[Luckygiant]

I've got a 2012 sata2 drive and don't notice a heap of difference, but it's definately quicker.
For the games I play instead of loading in 1 sec it's more like 0.5 sec.

I can imagine on games with 10-20 sec load times in levels it'll be great.
Should help with the fluidity of mid level loading too - keep things smooth

[Tezmo88]

I'm going to be picking up a 128GB Cruical M4 SSD. Can't wait to see the difference in loading times/boot times. Hoping to fit Wow, Diablo 3 and BF3 on it along with Windows 7. /praying 128gb is enough for that

[KeyboardDemon]

I got myself an 128gb OCZ Synapse drive, which works a bit like the SRT SSD cache feature on the Z68 chipset, using this it copies all of the hot data to the SSD and loads it from the SSD, so when you access frequently used programs or data you get SSD speeds and cold data comes off the hard drive. Doing this you don't have to worry about managing how you use your drive space as it's done for you.

[shaithis]

I was in the exact same situation as you Hoonigan. With a normal 7200rpm HD I would join the game with about 10 seconds left on the countdown.

Now just like you I am 95% of the time the first person into the game waiting the full 30seconds for others.

I got the 120gb Corsair Force 3.

This is why SSDs are much less VFM when gaming online.

I notice it a lot......your quick loading is completely negated by timers waiting for others.

It's even worse in games where everyone is penalised to the speed of the slowest person (e.g. Starcraft).

[Phage]

You can't start running around, but you can change your loadout and vehicle options to suit the map, which you can't do if you're just waaaaaaaiting.