SSD Drives and gaming performance...

[ZaO]

I am thinking about getting an SSD drive soonish to boot my Windows OS and run my most demanding games from. Originally I was going to ask about which drive to get, but I see there are enough threads on that here so I wont. But, I am curious as to whether an SSD drive can actually improve the frame rate in games? From what I've read, in theory it should have no affect on frame rate, only load times. Saying that, I've always noticed that if a HDD gets to full, it will slow the computer down and affect the frame rate in games. Is that just an OS related issue, or can the speed of a HDD actually affect fps in games regardless of how much free space it has? If so, then what specs of the HDD are most important? Cheers.

[Shamble]

Changing from a mechanical drive to a Vertex 4 256GB has seen no change in my frame rate, but my PC now boots in around 7 seconds and my loading times are vastly improved which is a welcome advantage in some multiplayer games. Perhaps when the drive is full, the OS is too busy dealing with exceptions to efficiently handle the running applications or to handle memory correctly.

[Thorsson]

I've seen a speed-up in transitions, but that's probably game-specific (depending on how much is held on your PC vs Server).

[deejayburnout]

Don't think your frame rates will increase.

More like loading times.

If you want more frame rates, overclocking you CPU and GPU will help that.

[kalniel]

I am thinking about getting an SSD drive soonish to boot my Windows OS and run my most demanding games from. Originally I was going to ask about which drive to get, but I see there are enough threads on that here so I wont. But, I am curious as to whether an SSD drive can actually improve the frame rate in games? From what I've read, in theory it should have no affect on frame rate, only load times. Saying that, I've always noticed that if a HDD gets to full, it will slow the computer down and affect the frame rate in games. Is that just an OS related issue, or can the speed of a HDD actually affect fps in games regardless of how much free space it has? If so, then what specs of the HDD are most important? Cheers.

A full HDD shouldn't affect fps either. The only time I think it would would be if you were so starved for CPU that the little extra work tidying up/complaining about hard disk space took you over the edge into a more CPU limited scenario. But most games are not CPU limited in any noticeable way on today's computers.

But no, gaming is one of the things that benefits least from a SSD - load times may not even improve, it depends on the game.

[realstock]

I agree with all those above, FPS will not be affected by a SSD.

But you will gain a huge amount of time compared to HDD with every boot up and shut down, and any applications that are loaded on that SSD. Over time.... the time you save yourself here and there, could be potentially huge, because you are not waiting for the HDD to 'seek' that area on a spining disk.

I now think it is essential to have an SSD even if just for the OS. Its by far the biggest jump in PC speed I have ever noticed. But you also need to have a HDD to complement it, if you are keeping downloads inc music, movies, backups, iso's these are the sort of things that should NOT be kept on SSD.

[Andi-C]

No frame rate gain from an SSD. Only Load times that you'll see rocket...It's the only bottle neck left on your system & the most important upgrade you'll see over any other hardware in your Rig !

Looking at your rig the Frame loss must be because of your HDD, I've never noticed any loss with my SSD being full ?

As realstock said move your file's to the HDD & leave only the games you want & apps that you want speeding up.

Like a HDD its good to keep some spare space on an SSD for the wear leaving (Trim), this will keep the drives read & write speed the same over time, a 60gb drive is only good for OS & some app's so make sure you check how much space is required before choosing the size for the drive !

I had a 120gb but Window's 7 + BF3 + FIFA 13 + App's & its was getting full so had to move to a 240gb drive...

[ZaO]

Thanks for all the replies!

I always though a hdd shouldn't affect frame rate but just thought I'd see if anyone thinks any different.
I should've made it clearer that it's been a very long time since I've had a hdd to full and experienced slow downs. I'm talking amd 3700+, 512mb ram and 80gb hdd days lol
I've got a 750gb with my os and all progs, and 650gb for my media files right now. My computer runs sweet and I have a decent oc on my cpu which has been just over 18 hours custom blend (95-100% ram usage) tested and stable with p95. I'm not experiencing any difficulties with my rig or anything, but just wondered if an ssd would benefit my frame rates... So I guess not. But I think I'll still get one when I can because these mechanical hdd's do feel like the bottle neck in my rig. Outside of load times in most games, it will also help with encoding videos and obviously give a much quicker os load time. So I'll go for it. Hoping to get about 250gb at least so might have to wait for prices to drop a bit, or when I see a good offer somewhere I might even get 2 actually seeing as I'll be running Ubuntu for some games when Steam have got it together! Cheers

[ZaO]

Hey I forgot one thing actually! I've noticed that when playing a game with a big streaming world such as Arma 2, the hdd seems to be constantly active. Doesn't this mean it's reading/streaming the environment from the hdd as I'm moving around? Shouldn't hdd speed affect that?

[mikeo01]

I have noticed this too. ARMA 2 you gave me, previously on my HDD it would lag a bit loading stuff up. I now have a SSD cache drive and I can say it loads up textures and data quicker.

ARMA is a huge game so I suppose an SSD would only benefit games with huge files. Games without "loading screens" where preloading data quick is essential. There isn't many of these games however so most games won't benefit from a traditional HDD

[kompukare]

I should've made it clearer that it's been a very long time since I've had a hdd to full and experienced slow downs. I'm talking amd 3700+, 512mb ram and 80gb hdd days lol

While all the replies are of course correct that a full / fragmented HDD should not affect your FPS there are two exceptions I can think of:

1) not having enough physical RAM and the OS has to use vmem where a nearly full fragmented HDD will make a difference
2) having enough physical RAM but also having some background task accessing the HDD while gaming.

However, some games do constantly load up stuff (Elderscrolls with their dynamic cell loading for instance) and they would of course run smoother from SSDs.

[RhinoUK]

All games will load up quicker with an SSD, its only a few seconds but in games like BF3 it means your on the first flag before none SSD players have loaded up so you have an advantage at the start of the game only.

[kalniel]

However, some games do constantly load up stuff (Elderscrolls with their dynamic cell loading for instance) and they would of course run smoother from SSDs.

Only if you don't have any RAM. Cell data buffers into RAM and mechanical hard drives are more than fast enough to keep the buffer filled. Remember this game can stream from an optical disk, even with a PCs larger cells it's nowhere near the limit for a mechanical disc.

[HalloweenJack]

games with `loading` or `zoning` are quicker with the SSD , whereas games with dynamic loading don't see quite as much benefit bit its still faster

[ZaO]

Interesting! I'm thinking that ssd's will become more important as open world games get more detailed and complex. I'll be getting one either way though