SSD Does NOTHING to improve Loading Times for SWTOR

[ironix]

In another thread a week or two ago I did some testing with regards to the load times. Here were my results:

 

System specs:

• Windows 7 64-bit
  
• Intel i7 @ 3.2GHz
  
• 16GB of DDR3 RAM running @ 2000MHz
  
• 4x120GB SSD drives running in RAID-0
  
• 2xATI 4870x2 in SLI
  

 

Loading Times: (used the space bar to skip all cut scenes of the ship flying down)

• Imperial Fleet: 14 seconds
  
• My Ship: 8 seconds
  
• Alderaan: 55 seconds
  
• Balmorra: 32 seconds
  
• Corellia: 58 seconds
  
• Voss (because my alt is there): 35 seconds
  

 

I consider some of these loading times to be annoying at the very least. I couldn't imagine what they're like for people who don't have a beast of a system to run this game.

 

EDIT: Given someone suggested my 2nd generation SSDs aren't fast enough to speed up the load times, I present the following numbers for my RAID-0 setup using Crystal Disk Mark 3.0.1c:

• Sequential: Read - 687.4 MB/s, Write 258.9 MB/s
  
• Random: Read - 441.9 MB/s, Write 287.7 MB/s
  

[Sammm]

I use a SSD and my loading time rarely exceeds 5 seconds between fleet->flashpoint, orbital->planet, planet->ship, . Most of the time, it's 3 seconds.

 

Also, from the moment I click on my character (in the character selection screen) until I appear inside the game, it takes about 10 seconds.

 

So yeah, I feel so bad for people who have 1-3 minutes loading time!

 

I love SSD. I only wish it was less expensive lol!

[Patched]

While some of the posts about your client hardware apply. Like using a SSD without SATA III or having a crappy CPU might slow you down.

 

There is definitely a server side issue to this problem also. On my main server the loads are slow (a low population server at that). I went and created an alt on a busier server and my load times there seem to be roughly twice as fast. I haven't noticed a significant latency difference between the 2 servers but something in the handshake during loading is much different.

[Kauhu]

Who cares about the lifespan of an SSD at this point?

 

The tech is moving so quickly I will be surprised if I ever use one for more than a year or two at most. My current SSD is a year old and I feel like it's a dinosaur compared to newer models.

 

I upgrade my PC every 4 years or so unless something breaks, might upgrade GPU bit more frequently... Because I have zero problem playing with 1280x1024 rez on my 19" LCD and keeping Medium-High graphics instead of Ultra

 

You know there are students, young people who don't get fed everything they ask from their parents and so forth, unemployed people etc.?

[Ocmer_]

You should have done some research here on the forums of using an SSD for SWTOR. It has been discussed allot and many (not all) did not found it an improvment. The bottleneck isnt even the CPU (as many say) but the rediculus way how the game handels cache files.

 

assets -> streaming trough 2 cache files residing in local app data -> to diskcachearena that is a 1gb cache file. The use of this method makes it extremely slow, and these cache files are on probarrly for the most on the same disk, imagine the r/w your disk has to do to fill diskcachearena and then the game eventually can read from this file.

 

Check my sig for more info about placing a handfull of asset files on a ramdisk that is if you have some spare ram, but depending on what you place on it can or will not reduce loading times, but srsly concider placing the cache files on ramdisk even if it is to create less r/w on you SSD.

Edited May 9, 2012 by Ocmer_

[CJLogix]

i installed this to my ssd couldnt launch for some reason but i guess not all games are for ssd.

[Shoshannim]

My loading screens are like 8 seconds

[BuriDogshin]

Necro thread. Silly, really.

We have 5 computers in my house that run SWTOR. All have SSDs. All load pretty fast.

Edited May 3, 2014 by BuriDogshin

[MaximusRex]

I'm almost always one of the first players to load into warzones. My Internet connection is certainly worse than average (3G Aircard, minimum 130ms latency and max bandwidth of 1 Mbps) but I have SSD hard disks in a RAID config. I have to assume this is the reason why I'm always standing at the Huttball shield while everyone else in the group is still loading in.

 

War Zones loading might give you an advantage, vs Loading a World Zone, if you are first in you don't need to wait for the server to load data on the other players, and there are no Mobs in WZ that might patrol or die, which is also server side data.

 

World Zones would be more impacted by Server/Client, in that all the players (including their data, like gear, companion, companion gear, professions, basically anything you can "inspect" on them) as well as Mobs (placement, dead or alive, patrol paths)

[Solzean]

I personally saw a HUGE improvment when i switched to my SSD. Pretty much cut the loading time down by 75% if I remember right. SSD certainly do improve the load time by huge amounts.

[Telaan]

Lolnecro